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

"It can't be!" Mrs. Snip exclaimed. "Do they really live somewhere on earth?"

"I haven't heard of anyone living underground," said Tom, "until I came to the Land of the Giants."

"Are you in the land of giants?" Mrs. Snip was surprised. "Isn't the Land of Giants everywhere?"

Roland Quiz. Land of Giants, ch. XXXII

By miracle I mean the intervention of an extranatural, i.e., supernatural, force in nature. [1] If there is nothing but nature, a miracle is impossible. Many people think so; I will call them naturers. Others believe that nature is not everything. Our first question is which of them is right. This is where the first difficulty arises.

Before starting an argument, it is necessary, of course, to define what nature is. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to determine this. Naturalists believe that there is nothing but nature, and therefore the word "nature" for them means "everything", "everything in the world", "everything that is". If we understand this by nature, of course, there is nothing else; The question remains unposed, and there is nothing to argue about. Others understand nature as what we perceive with our senses; But this is not enough, for we do not perceive emotions with our senses, and they are undoubtedly natural. In order to avoid this trap and to decide what the naturalist and his opponent are really arguing about, let us try to approach the question in a roundabout way. A synonym for "natural" is the word "natural".