Miracles: A Preliminary Study

Read Bertrand Russell’s essay “Why I Am Not a Christian” and compare it to the rhetorical conversation partners in Lewis’s Miracles. What philosophy does Russell, a contemporary of Lewis, represent? Do any of the popular misconceptions about Christianity which Lewis addresses show up in Russell’s work?

Read David Hume’s treatise “Of Miracles” (the tenth section of his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Do you find Lewis’s assessment of Hume’s work fair and persuasive? Why or why not?

In the book, Lewis addresses a wide range of what he sees as popular misconceptions about the nature of miracles, religion, and Christianity. Do any of these positions deserve a deeper consideration? Does Lewis engage in the straw man fallacy—constructing opposing arguments that are easy to knock down, rather than accurately representing the views of real people?