Book Reviews and Recommendations - Entry #3

Miracles by CS Lewis

If I listed all of the books I would recommend that someone read, there would be more books by CS Lewis on that list than by any other author.  He is best-known for the Narnia tales, a series of seven books that I read as a kid and really enjoyed.  But he also wrote a number of non-fiction books that are really excellent.  His best-known non-fiction work is probably “Mere Christianity”, which grew out of a series of radio broadcasts he gave in the 1940s.  He also wrote “The Screwtape Letters”, “Surprised by Joy” and “The Great Divorce”, all of which I would recommend.  But, in my opinion, the most impressive of his books, from an intellectual standpoint, is called “Miracles.”  If you are interested in the kinds of things I write about in this blog, then I highly recommend that you find an old copy of CS Lewis’ “Miracles” and read it.

The book “Miracles” is an intellectual exploration regarding whether it is reasonable that miracles could happen.  It is not about whether miracles ever have happened or whether any miracle in particular has happened.  At first pass, you might think that it must be a very short book, since the answer to that first question is either yes or no, and then what else is there to say about it?  But I think you will find that the points that Lewis makes are very good, even if your foregone conclusion before reading the book is that miracles cannot happen.  The primary point that Lewis makes is that it doesn’t make any sense to evaluate whether a particular miracle has happened unless the question of whether miracles could happen has been addressed.  It seems like a simple point in retrospect, but I find that it is something constantly ignored in many discussions about the material and the non-material.  The thoughts in this book have greatly influenced my thinking, and I am certain that you will find many entries in this blog that have a direct or indirect link to some of the thoughts Lewis presents in that book.

I am not going to give a complete review of the book here, as many of the points in the book will come up in significant detail elsewhere.  I’d rather you read the book yourself.  It will require some brainpower to read – it is not a light read.  But I think a brief story at the beginning of the book serves to illustrate the point of the book.  Lewis mentioned that he only personally knows of one person who has seen a ghost.  Yet, he says, that person didn’t believe in ghosts before she saw the ghost, and still doesn’t believe in ghosts even after seeing one.  That might not make sense at first, but if you think about it, it makes perfect sense.  If you have decided that there are no such thing as ghosts, then no amount of ghostly apparitions and visions will, or even should, change that view.  My personal analogy would be with respect to aliens from outer space.  I don’t believe there are living beings from other planets visiting our planet.  That’s a decision I made long ago.  So, if I ever saw a UFO, I would believe that it must have some reasonable explanation that did not include being a spaceship from another planet, even if the object moved in ways that seemed to disobey the laws of physics.  If a little Martian came up to me, I would believe it was someone in a Martian costume, or a robot, or something else.  I would believe that someone was playing a trick on me.  The thing is, I’m not open to belief in aliens from outer space and I don’t even care to be open to such a belief.  Given that, it would be a waste of someone’s time to try to convince me that they really did have a close encounter with aliens.  I might listen politely, but their evidence will not change my view.  The point CS Lewis makes at the beginning of the book is that we have to acknowledge our a priori views.  The rest of the book is CS Lewis’ argument about why it is reasonable to take the view that miracles could happen, regardless of whether they ever have happened or ever will happen.  If you have already decided that miracles cannot happen, and you don’t want to have that view challenged, then you should not read the book, as it will be a waste of time.

I will bring up one more discussion from the book because it is sure to come up again in future entries and I want to give credit here where credit is due.  Lewis has an extended discussion about the difference between cause-effect (physics) vs. ground-consequent (reason) activity.  I bring this up because it is very relevant to my ideas on free will and neuroscience.  The general point he makes is that it is hard to figure out how physical reactions in the brain (I will say “between neurons”), which are (presumably) purely based on a cause and effect relationship, can result in the logical reasoning process that occurs when we are thinking through an argument (I will add “because all thought is the result of neurons firing in the brain”).  I will not restate things here, because Lewis does a much better job of it than I would.  It’s in one of the earlier chapters of the book.  Even if you don’t want to read the rest of the book, I’d really be interested in your thoughts on that particular chapter.  I don’t know why the concept isn’t discussed more frequently.  It might be because those who would argue against Lewis would have to claim that rational arguments are only made rational because that is the way our brains happened to fire, which would, of course, empty their arguments of any real substance.  Or…maybe it’s just that the whole topic requires more than 30 seconds to explain, so the average person tunes it out and goes onto something easier to understand.  If there is no sound bite, is there any sound?  Not today, I don’t think.

I hope I gave you enough of a taste to get you interested in reading the book “Miracles.”  It’s a fairly short book, but it will take a while to read.  Fortunately, Lewis is a very readable writer who always includes practical illustrations whenever he can.  Anyone can understand the book – it will just require some brain power!