Daniel Williams: C.S. Lewis' "Miracles"

In addition to those works we have read in class, I have read several other works of my favorite author, and so I thought I would comment on one of his most intriguing books. In Miracles, as the title suggests, Lewis discusses his reasons for accepting the miraculous aspects of Christianity, and provides his own definition of what a miracle is. Although he also focuses on some other major topics, like the difference between naturalism and supernaturalism, I think some of his best points are made on the primary subject on which he is writing.

In Miracles, it was Lewis' definition of the miraculous that most caught my attention: he wrote that miracles are not breaches of the laws of nature (i.e., physics), but rather, as it were, interference from outside this nature (the physical universe). Oftentimes I hear the miraculous defined as that which breaks the laws of physics or is otherwise impossible; David Hume, for example, defined the miraculous as the least likely of all events, and therefore ultimately impossible because of that incredible improbability. But Lewis indeed cites excellent examples to support his case: I recall that he discussed the virgin birth, and argued that no laws of physics (or in this case, biology) were broken, but rather the impregnation occurred by outside intervention, rather than by the more usual means of reproduction; once Mary was impregnated, the pregnancy took its natural--by which Lewis meant biological--course.

Lewis' also makes his point by discussing the universe as a system: it is governed by a set of laws and, so long as no intervention from outside that system occurs, all that happens within that system will be dictated by those laws. The miraculous, then, is more or less the adding of something to that system that was not previously there. Once it is added, it too follows that set of laws; no breaking of rules is involved, unless, of course, one begins with the assumption that it is a law that no outside intervention can take place (an unwarranted assumption, as Lewis would think). Lewis calls nature several times "an accommodating host;" by this he meant that the universe will not by any means be broken by outside intervention, and that it will adapt to the change by means of those laws that govern it.

I think that Lewis provides a unique and even accurate definition of miracles. Perhaps the most useful application of this definition is that it resolves (at least in part) the apparent conflict between science and religion. Often it is argued that one must either accept the miraculous or science, but not both. Lewis' definition, however, demonstrates how the miraculous aspects of religion--at least of Christianity--are not contradictory to the physical laws that science has discovered.