"Miracles" is a book by Christian apologist C.S. Lewis. It was first published in 1947 and subsequently revised in 1960. It's Lewis' most philosophical book, and could be read as a heavier sequel to "Mere Christianity", his most well known non-fiction work. Both books explain and defend a fairly traditional form of Christianity. Lewis was an Anglican, but usually attempted to write from a kind of all-Christian perspective. Both Protestants and Catholics appreciate his works.
"Miracles" became quite notorious due to a debate between Lewis and the analytic philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe in 1948. The latter supposedly demolished Lewis' entire argumentation, and made him withdraw from philosophy, humiliated. This version can be found in "Jack", a friendly biography of Lewis by George Sayer. Interestingly, Anscombe herself denied that this is what happened, pointing out that Lewis actually rewrote one chapter of "Miracles" to better counter her arguments - hardly an action taken by a humiliated man who broke with philosophy. Anscombe believed that it might have been *Sayer* who was shocked by her criticisms. Besides, Anscombe was a Christian herself, so the point of her arguments was hardly to disprove the existence of God.
Lewis deals with two principal issues in this book. First, he argues that the supernatural exists and that miracles are therefore possible. This is the most interesting part of the book for a non-Christian (roughly chapters 1 - 13). Second, he explains from a more theological viewpoint how the miracles of Jesus should be interpreted. He also briefly deals with some other issues, for instance the difference between theism and pantheism. The book is well written, lucid and occasionally witty.
But is it convincing? Personally, I don't think so. First, I'm sceptical to the author's metaphysical angle. To Lewis, the existence of miracles cannot be proven or disproved empirically, unless we first solve the philosophical issue of whether they are possible at all. I disagree. The existence of miracles is an empirical question. A virgin birth is supposedly an empirical event in the material world. Therefore it should, in principle, be possible to detect scientifically. The same is true of miraculous healings, prophecies of future events, and the like. Science have systematically disproved virtually all concrete claims about miracles, and also proposed reasonable naturalist explanations for problems previously considered intractable, such as the origins of species. This is a strong non-philosophical argument against miracles. Lewis is, of course, quite correct that one cannot *ultimately* prove naturalism or disprove God, but this is at best an argument for agnosticism.
Lewis believes that the existence of reason must be supernatural, since no naturalistic process could give us true knowledge. This is a very odd argument. The author is oblivious of the explanatory force of evolutionary theory and seems to have a prejudiced idea about animals as "irrational". But there is nothing "irrational" about animals: to survive, they obviously need to have true knowledge of the outside world. Humans have a more highly evolved mind than other animals, and can therefore discover other truths than those immediately necessary for survival (no mystery either, unless you are an extreme Neo-Darwinian adaptationist). What on earth is the problem? Perhaps it's the metaphysical angle once again. Human brains also have the capacity to produce loads of truly irrational bunk, something no other animal can do, which surely proves that evolution isn't preplanned or conscious! Much of what passes for philosophy, theology or religion is such bunk. I'm simply not as impressed as Lewis by the "rationality" of metaphysical reasoning.
Further, Lewis argues that logic must be supernatural. Once again, why? Logic is an abstraction. A natural world must exist before such an abstraction can be made. It cannot be made out of thin air. There is no mystery about an intelligent being (one that evolved) drawing the conclusion that one piece of pebble plus another piece of pebble makes two pieces, and that this is necessarily true. Besides, the real world is in constant change and flux (and therefore "illogical" in a certain sense), which shows that logic is an abstraction, not something Platonically "real".
Lewis is on somewhat firmer terrain when debating morality. I agree that morality is ontologically weird, since moral principles apparently have to be derived from other moral principles. And a moral principle, of course, isn't "material" in the strict sense of the term. But does this necessarily point to Christian theism? It might simply mean that moral principles are a very special kind of natural phenomena, or that some kind of property dualism or ontological pluralism is true. Such a position is compatible with atheism. Besides, one cannot simply brush aside evolutionary explanations of morality lightly. I'm sure Lewis believes that self-preservation is moral, all other things being equal, while courageous self-sacrifice is necessary on some occasions. But in social creatures, these are exactly the traits promoted by natural selection! Thus, there is a connection between evolution and our (admittedly ontologically weird) moral principles. Perhaps the problem is that Lewis subconsciously thinks of the unusual parts of *Christian* morality, say the Sermon on the Mount, asceticism or martyrdom. However, it could be argued that these moral principles are irrational, precisely because they don't further the survival or happiness of the individual or the community. Thus, while Lewis is right to point out that morality is difficult to square with consistent naturalism ("boo to killing"), he nevertheless underestimates the explanatory power of evolution.
Lewis' most famous argument in this volume is the idea that a consistent naturalist cannot believe in free will. While "free will" is a tricky problem, I fail to see how it's satisfactorily solved by Christian theism. Lewis believes that naturalism denies free will by its claim that all events are caused. Everything that happens is therefore a link in a deterministic chain of cause and effect. But if free will isn't caused, is it uncaused? How can random events give us true knowledge? And no, one cannot solve the problem by saying "God did it". How did God do it? By causing our thoughts? In what sense is that less determinist than naturalist causation? Or are the ways of God unfathomable? In what sense is that argument different, in principle, from saying: "The material universe is still poorly understood". At least, matter can be observed!
I agree with Lewis that reality is complicated and that we don't really have the right to expect that it should be smooth and easy to understand. One cannot therefore argue against Christianity simply by pointing out that the Trinity or the Incarnation are "illogical", "incoherent" or "too complicated" by some kind of metaphysical standard (a naturalist metaphysics, this time). However, this works both ways. It could also mean that *naturalism* is true, and that seemingly immaterial phenomena such as minds, reason or morality can be given purely naturalistic explanations. These may be very exotic and strike us as "illogical" or "incoherent" but might be true nevertheless (intelligent design is more "logical" than evolution, yet evolution is the true position). It could also mean property dualism or some form of ontological pluralism, two positions compatible with both theism and atheism. Finally, it could mean that the only honest position to take is ontological agnosticism. Lewis narrows down the options to just three: Christianity, naturalism and pantheism. This may be understandable, given the target audience of his book (presumably naturalists), but the weirdness of the world means that other options are on the table, too.
I'm not saying "Miracles" is a bad book. Another atheist reviewer here at Amazon has repeatedly called Lewis "the atheist's favourite Christian apologist". I agree. It's not so much the arguments that mark him out. It's his style of writing. Lewis is strangely unassuming and yet completely unapologetic (in the vernacular sense). In plain English, he is honest. This is not a man who flees to some kind of pseudo-postmodernist ivory tower every time his beliefs are challenged. Nor is he on the attack, in that rabid sense typical of fundamentalists. No, he wants us to "reason together". And although I disagree strongly with his conservative political outlook (his anti-feminism being particularly galling), he even makes salient points. His criticism of logical positivism in this volume is a case in point. Indeed, how could the positivists be anti-Nazi if they believed that moral commandments were simply a way of saying "boo to killing"? If chimpanzees could speak, they would probably ream out such "philosophers". Or bash their skulls, as it were.
"Miracles" may not be convincing to atheist-agnostic-seekers like myself, but it's nevertheless a relatively competent introduction to the Christian criticism of naturalism.
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