Dry loam - what is it?

They are like life ago —

streams of golden shower.

I. ABOUT THIS BOOK

Whoever wants to succeed must pose the preliminary questions correctly.

Aristotle. Metaphysics, II (III) I

In my entire life, I have only met one person who said he saw a ghost. The interesting thing here is that he (or rather, she) did not believe and does not believe in the immortality of the soul. She believes that she was imagining or that she has something with her nerves. Probably, this is true. Seeing is one thing, believing is another.

That is why experience will not tell us whether miracles happen. Everything around us that is called a miracle is perceived by our senses – we see, hear, feel, smell, taste, and these senses can be mistaken. If something supernatural has happened, we do not always have the right to believe that we have fallen victim to an illusion. If you have a philosophy that excludes miracles, you will say so. We take away from experience what our philosophy will allow us to do; And therefore it is pointless to appeal to it until we have solved philosophical questions.

History can give us even less. Many people think that we can establish whether miracles have happened or not by studying the evidence "according to the laws of historical research." But we will not establish these laws until we have decided whether miracles are possible, and if so, how probable. If they are not possible, no evidence will convince us. If they are possible, but extremely improbable, only mathematically proven evidence will convince us. History does not provide such evidence. If miracles are possible, the evidence may well convince us that many of them have happened. So, history also depends on the philosophy that we adhered to before we turned to the sources. And here we must first pose a philosophical question.

Here is an example of what happens when, bypassing philosophy, we turn to history. In one popular commentary on the Bible, you will find a debate about when the fourth Gospel was written. The author believes that it was written after the execution of Peter, because Christ predicts this execution; And the book "cannot be written before the events of which it speaks." It cannot, of course, if there are no predictions. If they do, this argument is ridiculous. But the author did not even raise such a question. He takes it for granted (if subconsciously) that there are none. Perhaps he is right; However, it was not history that helped him discover this. He simply brought his disbelief into the work of history. Thus, his work is completely useless for those who need to know whether there are predictions.

I conceived this book as an introduction to historical research. I myself am not a historian, and I will not examine the evidence of Christian miracles; But I would like to prepare the reader for this. It is pointless to refer to the texts while we do not think anything about the possibility and probability of miracles. Those who do not believe in miracles waste their time looking at the texts — you can tell in advance what they will find there.

II. NATURER AND HIS ADVERSARY