Miracles

By C. S. Lewis

Catholic-ometer: 4.5 of 5

Enjoyability: 4.5 of 5

In some works, C. S. Lewis comes across as a popularizer, while in others, one could swear he was a professional philosopher.  "Miracles" is Lewis at his most deeply-philosophical, and perhaps his most theologically-correct book as well, although that's a tough judgment to make.

The main point of this book is to explain how and why miracles are possible, and why, in fact, they're not just possible, but -must have- occurred in the past, and will occur again in the future.  There's nothing encyclopedic about this approach.  Miracles aren't classified or divided into categories.  Rather, the point is to explain why a resistence to faith in miracles is unjustified.

In this spirit, the first several chapters directly address one of the biggest obstacles to belief in miracles; naturalism; the belief that the universe is all there is.  Lewis does a good job addressing the subject, making several proofs which indicate clearly that naturalism cannot be correct.  He then moves on to misunderstandings of what the term "miracle" means, refutes the arguments of some anti-religious philosophers, then gets rather deeply into the subject of miracles as seen in history, in the context of the Christian faith, and finally ends by addressing the anticipated miracle of the universal resurrection of the dead, and the importance of continuing to believe in this miracle.

I liked it.  Lewis' arguments stand the test of time, and his refutations are as valid today as they were when he was writing them.  Naturalism still hasn't found any way to get around these key points.  In fact, if anything, the case against naturalism has grown even stronger since Lewis wrote this.

For example, one of the philosophers who Lewis addresses most centrally was David Hume, who said that because nature is absolutely uniform, nothing is more unlikely than a miracle, and that therefore, if a reasonable man is asked to guage whether a miracle is a probable explanation for something, he'll always need to answer "no."  Therefore, even if a miracle -did occur,- no reasonable man could justify admitting or recognizing it.

Lewis responded by pointing out that Hume has actually made two claims.
1. That nature is absolutely uniform.
2. That miracles don't occur.
He then used the first to try to justify the second.  The problem with doing this, Lewis said, is that both of these claims mean exactly the same thing, and this is therefore essentially question-begging in favor of miracles not occurring.

Furthermore, Hume doesn't prove that miracles don't occur, even using this trick.

Now, I use this as an example because since Hume's day, probability theory has progressed quite a bit, and there are even stronger arguments against his position now, based on that.  To illustrate this, Hume's judgment was based on the following understanding of probability...

-Each event has an intrinsic probability, which must be taken into account when guaging whether or not we should believe it occurred or might occur.-

While still true, this understanding of probability is not -sufficient- by itself.  There are many other rules to follow in modern probability theory, including...

-In addition to the intrinsic probability of events, one also needs to take into consideration how probable it is that the proposed event might -not- have occurred.-
-Furthermore, one needs to consider how probable it is that, if the proposed event -had not- occurred, we would have the same evidence that we do have.-

The question of what provides the best explanation in terms of its total scope, whether it's a sufficient explanation in degree, whether the explanation covers all the facts...  All of these things need to be considered when guaging the probability of an event, and yet Hume considers none of them; trying to reduce the measuring stick of miracles to only their -intrinsic- probability, and worse yet, and intrinsic probability based on nothing more than his own assertions.

Hume's work seems, therefore, to be utterly obsolete.

Fortunately, though, Lewis' work continues to stand the test of time, though as I said, the arguments in favor of Christianity have progressed since then, and even in the last twenty years.  It's precisely this kind of book, which shows where we came from and where we've headed, which I most enjoy; sound arguments phrased in an accessible language, while still being complex and logical enough to hold the attention of the most distractable of faithful Christians.