Miracles: A Preliminary Study

Miracles: A Preliminary Study is a 1947 book by the prolific British author C. S. Lewis, known for his Chronicles of Narnia and his works of Christian apologetics. Miracles was Lewis’s third major foray into apologetics, following on his 1940 book, The Problem of Pain, and three sets of radio broadcast talks from the early 1940s which were eventually published together as Mere Christianity. Miracles offers a philosophical defense of the Christian belief in supernaturalism, over against the assumed naturalism of much of the modern world. It also assesses and defends the veracity of biblical miracle accounts, putting special emphasis on the doctrine of the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Miracles was generally well-received in both Christian and philosophical circles, and it introduced a new argument for the supernaturalist position (called the argument from reason), which has since become a staple of Christian apologetics.

A revised edition of Miracles was released in 1960, expanding and clarifying material in the book’s third chapter. This revised edition was used in all subsequent publications of the book, including the 2015 edition from HarperOne, the source text for this study guide.

Summary

Miracles presents a Christian case for believing in supernatural reality. C. S. Lewis calls it “A Preliminary Study” in his subtitle, signifying that it is not intended to be an exhaustive treatment of the title subject. Lewis does not address miracles in other religious traditions, nor does he make a comprehensive defense of many reported miracles (beyond several of those attributed to Jesus in the biblical gospels). Lewis’s main focus in the book is twofold: first, to address some of the modern assumptions and biases which cause people to write off the possibility of miracles before honestly considering the evidence; and second, to argue the case for the miracle that stands at the center of the Christian story—the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

Lewis begins the book on a polemical footing, arguing against the critics of miracles. His first concern is philosophical, noting that most of the modern critiques of the supernatural commit one of several logical fallacies. In most cases, these critics are begging the question by assuming an unproven premise—that only nature exists, and not the supernatural—which ensures that the conclusion will match their preconceived answer even before any evidence is considered. Lewis then attempts to show that the philosophy of naturalism itself is unsupportable, on the grounds that it presumes the thoughts of naturalists to be trustworthy even while holding that those thoughts are nothing more than the products of nonrational chemical causes, without any agency guiding them that is unbound to the strictly cause-and-effect laws of nature. To this argument from reason, Lewis adds another polemical broadside, the argument from morality, making the point that on a straightforward interpretation of naturalism, there should be no reason for holding any action as moral or immoral—a position which not even most naturalists are comfortable embracing.

In the middle chapters of the book, Lewis takes on some of the popular misconceptions about miracles. He points out that most of the commonly-cited reasons for not believing in miracles are not grounded in solid philosophy and likely find their impetus from nothing more than a prevailing cultural bias. Lewis argues that, contrary to the popular notion, miracles do not violate the laws of nature. Rather, they are impositions from beyond nature, to which the laws of nature automatically adjust and continue on without interruption. Since God exists outside of nature, and is the Creator while nature is the creature, God has both the power and prerogative to exert influence on the natural course of events.

In the final chapters, Lewis moves from polemics to apologetics, offering a robust defense of the place of miracles in Christian theology. The whole story of Christianity revolves around a single miracle, the incarnation, from which followed all the other miracles wrought by Christ, including his salvific death and his resurrection. These central miracles form the explanatory context in which every other miracle finds its place, whether historical miracles or contemporary ones. In Lewis’s eyes, all biblical and Christian miracles either foreshadow the grand miracle of Jesus Christ’s incarnation, or witness to it, or result from it. Miracles, then, are not a random interposition in the otherwise smooth story of natural causation; they are part of an all-encompassing narrative of God’s work in the world, all pointing toward a brilliant consummation in the eternal reign of Christ.