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Miracles (book)
''Miracles'' is a book written by C. S. Lewis, originally published in 1947 and revised in 1960. Lewis argues that before one can learn from the study of history whether or not any miracles have ever occurred, one must first settle the philosophical question of whether it is logically possible that miracles can occur in principle. He accuses modern historians and scientific thinkers, particularly secular biblical scholars, of begging the question against miracles, insisting that modern disbelief in miracles is a cultural bias thrust upon the historical record and is not derivable from it. In a chapter on "The Naturalist and the Supernaturalist" Lewis gives technical definitions to the two terms. Naturalists, under his definition, believe that the Universe is a vast process in which all events which ever happen find their causes solely in the events that happened before them within the system. Supernaturalists believe that interruptions or interferences can take place in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alvin Plantinga
Alvin Carl Plantinga (born November 15, 1932) is an American analytic philosopher who works primarily in the fields of philosophy of religion, epistemology (particularly on issues involving epistemic justification), and logic. From 1963 to 1982, Plantinga taught at Calvin University before accepting an appointment as the John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He later returned to Calvin University to become the inaugural holder of the Jellema Chair in Philosophy. A prominent Christian philosopher, Plantinga served as president of the Society of Christian Philosophers from 1983 to 1986. He has delivered the Gifford Lectures two times and was described by ''Time'' magazine as "America's leading orthodox Protestant philosopher of God". In 2014, Plantinga was the 30th most-cited contemporary author in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he was awarded the Templeton Prize in 2017. Some of Pl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1947 Non-fiction Books
It was the first year of the Cold War, which would last until 1991, ending with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Events January * January–February – Winter of 1946–47 in the United Kingdom: The worst snowfall in the country in the 20th century causes extensive disruption of travel. Given the low ratio of private vehicle ownership at the time, it is mainly remembered in terms of its effects on the railway network. * January 1 - The Canadian Citizenship Act comes into effect. * January 4 – First issue of weekly magazine ''Der Spiegel'' published in Hanover, Germany, edited by Rudolf Augstein. * January 10 – The United Nations adopts a resolution to take control of the free city of Trieste. * January 15 – Elizabeth Short, an aspiring actress nicknamed the "Black Dahlia", is found brutally murdered in a vacant lot in Los Angeles; the mysterious case is never solved. * January 16 – Vincent Auriol is inaugurated as president of France. * January 19 – Ferry ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Miracles
A miracle is an event that is inexplicable by natural or scientific lawsOne dictionary define"Miracle"as: "A surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency." and accordingly gets attributed to some supernatural or praeternatural cause. Various religions often attribute a phenomenon characterized as miraculous to the actions of a supernatural being, (especially) a deity, a magician, a miracle worker, a saint, or a religious leader. Informally, English-speakers often use the word ''miracle'' to characterise any beneficial event that is statistically unlikely but not contrary to the laws of nature, such as surviving a natural disaster, or simply a "wonderful" occurrence, regardless of likelihood (e.g. "the miracle of childbirth"). Some coincidences may be seen as miracles. A true miracle would, by definition, be a non-natural phenomenon, leading many writers to dismiss miracles as ph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Books By C
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arrangement is '' codex'' (plural, ''codices''). In the history of hand-held physical supports for extended written compositions or records, the codex replaces its predecessor, the scroll. A single sheet in a codex is a leaf and each side of a leaf is a page. As an intellectual object, a book is prototypically a composition of such great length that it takes a considerable investment of time to compose and still considered as an investment of time to read. In a restricted sense, a book is a self-sufficient section or part of a longer composition, a usage reflecting that, in antiquity, long works had to be written on several scrolls and each scroll had to be identified by the book it contained. Each part of Aristotle's ''Physics'' is called ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Argument From Reason
The argument from reason is an argument against metaphysical naturalism and for the existence of God (or at least a supernatural being that is the source of human reason). The best-known defender of the argument is C. S. Lewis. Lewis first defended the argument at length in his 1947 book, '' Miracles: A Preliminary Study''. In the second edition of ''Miracles'' (1960), Lewis substantially revised and expanded the argument. Contemporary defenders of the argument from reason include Alvin Plantinga, Victor Reppert and William Hasker. The argument Metaphysical naturalism is the view that nature as studied by the natural sciences is all that exists. Naturalists deny the existence of a supernatural God, souls, an afterlife, or anything supernatural. Nothing exists outside or beyond the physical universe. The argument from reason seeks to show that naturalism is self-refuting, or otherwise false and indefensible. According to Lewis, More precisely, Lewis's argument from reason ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism
The evolutionary argument against naturalism (EAAN) is a philosophical argument asserting a problem with believing both evolution and philosophical naturalism simultaneously. The argument was first proposed by Alvin Plantinga in 1993 and "raises issues of interest to epistemologists, philosophers of mind, evolutionary biologists, and philosophers of religion".Beilby(2002) p vii The EAAN argues that the combined belief in both evolutionary theory and naturalism is epistemically self-defeating. The argument for this is that if both evolution and naturalism are true, then the probability of having reliable cognitive faculties is low. This argument comes as an expansion of the argument from reason, although the two are separate philosophical arguments. Development of the idea The idea that "naturalism" undercuts its own justification was put forward by Arthur Balfour.Victor Reppert, C.S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea, In Defense of the Argument from Reason (2003) p 46 C. S. Lewis popularised ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Socratic Club
The Oxford Socratic Club was a student club that met from 1942 to 1954 dedicated to providing an open forum for the discussion of the intellectual difficulties connected with religion and with Christianity in particular. The club was formed in December 1941, at Oxford University, by Stella Aldwinckle of the Oxford Pastorate and a group of undergraduate students. A student by the name of Monica Shorten had expressed a need for such a club. The society was to follow the practice of Socrates to "follow the argument wherever it led them." As all inter-college clubs at Oxford had to have a "senior member of the university" as a sponsor, Aldwinckle implored C. S. Lewis to be its first president. Lewis enthusiastically served as president from 1942 until he left for Cambridge in 1954. Basil Mitchell succeeded Lewis as president in February 1955. The first meeting was held on 26 January 1942, and the club disbanded in 1972. The Oxford Socratic Club met on Monday evenings during term fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Hasker
R. William Hasker (; born 1935) is an American philosopher and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Huntington University. For many years he was editor of the prestigious journal '' Faith and Philosophy''. He has published many journal articles and books dealing with issues such as the mind–body problem, theodicy, and divine omniscience. He has argued for " open theism" and a view known as " emergentism" regarding the nature of the human person. Hasker regards the soul as an "emergent" substance, dependent upon the body for its existence. Hasker received his PhD in theology and philosophy of religion from the University of Edinburgh. His 1999 publication ''The Emergent Self'' discusses the philosophy of mind Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the ontology and nature of the mind and its relationship with the body. The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a number of other issues are add ... and att ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Begging The Question
In classical rhetoric and logic, begging the question or assuming the conclusion (Latin: ') is an informal fallacy that occurs when an argument's premises assume the truth of the conclusion, instead of supporting it. For example: * "Green is the best color because it is the greenest of all colors" This statement claims that the color green is the best because it is the greenest – which it presupposes is the best. It is a type of circular reasoning: an argument that requires that the desired conclusion be true. This often occurs in an indirect way such that the fallacy's presence is hidden, or at least not easily apparent.Herrick (2000) 248. History The original phrase used by Aristotle from which ''begging the question'' descends is: τὸ ἐξ ἀρχῆς (or sometimes ἐν ἀρχῇ) αἰτεῖν, "asking for the initial thing". Aristotle's intended meaning is closely tied to the type of dialectical argument he discusses in his '' Topics'', book VIII: a formalized ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victor Reppert
Victor Reppert (born 1953) is an American philosopher best known for his development of the "argument from reason". He is the author of ''C.S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea'' (2003) and numerous academic papers in journals such as ''Christian Scholars' Review'', ''International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion'', ''Philo'', and '' Philosophia Christi''. He is also a philosophy blogger, with two blogs. He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy (1989) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The argument from reason Reppert first became interested in the argument from reason after a conversion experience at the age of 18. He became aware that while unbelievers like Bertrand Russell claimed to be more rational than believers, Christians like C. S. Lewis claimed not only that their belief is more rational than unbelief, but that the argument from reason shows that the very capacity to reason is itself a reason to think that the naturalism espoused by unbelievers is false. When he rea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Incarnation (Christianity)
In Christian theology, the incarnation is the belief that the pre-existent divine person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ, God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, and the eternally begotten ''Logos (Christianity), Logos'' (Koine Greek for "word"), took upon human nature and "was made flesh" by being conceived in the womb of a woman, the Virgin Mary, also known as the ''Theotokos'' (Greek for "God-bearer" or "Mother of God"). The doctrine of the incarnation then entails that Jesus was at the same time both fully God and fully human—two natures in one person. In the incarnation, as traditionally defined by those Churches that adhere to the Council of Chalcedon, the God in Christianity, divine nature of the Son was united but not mixed with human nature in one divine Hypostasis (philosophy and religion), person, Jesus, who was both "truly God and truly man". This is central to the traditional faith held by most Christians. Alternative views on the subject (see Ebioni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
