| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Miracles for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
|
There is a newer edition of this item:
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
‘…a brilliant book, abounding in lucid exposition and illuminating metaphor.’
Observer
‘This is Dr Lewis’s most substantial and persuasive essay in Christian apologetics, and it is all the more impressive because it is the work of a poet as well as a philosopher.’
Church Times
Review
Browse and search another edition of this book.
In all my life I have met only one person who claims to have seen a ghost. Read the first page
Concordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Don't think you won't understand it- anyone who has read Lewis before will appreciate his skill at communicating difficult concepts to the layman. His arguments, I think, are still relevant today; naturalism and its (alleged) self-contradictions are still a source of much debate in the philosophical world.
Quite frankly, I would recommend this to anyone. For Christians, as it will help them think through their faith more deeply and clearly; but I think everyone will enjoy Lewis's style and clarity of argument.
For me, the middle to end of the book was best. Lewis is fascinating when he discusses Christ as "Corn King", the prodigality of nature in consuming itself and the symbiotic relationship of all living things. Death comes from the fruit of the tree and yet, from the side of Christ, hanging on the wood (tree) of the cross, flows the blood (foreshadowing the wine of the Eucharist, which become his blood) of the new covenant. His discussion of Providence and the effects of prayer in respect of past events (a thought that had struck me two years ago) resonates deeply. There is a lot in the book - it is as if Lewis is really on to something about the relationship between nature and supernature - a new way of seeing things, which is not leavened with the naturalistic and pseudo-rationalism of the enlightenment.
If you are reading this then you have directed your eyes to this page to read these lines. Whether you will find yourself conducive to Lewis' reasoning depends on whether you think my observation above is possibly a miracle. That is, whether you believe in free will. The very thought process and resulting choice that led you to read these lines is a product of your mind. If you think your mind is equivalent to your brain then you are a machine and I would ask you not to read on: you cannot understand what I have to say: please desist. But if you have been following my argument so far then I think you will have to admit that your mind is something quite special; it possesses reason. Reason is the divine spark in us according to Lewis, because it is what makes the difference between man and brute a difference of kind and not degree. Nature does not explain itself, it just is. Through physical science man has discovered some of the laws of nature, some of 'how's'. But physical science will never give you answers to the 'why' question, the question of meaning. And yet this question is implicit in the human mind, in reason- finding reasons, not just explanations, but justifications as well. It is this basic fact of human spirituality that corresponds directly to a reality according to Lewis: the supernatural ground of the natural, the first cause, the unmoved mover and so on.
If you accept all this as reasonable, if you find it meaningful, then you will enjoy the second half of the book, which discusses some of the Christian miracles. This work is not an attempt to verify miracles. It is simply a groundwork intended to clear the mind of pre-reflective prejudices, to allow room for the possibility of miracles. It serves its purpose admirably in this respect. Even if you are not convinced that miracles have happened you will be convinced at least that they are just as rational as not. This work broadens the mind.
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
