Miracles: A Preliminary Study

Lewis begins this chapter by giving his working definition of a miracle: “an interference with Nature by a supernatural power” (5). With this established, though, he must then go on to lay out exactly what he means by the terms employed in the definition—in particular, what is meant by “Nature” and “supernatural.” Lewis explores these terms by describing two categories of people, naturalists and supernaturalists. The former believe nothing exists besides nature, whereas the latter hold that there is something besides nature. Nature itself is defined as that which goes on of its own accord—all those events, objects, and energies which follow the so-called laws of nature, the normal patterns of cause and effect in our universe.

For the naturalist, nature exists in its own right, needing no further explanation beyond itself. Because it is entirely self-explanatory, held in a tight linkage of cause and effect through the interactions of matter and energy, a thoroughgoing naturalist position cannot support the reality of free will. The only agency in operation is that of nature itself, which always follows the patterns of its laws and can exercise no influence beyond them. The supernaturalist agrees with the naturalist that there must be something that exists in its own right, but thinks that nature does not exhibit the characteristics of such a self-explanatory thing—there must be some necessary being (or set of beings) on which the contingency of nature rests. Thus there must be something or someone beyond the bounds of nature, which would be capable of acting with agency upon natural systems.

If naturalism is to be considered true, then it must be able to explain any object or event as a product of the “Total System,” the interlocking cause-and-effect processes of nature. If a counterexample could be shown to exist, then Lewis believes that the whole system of naturalism would be insupportable. One such possible counterexample would be human reason. If naturalists want to contend that human reason is the product of actual human agency (free will) rather than of the inextricably linked effects of chemical interactions in the brain, then the exercise of human reason would exist outside of the “Total System.” Most naturalists would not admit that reason is tethered to something beyond the processes of nature, so Lewis believes that their position necessitates a view of reason as the product of nonrational processes in the brain. If that is true, Lewis asks, then why should one believe the conclusions reached by naturalists’ exercise of reason? If the conclusions they come to are the necessary result of nonrational chemical processes in the brain, then one need not suppose them to be true in any significant sense. Lewis quotes J. B. S. Haldane as providing the most cogent statement of the argument: “If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose my beliefs are true” (22). Lewis interacts with several plausible objections to this argument, including the view that reason has naturally developed to be reliable for reasons of human survival, but he believes that in the end, the strength of the argument from reason still holds: The thoughts of a mind that has no agency and which are merely the effects of a predetermined series of chemical events can have no valid claim to be trusted.

Viewing the naturalist position on human reason as untenable, he appeals to the common-sense proposition that our thoughts do stem from an agency beyond a predetermined interaction of atoms. If reason, then, exists in some way beyond the normal system of natural events, then one must concede that something exists beyond nature. Lewis is not suggesting that human reason is a self-existing supernatural phenomenon, but rather that it could be rooted in something else, which exists beyond nature and is its own self-sufficient cause. Lewis likens human reason (or the manifestation thereof—human minds) to lily pads floating on the surface of a pond. Whereas naturalism would have one believe that the pond is of infinite depth and the vegetation on the surface is untethered to anything beyond the pond, supernaturalism suggests that certain features of the pond—like lily pads—suggest there is something beyond the pond itself, even if far below, to which the lily pads are tethered by their roots. In this way, the surface experiences of certain features of our existence—like rational minds—suggest that they must be rooted in something which lies beyond nature itself. Lewis sees the most reasonable view of the relationship between nature and supernature as that of creation: Nature as God’s own creature, contingent upon God’s agency and action.

This chapter, though somewhat shorter than those around it, reflects the contours of the same argument as that in Chapter 3. Here Lewis observes that just as most people are unwilling to ascribe human reason to the nonrational interactions of chemical influences in the brain, the same is true of human morality. Almost all people have a sense that certain things are morally right and certain other things are morally wrong. Even those who argue that morality is merely a social construct still almost always insist that there are sound reasons why morally abhorrent behaviors should be considered reprehensible. If all thoughts are merely the products of nonrational chemical interactions, however, as governed by the inextricable laws of nature, then there is no basis for assuming that these moral sensibilities have any valid metaphysical authority. To be consistent, Lewis believes, naturalists would have to be entirely amoral, and he thinks the fact that they are not is a sign both of the weakness of their position and of the fundamental goodness of human moral sensibilities.