Miracles

A good book to start work on is **//Miracles//**. Perhaps a strategy here would be to go through the book summarizing major ideas and creating where necessary a **Name** for the idea (see **Pattern** and **Example**) and a brief description summarized from the book's content and then make a page for each Idea thus encountered. When reviewing another book, when the same idea appears it should be briefly described and added to the Idea page of the same name. Thus the idea pages will hold contrasts and back links should be provided from the Idea page back to the sources for the Idea commentary. 1. **Scope** [5] 1.1 Ghost 1.2 Experience versus Illusion 1.3 History 1.4 Philosophy 1.5 Begging the Question (1-4) 2. **Naturalist / Supernaturalist** [15] 2.1 Definitions: Miracle and Naturalists 2.2 First Difficulty: Definitions of Nature and Supernature 2.3 Examples of Natural 2.4 Common Thread: A Definition of Nature. 2.5 the Ultimate Fact of the Naturalist 2.6 Ultimate Fact of the Supernaturalist, one self-existent thing. 2.7 the Difference: Democratic or Monarchical Pictures of Reality 2.8 Two Suspicions that Cancel Out (Reading In) Ages 2.9 One Thing is God or the gods 2.10 The Difference between Naturalism and Supernaturalism (Kinds of Gods) 2.11the Difference: One Nature or More than One Nature 2.12 the idea of Different Natures and their relations 2.13 even for Supernaturalists miracles don't necessarily exist 2.14 for Naturalists miracles cannot exist. If Nature is not the only thing then "we cannot say in advance whether she is safe from miracles or not." 2.15 Our first choice: Naturalism or Supernaturalism. 3. **Difficulty of Naturalism** [31] # chapter which in original edition led to a philosophical confrontation with Elizabeth Anscombe 3.1 A Condition for Naturalism to be true 3.2 Modern Physics may already provide an example -- the Subnatural 3.3 permanently incalculable "For it is the glory of science to progress." 3.4 Everything we know (Knowledge) is inferred from our sensations. "We infer Evolution from fossils: ..." 3.5 Knowledge depends on Reasoning contrasted with mere feelings. 3.6 a true account (Reality) demands that our thinking is valid (else contradiction) 3.7 strict materialism refutes itself (quote from Haldane) 3.8 Naturalism involves the same difficulty 3.9 an illustration "Grandfather is ill" because ... 3.10 dynamic connection/ logical relation 3.11 reasoning depends on Ground-Consequent 3.12 Cause and Effect connect events 3.13 two systems of connection must apply simultaneously for thought to have value 3.14 but the two systems are wholly distinct, being caused is not the same as being proved (Bulverism) 3.15 what is the linkage? 3.16 Association and Ground (two ways of linkage) 3.17 not necessary but //seen to be// 3.18 Apprehended or Grasped or Known special events, hence 'about' and can be True or False 3.19 Known as a Cause and Effect //because// Act of Knowing necessary to Reasoning 3.20 Naturalism's Account leaves out Acts of Knowing 3.21Reason 'evolved' by natural selection, the account of the Naturalist 3.22 Critique of notion that reason evolved via natural selection 3.23 notion of experience as a source of inference 3.24 Critique of the experience conjecture (tautology, axioms, certainty) 3.25 history of the evolution of reason given by the Naturalist is Cause and Effect can't justify //seeing truths// 3.26 Naturalist's arguments beg the question and so are invalid 3.27 appeal to utility simply dismisses metaphysics 3.28 but this also dismisses Naturalism -- which responds with a sweeping negative assertion 3.29 Theism not subject to same criticisms 3.30 the Act of Knowing cannot be reduced to remembering and stands outside the Naturalist system 3.31our concept of Nature depends on Reason not the other way around. 4. **Nature / Supernature** [15] 4.1 Acts of reasoning are not interlocked as Cause and Effect but are beyond Nature (4 hard words: mind, matter, soul, body) Analogy of understanding: reasoning not part of nature but connected to it differently "... as the understanding of a machine is certainly connected with the machine but not in the way the parts of the machine are connected with each other. The knowledge of a thing is not one of the thing's parts." 4.2 Nature powerless to produce rational thought (Nature / Reason) 4.3 Reason / Nature an Unsymmetrical Relation, ex. Father-and-son relation contrasted with brothers 4.4 shocking to Naturalists, a hankering in the modern heart Newton more what we expected than Quantum physics. 4.5 Reason independent of Nature but might be dependent on something else, a regression must halt at a self-existent Reason 4.6 question almost answers itself I cannot be the cause of my own Reason (God, Being, Supernatural) 4.7 but, is God only working through me? 4.8 supernatural element in man evidence of the existence of something beyond Nature 4.9 metaphor of waterlilies in the pond with stalks connecting to something deeper 4.10 the contrast between an Emergent God versus a Transcendent God 4.11 It won't do. We have not escaped from the difficulty (Cosmic mind at the beginning) 4.12 There is a God not a part of Nature 4.13 Reason -- spearhead (or beam of light) of the Supernatural -- arrival of a King 4.14 apparent attraction of Dualism 4.15 the idea of Creation. 5. **Further Difficulty** [11] 5.1 Reasoning has to be the pivot of the argument for it is the only claim the Naturalist cannot deny without contraction. 5.2 Moral Judgements "I ought" two positions, 1) a separate power, 2) a byproduct of reason "... I myself hold this second view." 5.3 "... moral judgements raise the same sort of difficulty for Naturalism as any other thoughts." The claim of self-interest against sustaining moral beliefs universally held -- Freudians and Marxists attack traditionaly morality on such grounds 5.4 the Naturalist's explanation of the evolution of morals 5.5 doesn't address how moral statements can be right 'I ought' equivalent to 'I itch' i.e. moral statements are about feelings not truth for a Naturalist.5.6 the Naturalist position not flatly self-contradictory if they chose to stick with it 5.7 but most don't (Wells cited over against Franco) their passion contradicts their position that morality is just "... irrationally conditioned impulse which cannot be true or false any more than a vomit or a yawn." 5.8 "Holding a philosophy which excludes humanity, they yet remain human." 5.9 "Morality //is// an Illusion." (the destructive character of this Naturalism) 5.10 "... we must believe that the conscience of man is not a product of Nature." and affirming that "a supernatureal source for our ideas of good and evil." so that 'We now know more about the Divine Reason.' 5.11"... it will be well to pause for the consideration of some misgivings or misunderstandings ..." 6. **Answers to Misgivings** [8] 6.1 have not introduced 'souls' or 'spirits' thus we can admit "... Rational Thinking can be shown to be conditioned in its exercise by a natural object (the brain)." ... "moral outlook of a community ..." linked with "history, geographical environment and economic structure, ..." i.e. culturally mediated ex. of the lie 6.2 frontier between Nature and Supernature mediated by "state of brain" and on the moral outlook by what the culture "let's through". Metaphor of the Announcer and the Map. 6.3 If the Supernatural exists, shouldn't it be obvious? like the "sun in the sky" 6.4 garden through a window (you forget the window), reading a book you forget your are using your eyes, talking you don't notice you are using language, example of the Redskin who didn't think his language had a grammar Metaphor 6.5 they are ignoring the obvious "that one's own thinking cannot be merely a natural event, and therefore something other than Nature exists." Science looks outward and in adopting "... the 'scientific' habit of mind ..." in fact "... men of science were coming to be metaphysically and theologically uneducated." 6.6 In the past the mass of people received the supernatural through the "concrete form of myth and ritual" from mystics and philosophers through authority and tradition. The rebellion against authority and tradition is a ghastly mistake. "... the man who will neither obey wisdom in others nor adventure for her/himself is fatal." ... "But a society where the mass is still simple and the seers are no longer attended to can achieve only superficiality, baseness, ugliness, and in the end extinction. On or back we must go; to stay here is death." 6.7 by the definition in chapter 2 then reason, human rationality, is a miracle don't dismiss it but we concerned with other "invasions of Nature" "Our question could, if you liked, be put in the form, 'Does Supernature ever produce particular results in space and time //except// through the instrumentality of human brains acting on human nerves and muscles?'" [reframing the question] in other words is human rationality the only miracle? 6.8 the remaining question: "Does He [God], besides all this, ever introduce into her events of which it would not be true to say, 'This is simply the working out of the general character which He gave to Nature as a whole in creating her'? Such events are what are popularly called Miracles: and it will be in this sense only that the word Miracle will be used for the rest of the book." In other words is there just one miracle or many? 7. **Red Herrings** [17] 7.1 Case against miracles relies on two different grounds: 1) character of God excludes miracles, or 2) character of Nature precludes them. The second is more popular. 7.2 "People could believe in olden times because they didn't know the laws of Nature." 7.3 Laws of Nature here means "the observed course of Nature." Mere experience, especially scientific experiments exclude the possibility of miracles. "This is a confusion of mind." 7.4 Miracles are by definition an exception to the rules, so the issue is really "whether the thing is possible, and if possible, how probable" 7.5 The claim that in olden times they were ignorant of Nature is an exaggeration. The case of St. Joseph and Mary's pregnancy -- belief in miracles is actually dependent on knowing the laws of Nature else how would you know it is a miracle? 7.6 Increasing knowledge of Nature cannot rule out things that "professes from the very outset to be a unique invasion of Nature by something from outside" Let us not talk nonsense about the views in olden times. 7.7 2nd Red Herring -- we can't be so significant because we now know how large the universe is 7.8 The argument is wrong about the facts -- ancient men knew the universe was large "Statements to the contrary in modern books are due to ignorance." 7.9 The real question is why do we think this argument significant now? How strong an argument is it? 7.10 Fallacies of two kinds: universe teeming with life, then we are not special or life rare so life is accidental -- an argument that proves things no matter what the real case is not an argument at all 7.11 Man is finite. Something must exist of its own accord and relative to this something man "must feel his own derived existence to be unimportant, irrelevant, almost accidental." 7.12 7.13 7.14 7.15 7.16 7.17 8. Miracles & Laws of Nature 9. Unnecessary Chapter 10. 'Horrid Red Things' 11. Christianity and 'Religion' 12. Propriety of Miracles 13. Probability 14. Grand Miracle 15. Miracles of Old Creation 16. Miracles of New Creation 17. Epilogue Appendix A: On the Words "Spirit" and "Spiritual" Appendix B: On 'Special Providences'
 * CONTENTS** # summary titles -- square brackets enclose number of paragraphs in chapter ex. [5], ex. page range (1-4)