Another question arises. For many, the length of our evidence only shows that we are wrong. After all, if there were such an amazing thing as the supernatural in the world, it would be visible to everyone, like the sun in the sky. It is impossible that the foundations of all things can be reached only by complex arguments, for which almost no one has the strength or the time. I really like this view, but two things should be noted.

When you see the garden from your room, you are undoubtedly looking out the window, but if you are interested in the garden, you can forget about the window for hours. When you read, you undoubtedly use your eyes, but until they hurt, you can not think about them. When we talk, we use grammar, but we don't notice it. Shouting "I'm coming!" to your friend, you don't think about the fact that you have agreed the verb with the first-person pronoun in the singular. It is said that one Indian, who had studied many languages, refused to write a textbook of his native language, because it "has no grammar." Grammar, which he used all his life, he did not notice. He knew her so well that he knew nothing about her.

All this shows that the most obvious facts are the easiest to forget and overlook. In the same way, they have forgotten about the supernatural: it is not remote and not abstract, but every minute and near, like breathing, and they deny it out of absent-mindedness. There is nothing surprising here – we do not need to think about the window or the eyes all the time. Nor do we need to think about what we think. Only when you step back from concrete research and try to comprehend it, you have to take this into account, because the philosophical system is obliged to take everything into account. In the study of nature, this is often forgotten. Since the sixteenth century, when modern science was born, people have looked more and more inward, at nature, and have shunned broad generalizations. It is quite natural that the evidence of the extranatural is left aside. Truncated, so-called scientific thinking will inevitably lead to the negation of the extra-natural, if it is not nourished from other sources. However, there are no sources, because over the centuries scientists have forgotten metaphysics and theology.

We come to the second answer. Recently, and far from everywhere, people can only come to believe in the supernatural with their own minds. Throughout the world, authority and tradition have always transmitted to people what philosophers and mystics have seen and found; And all those who could not think for themselves received what they needed in myth, ritual, and way of life. For a little over a hundred years, naturalists have been laying burdens on people that no one would have laid on them before: we must find the truth ourselves or be left with nothing. There can be two explanations here. Perhaps, in rebelling against tradition and authority, mankind made a terrible mistake, which became fatal, however justified it may be by the corruption of those who were invested with authority and transmitted tradition. Perhaps the Lord is now conducting a dangerous experiment – He is waiting for ordinary people to occupy the high positions of sages by themselves, with their own minds. Then the difference between the foolish and the wise will disappear, and for this it is worth being patient. But we must remember, and clearly, that either we are willing to retreat and become obedient slaves of tradition again, or we must climb up until we have wisdom. He who does not want either one or the other is doomed to perish. A society where ordinary people obey a few seers can live; A society where everyone sees is even better: but a society where people are not wiser, and seers are no longer listened to, can only lead to vulgarity, meanness and death. In short, you can only go forward or backward.

Finally, let's consider one more question. In the preceding chapters I have tried to prove that there is also an extra-natural element in every rational man. Thus, according to the definition of Chapter II, reason is a miracle. Here the reader will say: "Ah, this is what he understands by a miracle..." – and quite naturally, he will close the book. Please be patient a little longer. I have spoken of reason and morality not as examples of the miraculous, but as examples of the extra-natural. Whether to call them a miracle is a pure conventionality, a matter of term; But in this book I write about other miracles that everyone would call miracles.

If you like, the question is: "Does the extra-natural break into our space and time only through the brain, affecting the muscles and nerves, or in some other way?"

I have said "does it break in", because nature itself is a derivative of the extra-natural. The Lord created her; He constantly penetrates into it wherever there is consciousness; He does not let her disappear. But we are here to speculate about whether He does anything else with it. This "something" is usually called a miracle. It is in this sense that the word "miracle" will be used by us.

VII. WONDERS AND NATURE

Then Maul, the giant, appeared.

His business is to spoil young pilgrims with confused reasoning.

Bunyan

If God exists and if He created nature, this does not mean that miracles exist or can be. Perhaps miracles are not in His taste; perhaps He created nature in such a way that nothing can be added or changed. We'll start with the second assumption because it has more adherents. In this chapter I shall consider its most superficial forms.

First, we often hear people (even believers) say, "No, I don't believe in miracles. They were believed in earlier, in the old days, when the laws of nature were not known. And now, when we know that miracles are impossible from a scientific point of view..."