Miracles - A Preliminary Study by C.S. Lewis Doodle ('The Scope of This Book')

If you hold a philosophy that excludes the supernatural, you can never come to historical reports of the miraculous with an open mind. This is an illustration of the introductory chapter of C.S. Lewis’ book called ‘Miracles’. You can find the book here: http://www.amazon.com/Miracles-C-S-Le...

(0:10) Aristotle, Metaphysics, 3.995a “Hence we should first inquire what nature is; for in this way it will become clear what the objects of natural science are. It is necessary…that we first describe the questions which should first be discussed.” Lewis also refers to Book '2' in his quote also.

(0:50) "Any event which is claimed as a miracle is, in the last resort, an experience received from the senses; and the senses are not infallible. We can always say we have been the victims of an illusion; if we disbelieve in the supernatural this is what we always shall say. Hence, whether miracles have really ceased or not, they would certainly appear to cease in Western Europe as materialism became the popular creed..." (Miracles, Essay).

(2:59) The author (and many authors) presumes that if Jesus, in the Gospel of John, accurately predicts the crucifixion of death Peter, then John, who wrote these words can only have "invented" these words after that kind of death was known to have happened. I.e. they assume that inspired prophecy, that is, accurate and detailed statements well ahead of the events, is impossible. “In a popular commentary” Lewis here may refer to p. 242 & p. 270 of ‘A New Commentary of Holy Scripture - Volume 3’ by Charles Gore (1928), which contains a commentary of the Gospel According to St. John by Walter Lock. It reads:

"The [earliest] date [of writing the book of John] MUST be after the crucifixion of St. Peter [ approx. A.D. 64), possibly after the death [A.D. 99], certainly after the extreme old age, of the loved disciple. Apart from chapter 21, there is no reference to any event later than the Resurrection (2.22) and Pentecost (7.39)…The date may then be any year after c. A.D. 75.” Walter Lock then goes on to restate that assumption in his commentary on John 21.18 [an event dating 33 A.D.]: "This saying…'carry thee' suggests carrying out to burial, and 'stretching forth the hands' suggests crucifixion, when 'another' wiII refer to the human agent; the writer, WRITING AFTER PETER'S DEATH, rightly so interprets it (ct. 2 Peter 1.14 [A.D. 64] "I know that I will soon put it [my life] aside as our Lord Jesus made clear to me", a reference to this saying). The 'Quo vadis, Domine*' story is a striking comment on 'where you would not.”
(*“Where are you going, Lord?" Jesus replied to Peter, "Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.")

John Chapter 21, however, in no way communicates either John’s old age, nor that the chapter was written only after the death of St. Peter. There are various arguments for this belief, but Lock (rather strangely as all his other assumptions about his dates are grounded) gives us no evidence whatsoever, and then bases his date upon that assumption.

(3:07) Latest date - Papyri 52 illustrated here is a double-sided fragment of a single page from a codex that contained the Gospel of John dated to the first half of the 2nd Century (A.D. 117-138). This would probably not be the first publication as the text is already in a codex form for accuracy.

(3:54) Lewis expresses this point in another brilliant essay: "I find in these [modernist] theologians a constant use of the principle that the miraculous does not occur. Thus any statement put into Our Lord's mouth by the old texts, which, if He had really made it, would constitute a prediction of the future, is taken to have been put in after the occurrence which it seemed to predict. This is very sensible if we start by knowing that inspired prediction can never occur. Similarly in general, the rejection as unhistorical of all passages which narrate miracles is sensible if we start by knowing that the miraculous in general never occurs. Now I do not here want to discuss whether the miraculous is possible. I only want to point out that this is a purely philosophical question. Scholars, as scholars, speak on it with no more authority than anyone else. The canon 'If miraculous, unhistorical' is one they bring to their study of the texts, not one they have learned from it. If one is speaking of authority, the united authority of all the Biblical critics in the world counts here for nothing. On this they speak simply as men; men obviously influenced by, and perhaps insufficiently critical of, the spirit of the age they grew up in" ('Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism also called 'Fern Seeds and Elephants').

(4:53) To 'beg the question' is to assume the truth of an argument or proposition to be proved, without arguing it.