In all our discussions hitherto, the scientific basis of a faith in the possibility of an _answer to prayer_ has been evident. All reasons for a divine providence, also speak with the same force of persuasion for the hearing of our prayers, as soon as the _idea of being a child of God_ has become an integral part of our idea of God. And this idea--the idea of God as the father, and of a relationship of love between the divine and the human personalities--is so much a part of the Christian idea of God, that it belongs to its very essence. Only one {358} consideration might offer scientific difficulties to our faith in the hearing of prayer: namely, if God hears the prayers of his children, in the course of time new motives for his action present themselves to him; now, is it reconcilable with the idea of God, that God makes himself in any such way dependent on that which first appeared in time, and on the changing moods of the creature? But this difficulty is precisely the same which we met, when acknowledging human freedom and its reconcilableness with a divine providence; and we have tried to indicate above the path which leads to its solution. It is the principal idea which penetrates all our reasoning about the relation of God and the world--namely, the idea of a _teleology in the world_--which is to lead us to a correct conception of the _miracles_ and their reconcilableness with a mechanism of nature and with the Darwinistic ideas of development. In the much discussed contest about the problem of miracles, clearer results would certainly have been attained, if one had questioned more closely what the record of the Christian religion means by miracles, and what position, according to it, these miracles have to take in the order of the world and in the divine plan of salvation; and after having satisfied himself as to this position, had further asked what position they take in reference to our exact science and our theistic view of the world. Instead of doing this, we have often enough seen friend and foe of the idea of miracles, as soon as the question was even touched upon, at once set to work with the insufficient conceptions of old rationalism and supernaturalism, and thus raising objections and attempting solutions which could satisfy nobody. Especially every inadequate idea {359} which was put forth by the advocates of faith in miracles, was gladly accepted by its adversaries; for thereby they were furnished with a caricature of the idea of miracles, the tearing to pieces of which was an easy and agreeable sport to them. The very ideas of the _natural_ and the _supernatural_ are a category which is to be treated with caution. When discussing the question of divine providence, we have seen that, with every free act of the will of man springing from an ethical motive, something supernatural invades the natural, so that in every normal human life we always see supernatural and natural by the side of and in one another.