By "laws of nature," I think, they mean what people have seen. If something more is suspected, it means that the speaker is not just a person, but a philosopher-naturalist, and we will talk about him in the next chapter. Simply, man believes that our experience (especially artificial experience, called experiment) is able to tell us what happens in nature. And he also believes that this excludes the possibility of miracles. But he is wrong.

If miracles are possible, of course, only experience will show whether a miracle happened in this particular case. But experience, even if it is a thousand years old, is not able to show whether they are possible. He discovers a norm, a rule. However, those who believe in miracles do not deny the norms. But the very definition of miracle is an exception. When we are told that the rule is A, experience can show that the rule is really B, and nothing more. You will say: "But experience shows that the rule is not broken"; we will answer: "Well, if so, this does not mean that it cannot be violated. And is it so? A lot of people claim that miracles happened to them. Maybe they lie, maybe they don't. As we said in the first chapter, we cannot decide this until we know whether miracles are possible, and if so, whether they are."

The idea that the progress of science has somehow affected our problem is connected with the talk about the "old time". For example, people say, "The early Christians believed that Christ was the Son of the Virgin, but we now know that this is scientifically impossible." Apparently, it seems to them that people were complete ignoramuses and did not know what this miracle contradicts. Think about it for a second and we realize that this is complete nonsense, and the miracle of the Immaculate Conception will show this especially clearly. When St. Joseph learned that his bride was pregnant, he quite reasonably decided to let her go. Why? Because he knew as well as a modern gynecologist that girls do not have children. Of course, today's scholar knows much that St. Joseph did not know, but all these are details. The main thing is that the Immaculate Conception does not agree with the law of nature, and St. Joseph knew this very well. If he could, he would say that it is "scientifically impossible." Everyone has always understood that it is impossible if something does not interfere with the normal course of nature. When St. Joseph believed that Mary's pregnancy was caused not by adultery, but by a miracle, he accepted the miracle as a violation of natural law. Any miraculous story tells us the same thing. A miracle always frightens, surprises, and testifies to an extranatural force. If there were people in the world who knew no laws at all, they would not be amazed at anything. Belief in miracles is not based on ignorance; it is possible only insofar as knowledge exists. We have already said that the naturalist will not notice the miracle; Now let us add that a miracle is not noticed by those who do not believe in the orderliness of nature.

If we were asked to consider miracles to be normal, they would become increasingly difficult to believe in as science advances. This is how science destroyed faith in ant-people, in one-legged people, in islands that attract ships, in mermaids and dragons. But all this was not considered a miracle - this information was, in fact, science and the best science refuted it.

With miracles, everything is different. When it is known in advance that we are talking about a foreign invasion of nature, no new knowledge can contribute anything. The reasons for belief and unbelief are always the same. If St. Joseph had lacked humility and faith, he could have doubted the miraculous origin of the Infant, and any modern person who believes in God will accept the Immaculate Conception. Perhaps I will never be able to convince you that miracles happen. But don't at least talk nonsense. Vague talk about the progress of science will not prove that people who have not heard of genes or eggs thought that nature could give a child to a virgin who knew no husband.

Secondly, many people say: "In the old days, people believed in miracles because they had a wrong idea of the universe. At that time, it was thought that the Earth was the most important, and man was the most important thing in the world. Therefore, it seemed reasonable that the Creator was especially interested in us and even changed the course of nature because of us. Now we know that the universe is truly huge. We know that our planet and even the entire solar system is just a point. We know how insignificant we are, and we no longer think that God is interested in our insignificant deeds."

To begin with, this is simply not true. People have known for a very long time that the universe is big. More than seventeen centuries ago, Ptolemy taught that compared to the distance to the stars, the earth is only a mathematical point. The insignificance of the earth was as common to Boethius, King Alfred, Dante, and Chaucer as it was to Wells or Professor Haldane. Modern authors deny this simply out of ignorance.

The question is completely different. The question is why the insignificance of the Earth, known to all Christian poets, philosophers and theologians fifteen hundred years ago, did not interfere with them in the least, and now suddenly made a dizzying career as an argument against miracles. I think I understand what is going on here, and now I will tell you about it. For now, let's consider the misunderstanding itself.

When a doctor examines the deceased and ascertains poisoning, he knows what the organs would be like in a natural death. If the insignificance of the earth and the vastness of the universe are evidence against Christianity, we must know what universe would testify for it. But do we know? Whatever space is, our senses perceive it as three-dimensional. You can't apply boundaries to three-dimensional space, and compared to infinity, a planet of any size is negligible. Infinite space may or may not be empty. If it were empty, it would be evidence against God—why would He create one grain of sand and leave everything else to nothingness? If there are innumerable bodies in it (as it is), they may or may not be inhabited. Strange as it may seem, both are used against Christianity: if the universe is teeming with life, it is ridiculous to think that God will bother with the human race; If life is only here, with us, it is clear that it is accidental. In general, it is similar to a story where a police officer tells the arrested person that any of his actions "will be used against him." Such arguments are not at all based on observation. Any Universe will do. The doctor boldly admits poisoning without looking at the corpse - no changes in the organs will shake his views.

We can't imagine a suitable universe, and here's why. Man is a finite creature and intelligent enough to understand this. Thus, any picture of the Universe suppresses him. Moreover, he is a created being: the reason for his existence lies not in him or in his parents, but either in nature, or (if there is God) in God. In the face of this absolute force, it is inevitably small, insignificant, almost accidental. Believers do not think at all that everything was created for man; Scientists prove that this is really not the case. Whatever we call the ultimate, inexplicable being, that which simply is, whether God or "everything in the world," it certainly does not exist "for us." Whatever we believe in as an absolute, it is independent of us, and we are quite dependent on it. I don't know if there was a madman in the world who believed that man fills the Mind of God. If we are small before space and time, then they themselves are incomparably smaller before God. Christianity has never tried to dispel the wonder, horror, and sense of insignificance that overwhelm us when we think of the universe. On the contrary, it strengthened them, for without them there is no faith. When a person brought up in a false Christian spirit, who has taken up astronomy, realizes how majestically indifferent almost all reality is to man, and perhaps loses faith, it is then that he can experience for the first time a truly religious feeling.

Christianity does not teach that everything is created for us humans. It teaches that God loves us, for our sake He became man and died. I do not understand how the long-known truths of astronomy can shake this belief.

Skeptics wonder that God would condescend to our tiny planet. This would make sense if we knew for certain that (1) there are intelligent beings living on other celestial bodies, (2) they have fallen and need redemption, (3) they must be redeemed in the same way as we are, and (4) they have been denied redemption. We don't know any of this. Perhaps the universe is teeming with happy creatures that do not need redemption; perhaps they have long since been redeemed in a way unknown to us; perhaps they were redeemed in the same way as we are; perhaps, finally, there are things besides life that are pleasing and known to God, but not to men.

If we are told that such an insignificant planet does not deserve God's love, then we will answer that no Christian claims to do so, nor has he ever claimed. The Savior died for us, not because it is worth dying for us, but because He is Love.

Of course, it is not easy for all of us to imagine that a small Earth is more important than, say, the Andromeda nebula. On the other hand, no normal person believes that a horse is more important than a child or a leg is more important than a brain. In short, size is combined with importance for us when it is very large. Thus, it is clear what the mistake is here. If this connection were true, it would remain the same. But the fact is that it is not the mind that tells us, but the imagination.