MIRACLES

A Preliminary Study

C. S. Lewis

An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

To

Cecil and Daphne Harwood

miracles: A Preliminary Study. Copyright 1947 C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Copyright renewed © 1974 C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Revised 1960, restored 1996 C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd.

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first harpercollins paperback edition published in 2001

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lewis, C. S. (Clive Staples), 1898–1963.

Miracles: a preliminary study / by C. S. Lewis.

p. cm.

Originally published: London: G. Bles, 1947.

ISBN 978-0-06-065301-9

1. Miracles. I. Title.

BT97.2.L49

2000

231.7'3—dc21

00-049863

Among the hills a meteorite

Lies huge; and moss has overgrown,

And wind and rain with touches light

Made soft, the contours of the stone.

Thus easily can Earth digest

A cinder of sidereal fire,

And make her translunary guest

The native of an English shire.

Nor is it strange these wanderers

Find in her lap their fitting place,

For every particle that’s hers

Came at the first from outer space.

All that is Earth has once been sky;

Down from the sun of old she came,

Or from some star that travelled by

Too close to his entangling flame.

Hence, if belated drops yet fall

From heaven, on these her plastic power

Still works as once it worked on all

The glad rush of the golden shower.

C.S.L.

Reprinted by permission of Time and Tide

contents

1 the scope of this book

2 the naturalist and the supernaturalist

3 the cardinal difficulty of naturalism

4 nature and supernature

5 a further difficulty in naturalism

6 answers to misgivings

7 a chapter of red herrings

8 miracles and the laws of nature

9 a chapter not strictly necessary

10 ‘horrid red things’

11 christianity and ‘religion’

12 the propriety of miracles

13 on probability

14 the grand miracle

15 miracles of the old creation

16 miracles of the new creation

17 epilogue

appendix a: on the words ‘spirit’ and ‘spiritual’

appendix b: on ‘special providences’

1

the scope of this book

Those who wish to succeed must ask the right preliminary questions.

aristotle, Metaphysics, II, (III), 1.

In all my life I have met only one person who claims to have seen a ghost. And the interesting thing about the story is that that person disbelieved in the immortal soul before she saw the ghost and still disbelieves after seeing it. She says ...