Miracles: A Preliminary Study

Miracles is a work of Christian apologetics—derived from the Greek apologia, or “speech in defense—a branch of theology that aims to defend Christian belief against its critics. In Miracles, C. S. Lewis’s discussions deal with all these fields, though with an overriding emphasis on philosophical foundations. Lewis focuses on the distinction between naturalism and supernaturalism, positions which take opposing viewpoints on the question of whether “nature”—that is, the scientifically observable universe, with all its laws and operations—is all that exists, or whether there is something beyond nature which can act upon it. While many discussions of miracles in apologetic debates begin with a narrower field of focus—say, the opposing viewpoints of theism and atheism—Lewis grounds his philosophical exploration in the broadest possible context. This enables him to begin his exploration by dealing with the philosophical underpinnings of the possibility of miracles, regardless of whatever might be causing them. Structuring the book in this way, Lewis is able to put off to later chapters some of the tangential polemical questions that necessarily arise with the introduction of an actor (God) into the consideration of miracles.

Lewis’s argument for miracles, then, does not rest primarily on traditional proofs for the existence of God, nor on historical arguments for the veracity of biblical accounts (though both become considerations, to a greater or lesser degree, in the second half of the book).