A Chapter of Red Herrings

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Summary

Lewis takes aim at a widespread assumption: that people in earlier, pre-scientific ages believed in miracles only because they did not yet understand the ordinary, regular workings of nature, and that modern scientific knowledge of natural law has therefore made miracle belief obsolete. He argues this gets the historical psychology backwards. A miracle is a violation, or an exception, and to recognize an exception a person must already know the rule; belief in miracles has always presupposed, not been ignorant of, a background assumption that nature ordinarily runs according to fixed and reliable patterns.

His central example is Joseph's reaction, recorded in Matthew's Gospel, on learning that Mary was pregnant: Joseph's first response was to assume ordinary human infidelity, precisely because he knew perfectly well how babies are ordinarily conceived, and it was only the announcement of a miracle that offered an alternative to that natural, and to him overwhelmingly probable, explanation. A man who did not understand ordinary human reproduction could not have registered a virgin birth as remarkable at all. Ancient peoples, Lewis insists, were not simply too ignorant to know a resurrection or a virgin birth was contrary to the ordinary course of nature; that shock was precisely why such reports were treated as miracles in the first place.

Modern scientific advance, Lewis concludes, has not changed anything essential to this question; it has simply given us a far more detailed and precise map of nature's ordinary regularities, without altering the logical structure of what a miracle claims to be — an exception to an order that was always understood, in its broad outline, even by the ancients.

Key points

• A miracle is, by definition, an exception; recognizing an exception requires already knowing the rule, so miracle belief has always presupposed, not been ignorant of, nature's regularity.
• Joseph's assumption of Mary's infidelity shows the ancients understood ordinary human reproduction well enough to recognize a virgin birth as a startling exception, not an unremarkable event.
• Modern science has sharpened our map of nature's regularities in great detail, but has not changed the basic logical structure of what a miracle claims: a genuine departure from an order people already understood.

Illustrations & analogies

• Joseph's very human, very modern-sounding assumption on hearing of Mary's pregnancy is used as the chapter's central proof that 'primitive' people were not simply ignorant of how nature ordinarily works.

Related Scripture

• Matthew 1:18-19

For reflection and discussion

1. Before reading this chapter, had you assumed ancient peoples believed in miracles mainly out of ignorance of natural law? Has Lewis's argument changed that assumption?
2. Why might it matter, for the credibility of the Gospel writers, that Joseph's first reaction to Mary's pregnancy was ordinary suspicion rather than immediate acceptance?