Miracles

Abstract

NOT being a trained historian, Mr. Lewis does not examine the historical evidence for ‘miracles’; and having never experienced a ‘miracle’, he has no direct evidence to offer. But as a student of philosophy, he claims to discuss the previous questions, whether ‘miracles’ are possible at all, and if so, how probable they are, and how the occurrence of a ‘miracle’ may be proved. In his last three chapters he applies his reasoning to those miracles, acceptance of which is an article of belief for Christians. He defines a ‘miracle’ as an interference with Nature by super-natural power. If there is no such power beyond Nature, there can be no miracles. Those who think that nothing exists except Nature hold that Nature somehow maintains itself; though some admit that there was a beginning, and that some day “the clock will run down”. The alternative is to regard Nature as derivative from some ‘one thing’, which is basic and original; which created and maintains; what most people call ‘God’. The compromise, an indwelling and emergent God (p. 31)—like the other notion that Nature's elements, indeterminate themselves, conform to the ‘law of averages’—does not reveal either basis or origin. The issue, therefore, is between ‘naturalism’ and supernaturalism.

Miracles

A Preliminary Study. By C. S. Lewis. Pp. 220. (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1947.) 10s. 6d. net.