| C. S. Lewis - Miracles |
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| Written by Robert Murphy | |
| Thursday, 02 October 2008 | |
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This is the second post, in a series of six, about this semester's C. S. Lewis class. The current reading list for this semester includes The Great Divorce, Miracles, The Screwtape Letters, The Pilgrims Regress, The Weight of Glory, and Letters to Malcolm. I am in the process of developing more Christian Literature electives for the Ministry Praxis and General Education programs. That means these Praxis classes can fulfill humanities requirements in the other programs. This post is about my favorite book out of the series: Miracles.
Lewis explores whether miracles are possible and the significance of their probability. He approaches the counter argument as one intimately familiar with the Naturalist's perspective. The question depends on the definitions and assumptions we have about Nature: Is this material world all that exists? Is there a Nature that exists independently from it? His definition of miracles depends on the latter. Through a series of steps, Lewis takes the reader from affirming the possibility of miracles to the high probability that they do occur. The Supernaturalist is free to affirm everything the Naturalist says about our Universe, just short of sharing their insistence that it is a closed system. The Naturalist, however, cannot maintain their belief in a closed system and believe in miracles at the same time. Anything a Naturalist might call a miracle ultimately depends on some predetermined cause in the closed system; there is no external Nature that could cause the miracle. Orthodox Christianity is in the Supernaturalist's camp (or perhaps the Supernaturalists are in Christianity's camp). We believe God created the cosmos out of nothing, and that this Universe depends on God for its continued existence. Thus, our Universe, our Nature, is not alone or immune from external meddling. At the very least, God could interfere with our world. These interferences, however, come across as if our Nature was designed for them. Reason comes in from the other Nature because it cannot arise from within this Nature. Reason can only be destroyed when our non-rational Universe interferes with it. I love the richness of this book and how he effortlessly defends the legitimacy of the Christian faith on philosophical grounds. I hope to share more with you, but you'd have to be in class to get the good stuff. |
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