MIRACLES

Miracles. C. S. Lewis, Association Press, New York, Reflection Book paperback, 128 pages, 1958, 50 cents.

This is a slightly abridged, paperback edition of Lewis’ classic work that was first published in 1947. Lewis has become recognized so widely as a profound thinker and writer that a university in California conducts an honors seminar on “The World of C. S. Lewis.” This book is an important part of his world, for it helps one to comprehend the central miracles of Christianity from the Incarnation and Virgin Birth to the Resurrection and Ascension. Lewis shows that belief in miracles can be reasonable, yea even more reasonable than the alternatives provided by skeptics and infidels.

Miracles do not break the laws of Nature, for Nature adjusts itself to the new situation. If God creates a miraculous spermatozooan in the body of a virgin, it does not proceed to break any laws. Rather the laws at once take it over and pregnancy follows. Nine months later a child is born according to Nature’s law. Just so miraculous wine intoxicates and inspired books suffer all the ordinary processes of textural corruption. Miracles have both cause and result as have all other things in human experience. Miraculous bread is caused by God, but once it enters Nature it behaves like any other bread, going through the same digestive process.

Lewis sees the Incarnation as the grand miracle that makes sense of all human experience. The summer sun cannot be clearly seen, but it makes possible the seeing of everything else. So with the idea of God becoming man. While it is incomprehensible that God became flesh, it illumines the whole of life. The Resurrection, on the other hand, is the miracle of the new creation. This is in contrast to the miracles of the old creation, having to do with healing, water, wine, storms, etc. The purpose of the Resurrection is to provide a glorious human existence for the redeemed, while the purpose of turning water into wine or walking on the water is to show that God is the creator and sustainer of all the universe. What God does in miracles is a small photograph of what he has done or will do universally. In turning water into wine Jesus showed that the God of all wine was present at the feast. Every year God turns water into wine; he is indeed the God of all fertility. At Cana Jesus short-circuited the process that is always at work in Nature. So with the feeding of the multitudes with a few loaves of bread. God is always feeding the millions and even billions of men from small amounts of grain sown in the earth. Jesus merely stepped up the process in the feeding of the five thousand.

Lewis writes for those who are willing to do some thinking. He has unusually fine insights into Christian revelation. This is your invitation into C. S. Lewis’ world. Once you are there, you might wish to read some of his many other books, which extend all the way from books for children and fiction to literary criticism and social theory. If you read this one on Miracles, you will be confirmed in your conviction that Christian faith can be both responsible and reasonable.—LEROY GARRETT

ROMAN CATHOLICISM

A Popular History of the Catholic Church. Philip Hughes, Image Book paperback, 310 pages, 95 cents.

The Spirit of Catholicism. Karl Adam, Image Book paperback, 262 pages, 85 cents.

Here are two informative books, both published in recent years in $4.00 editions, now available in inexpensive paperbacks. They are written by scholars of the Roman church with the lmprimature of the proper ecclesiastical authorities. Since our people read about Roman Catholicism almost entirely from our point of view and from our writers, it would be well to look at some of the central areas of controversy from the Roman perspective.

The first book listed gets most interesting when it describes Martin Luther as having in his person “all the good and all the bad, and all that was most characteristically German, in a way no man of his race had summed it up hitherto or has summed it up since.” Hughes further says, “He was Germany. Tenderhearted and brutal, sentimental, muddle-headed, self-contradictory’, obscure, assured and dogmatic, arrogant, not too well informed on any one of the important matters that occupied him …” The Roman church of Luther’s day is described as grievously sick—“even the best of physicians would scarcely have known where to begin the cure.” It was Luther’s shout that “rocked the Church to its very foundations.” Luther was a genius who should never have become a priest. The writer believes the term Reformation is misleading, for Luther and Calvin did not reform the church in which they were bred, but built up new systems after the order of their revolutionary theological theories. By 1560 (Luther started in 1517) all of Christendom was Protestant except Ireland, Spain, Italy, Southern Germany and Poland. Hughes describes how the Roman Church had to clean house to stay alive, and he believes that his church’s “counter reformation” is history’s greatest triumph of the spiritual over the material.

Adam’s Spirit of Catholicism is a study of the basic concepts of the Roman Catholic faith. It proposes to answer the question: What is (Roman) Catholicism? It has been translated into a dozen languages, including Chinese and Japanese. It treats such subjects as the church, communion of saints, salvation, sacraments, education. While Adam is thankful that non-Catholic bodies preach Christ, he observes that only the Roman Church speaks like one “having power.” This comes from “the unbroken series of her bishops” which can be traced back to Peter. A reading of this book will reveal the depth of the conviction that a Roman Catholic has that when his church speaks it is the Christ himself who speaks. —Leroy Garrett

Evolution And Christian Thought Today. Edited by Russell L. Mixter, Wm. B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 224 p. $4.50.

Evolution is almost universally taught as a fact. This being true we should have some understanding of both sides of the subject. Understanding will enable us to give reasons for our convictions.

Our book presents the various theories and interpretations of facts by evolutionists of the past and present. Also, the theories and interpretations of the facts by various segments of Christianity.

The purpose of the book is to make both groups think. Each chapter is written by a specialist in his field. There are twenty-two illustrations, and as a whole the book is well documented.

Things of special interest are: the influence of Darwin, the various theories of Biblical scholars, the manner of calculating the number and distance of the stars, and the method of guessing the age of the earth. Too, why most mutations are dangerous, and why no two people are identical except identical twins.

The result of excessive claims by both sides are equally discussed, and what the Bible does and does not say about creation. There is also consideration of the influence of evolutionary theory upon the moral life.—WALTER SHORT

A Christian View of Men and Things. Gordon H. Clark. Wm. B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 1960. Paperback, 325 p., $2.45.

A Christian View of Men and Things is a treatise showing that social stability demands a Christian society. The author approaches the subject with great ability.

In the chapter on “The Philosophy of History” he concludes that we have a choice of the secular standpoint in which history has no significance; human hopes and fears are to be swallowed up in oblivion; and all men, good, evil, and indifferent, come to the same end. Anyone who chooses this view must base his life on unyielding despair. If however, he chooses the Christian view, then he can assign significance to history; human hopes and fears in this life contribute to the quality of a life after death, when two types of men will receive their separate destinies. Anyone who chooses this view can look at the calamities of western civilization and say, “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God.” There has been no proof, there is a choice.

In each of the other chapters (Politics, Ethics, Science, Religion, Epistemology) he attempts to discuss the various points of view, and then to show the alternatives. In each case the Christian view appears the most rational, the most practical for the social order.—CLINT EVANS