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| Subtitle | How God Intervenes in Nature and Human Affaiirs |
| First Written | 1947 |
| Genre | Theology |
| Origin | UK |
| Publisher | Macmillan |
| ISBN-10 | 002086603 |
| My Copy | cheap paperback |
| First Read | July 20, 2005 |
Miracles
The book report summary, by chapters:
I. The question we're pursuing is: are miracles possible, and are they probable?
II. The 'Naturalist' believes that only the observable world exists, and this encompasses all that there is. The 'Supernaturalist' believes there is an unobservable 'supernature', which can affect nature.
III. Naturalism invalidates Reason - if thoughts are only atoms or electrical signals, why believe that they are true, or mean anything at all?
IV. Reason is something from Supernature that inpinges upon Nature. That doesn't mean that thoughts aren't also physical manifestations. They can share the definitions just like the top of Texas is the divot in Oklahoma.
V. Ethics sem to be inherent in us, and that's not answerable by the Naturalist view. (see 'abolition of man.'
VI.
VII. Some red herrings: The size of the universe =/ insignificance. "Ancient peoples didn't know the laws of the univers and therefore believed in miracles, but we know better." But that's exactly why we think they're miracles, because they don't conform to our experience. I.e., virgin birth, walking on water, etc.
VIII. Miracles are adding something new to the universe, or 'nature' (like a miraculous sperm), and nature assimilates it by her usual laws.
IX.
X. The necessity of metaphor: we have to use metaphor to talk about lots of real things: grasping an argument, seeing a point, following a reason, etc. So that's no surprise that we can only use metaphor to talk about higher things. Sometimes we replace a 'childish' metaphor (a king, a throne, a cloud) with an 'adult' metaphor (a force, an energy) that isn't neccesarily better, but seems more sophisticated.
XI. The basic ideas of God in Xianity and 'Pantheism' - Pantheism is almosts man's natural state, to believe that there's a divine presence in all things.
XII. Are miracles really proper? Wouldn't a good workman create something that doesn't need fixing? Depends on your view: lots of improbable things happen in good books - it depends on the style of the author.
XIII. On Probability: if miracles are possible, are they probable?
XIV. The Grand Miracle: the incarnation.
XV. & XVI. Miracles of the Old Creation, New Creation. In most or all Miracles (especially in Christ's), God is doing locally and specially what he usually does normally. Water into wine is a usual process, but it takes more time (rain, grapes, harvesting, fermenting, etc).
Noted on April 20, 2013
This is Lewis's 'Preliminary Study' about miracles - not really a defense or apology, but an exploration about the possibility or likelihood of miracles at all. I'm combining some notes from my initial reading (around 2001, I think?) and my 2013 project of re-reading Lewis.
In general, this is much more dense than I remember.
Noted on April 20, 2013
If absurd images meant absurd thought, then we should be thinking nonsense all the time. The Christians themselves make it clear that the images are not to be identified with the thing believed. They may picture the Father as a human form, but they also maintain that he has no body.
Quoted on April 20, 2013
When we are praying about the result, say, of a battle or a medical consultation, the thought will often cross our minds that (if we only knew it) the event is already decided one way or the other. I believe this to be no good reason for ceasing our prayers. The event certainly has been decided -- in a sense it was decided "before all worlds." But one of the things that really causes it to happen, may be this very prayer that we are now offering. Thus, shocking as it may sound, I conclude that we can at noon become part causes of an event occuring at ten a.m. (Some scientists would find this easier than popular thought does).
Quoted on July 20, 2010
What is no longer needed for biological purposes may be expected to survive for splendour. Sexuality is the instrument both of virginity and of conjugal virtue; neither men nor women will be asked to throw away the weapon they have used victoriously. It is the beaten and the fugitives who throw away their swords. The conquerors sheathe theirs and retain them.
Quoted on July 20, 2010
the "resurrection" to which they bore witness was, in fact, not the action of rising from the dead but the state of having risen; a state, as they held, attested by intermittent meetings during a limited period.
Quoted on July 20, 2010
Almost the whole of Christian theology could perhaps be deduced from the two facts (a) That men make coarse jokes, and (b) That they feel the dead to be uncanny.
Quoted on July 20, 2010
A supreme workman will never break by one note or one syllable or one stroke of the brush the living and inward law of the work he is producing. But he will break without scruple any number of those superficial regularities and orthodoxies which little, unimaginative critics mistake for its laws.
Quoted on July 20, 2010
One moment even of feeble contrition or blurred thankfulness will, at least in some degree, head us off from the abyss of abstraction. It is Reason herself which teaches us not to rely on Reason only in this matter. For Reason knows that she cannot work without materials. When it becomes clear that you cannout find out by reasoning whether the cat is in the linen-cupboard, it is Reason herself who whispers, "Go and look.This is not my job: it is a matter for the senses." So here. The materials for correcting our abstract conception of God cannot be supplied by Reason: she will be the first to tell you to go and try experience--'Oh, taste and see!'
Quoted on July 20, 2010
Very often when we are talking about something which is not perceptible by the five senses, we use words which in one of their meanings refer to things or actions that are. When a man says that he grasps an argument he is using a verb (grasp) which literally means to take something in the hand but he is certainly not thinking that his mind has hands or that an argument can be seized. To avoid the word grasp he may change the form of the expression and say, "I see your point," but he does not mean that a pointed object has appeared in his visual field. Everyone is familiar with this linguistic phenomenon and the grammarians call it metaphor. But it is a serious mistake to think that metaphor is an optional thing which poets and authors may put into their work as a decoration and plain speakers can do without. The truth is that if we are going to talk at all about things which are not perceived by the senses, we are forced to use language metaphorically. There is no other way of talking.
Quoted on July 20, 2010
Nor does the unity of our bodies, even in this present life, consist in retaining the same particles. My form remains one, though the matter in it changes continually. I am, in that respect, like a curve in a waterfall.
Quoted on July 20, 2010
We are inveterate poets. When a quantity is very great we cease to regard it as a mere quantity. Our imaginations awake. Instead of mere quantity, we now have a quality -- the Sublime. But for this, the merely arithmetical greatness of the Galaxy would be no more impressive than the figures in an account book.
Quoted on July 20, 2010
There are, I allow, certain respects in which the risen Christ resembles the "ghost" of popular tradition. Like a ghost He "appears" and "disappears": locked doors are no obstacle to Him. On the other hand He Himselve vigorously asserts that He is corporeal (Luke xxiv. 39-40) and eats broiled fish. It is at this point that the modern reader becomes uncomfortable. ... We also, in our heart of hearts, tend to slur over the risen manhood of Jesus. ... That being so, all references to the risen body make us uneasy; they raise awkward questions.
Quoted on July 20, 2010