More Arguments for God from Reason | Ch.4-6 of C.S. Lewis's Miracles

A Cosmological Argument from Reason for God?

I took this picture a year or two ago. I’ve always loved lily ponds but ch. 4 of Miracles made me love them even more.

Before we jump in here, I’m making a big change! I’m moving my own philosophical and theological science fiction and fantasy stories to a brand new publication. So make sure you subscribe there:

Welcome to the Parker’s Ponderings read-along of Miracles by C.S. Lewis. This is the third companion essay I’ve put out and in it I’ll be covering chapters 4-6. If you’re just discovering this read-along for the first time, you can catch up by reading the first companion essay, which covers chapters 1&2, here and then read the second companion essay, which covers chapter 3, here.

I’ve made a couple adjustments to the read-along schedule accounting for the two essays this week instead of one and the fact that they were both late (sorry about that!). The first Zoom Book Club call is on this Saturady, April 13^th from 1pm central to 2:30ish. If you want to jump in on that call then make sure you upgrade to a paid subscriber before the call and you’ll find that Zoom link in the paid subscriber chat.

Here’s the read-along schedule again:

March 31st - Chapters 1-2 – World-and-life views, presuppositions, and the philosophy of fact

April 9^th - Chapter 3 – Three Arguments from Reason Against Naturalism

April 11^th – Chapters 4-6 – Four or Five More Arguments from Reason

Zoom Call for Paid Subscribers #1 – April 13^th from 1:00pm – 2 or 2:30pm central

April 15^th – Chapters 7-8 – common objections to miracles, the nature of nature, and what miracles are not

April 21^st - Chapters 9-12 – The Author Analogy, The Ultimate Fact, Doctrine of God

Zoom Call for Paid Subscribers #2 – to be determined

April 28^th - Chapters 13-14 – Presuppositions and Argument from Reason revisited, Criterion of Miracles, a Theology of Religions

May 5^th – Chapters 15-Appendix B – The True Myth, One vs. Two-Floor Realities, Against Monism, Author Analogy Revisited

Zoom Call for Paid Subscribers #3 – to be determined

Sweet. Now let’s jump into chapter 4.

Chapter 4 – Nature and Supernature

CSL starts us off with a summary of the main thrust of his argument as set up and presented in the first three chapters: “acts of reasoning are not interlocked with the total interlocking system of Nature as all its other items are interlocked with one another.” (pg. 37) But instead, “something beyond nature operates whenever we reason.” (pg. 38). So CSL continues to hammer this distinction between Nature and Supernature and argues that reasoning cannot be subjected to the non-rational causes of nature or else we will lose our justification for trusting our reason at all. If you have a particular belief because a brain lesion caused you to have it, then that’s not actually a rationally justifiable belief. If naturalism is true, then all of our beliefs are like that belief formed by the brain lesion, CSL argues.

So, the two worlds are distinct. The world of rationality/agent causation, where rational agents reason things through, respond rationally to different reasons presented to them, and where choices are thought about and made for particular reasons, is above the world of interlocking physical causes, which aren’t necessarily irrational, but are definitely non-rational—billiard balls don’t knock into each other because they reasoned it would be the best way to fall into the hole.

So the human mind is not a ‘natural’ thing in that it operates, not according to the physical laws of nature, but according to the rational laws of logic. These two worlds are radically different yet still connected nonetheless, “the understanding of a machine is certainly connected with the machine but no in the way the parts of the machine are connected with each other. The knowledge of a thing is not one of the thing’s parts.” (pg. 37-38).

So the realm of reason and the realm of Nature are in relation to each other, but the relation is an asymmetric one (CSL says ‘unsymmetric’). We can use reason to alter the course of Nature, to dam rivers, to use mathematics to build bridges, to apply arguments to ourselves to change our emotions and physiology and neurophysiology—“you have so much to be grateful for” “you’ve been through tougher times than this”, “go lift weights and you’ll feel better today”, etc. But the relation between Reason and Nature is asymmetric is that Reason can positively impact Nature but Nature is powerless to produce rational thoughts, “when nature, so to speak, attempts to do things to rational thoughts she only succeeds in killing them.” (pg. 39); “Nature can only raid reason to kill; but Reason can invade Nature to take prisoners and even to colonise.” (pg.39).

If you’re having trouble grasping CSL’s point here, just think back to the brain lesion. If a jar falls off the top shelf and cracks you on the head, causing a lesion on your brain which randomly produces the belief that it’s raining in South Africa right now, that belief is not justified even if it is raining in South Africa right now. The non-rational cause of the belief undermines its status as rational. We need reasons for beliefs and Nature alone cannot provide them. When she gets involved she drains our rational justification from our beliefs.

A Cosmological Argument from Reason for s Cosmic Mind

Up to this point, CSL had just been arguing against the interlocking system proposed by Naturalism, seeking to make room for miracles. But here in chapter 4 he advances a positive argument for God and it’s something like a cosmological argument from Reason. Cosmological arguments for God are a family of philosophical arguments which argue from facts about the universe, the cosmos, to the conclusion that there exists a unique being, God, whom the cosmos depends on, either for its start or for its explanation or for its continued preservation, etc.

On page 41, CSL starts his argument by arguing that human doesn’t need to be wholly independent of anything else, in fact, it isn’t, it just needs to be independent of non-rational physical causation, “For it is not dependence simply but dependence on the non-rational which undermines the credentials of thought.” (pg. 41). But reason can depend on other reason, rational thoughts can be prompted by, caused by, and depend on other rational thoughts—that’s how reasoning works. But our thoughts can also depend on the thoughts of others too:

One man’s reason has been led to see things by the aid of another man’s reason, and is none the worse for that. It is thus still an open question whether each man’s reason exists absolutely on its own or whether it is the result of some (rational) cause—in fact, of some other Reason. That other Reason might conceivably be found to depend on a third, and so on; it would not matter how far this process was carried provided you found Reason coming from Reason at each stage. It is only when you are asked to believe in Reason coming from non-reason that you must cry Halt, for, if you don’t all thought is discredited. It is therefore obvious that sooner or later you must admit a Reason which exists absolutely on its own. The problem is whether you or I can be such a self-existent Reason. (pg. 41-42)

So just as our thoughts, if they are to be rational, cannot be the product of non-rational causes, so too, CSL argues, our rationality itself cannot be the produce of non-rational causes. So Nature, with its interlocking system of non-rational causation, cannot be the ultimate cause of my Reason, my rationality, since all it has to offer is non-rational causes.

CSL goes on to argue that there must be an explanation for our Reason, some bedrock explanation. We can explain how our reasoning capacities are the product of our nature and how we inherit our nature from our parents who inherited theirs from their parents and on and on back we go. But our explanation cannot go on ad infinitum. If it’s to be an explanation, it cannot be an infinite regress of causes. Even if an infinite regress of explanatory causes is possible, it seems like it would take an infinity to traverse that infinite chain of causes and so the explanation for our own reason would never get to us. Furthermore, this is just not a live option, no one thinks there’s an infinite series of reasoners which stretches back forever and yet leads all the way up to ourselves. So CSL argues that eventually we’re going to hit a self-existent Reason which is the explanation for our own.

On page 42, CSL goes on to reason through a few more attributes this ultimate Reason must have if it is to server as the explanation we need. He argues that this Reason must be a se as the theologians would say—this is where we get the doctrine of aseity, that God is independent, self-sufficient, self-originate, autonomous, absolute, etc.—it must be self-existent if it is to be the ultimate explanation. If the Reason we’re appealing to as our ultimate ground of our own reason is not self-existent but has been caused by something else, then, argues CSL, it needs an explanation itself and can’t serve as our ultimate explanation. So it must be a se, of itself, self-existent. Likewise, the self-existent Reason must have existed from all eternity for if it was caused to exist at a time then it wouldn’t be self-existent, it couldn’t exist on its own (this point may beg the question against positions like ‘Existential Inertia’ which argues that concrete objects, once existing, may just continue to persist without external sustenance, thus perhaps something could exist on its own without being self-existent or eternally existent). Furthermore, it must exist ‘incessantly’ that is, continuously. It could not have popped in and out of existence at any point for if it popped out of existence it would not be able to recall itself back into being once out of it, and it anything else recalled it back into being then it would be dependent on that thing, and CSL has already argued that the ultimate Reason must be self-existent and independent from other causes.

So, the ultimate explanation for my own reason must be:

· Rational

· Self-existent

· Eternal

· Incessant (ceaseless, continual, everlasting)

And this obviously does not describe any of us contingent human beings, “I therefore cannot be that eternal self-existent Reason which neither slumbers not sleeps. Yet if any thought is valid, such a Reason must exist and must be the source of my own imperfect and intermittent rationality.” (pg. 42).

CSL goes on to land the plane, “Human minds, then, are not the only supernatural entities that exist. They do not come from nowhere. Each has come into Nature from Supernature: each has its tap-root in an eternal, self-existent, rational Being, whom we call God.” (pg. 43).

I think this argument is so fascinating. It’s a bit hard to classify completely. Is this a straightforward cosmological argument?

It’s kind of like Thomas Aquinas’s 2^nd way argument: a chain of rational causes cannot be infinite, something cannot be the efficient cause of itself or else it would have to be prior to itself which is a contradiction, so there must be a first efficient cause of the rational chain which led to my own rational thoughts, and that first efficient cause is God.

It’s kind of like the Kalam cosmological argument: whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence, my own human reasoning began to exist, so my human reason has a cause, that cause must be rational itself if mine is to be rational, so there’s an uncaused rational cause, which we call God.

It’s kind of like a contingency style cosmological argument: everything that exists has an explanation either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause, all human reason is contingent, contingent reason cannot provide a sufficient cause or explanation for itself, therefore, a self-existent, necessary mind (or Reason) must exist to sufficiently cause or explain human reason.

It’s kind of like a metaphysical grounding argument: reason is something special with different qualities than anything else we find in Nature (remember the ‘aboutness’ or ‘intentionality’ of thought from the last chapter), thus it cannot be ultimately grounded in Nature; and though we reason, we cannot be the ultimate ground of it since it predates us and holds all throughout the cosmos, so there must be a cosmic mind which is the ground of Reason (this is too fast and not very good but I’m not trying very hard here, just waving at this option, for a detailed metaphysical grounding argument from the laws of logic to God, check out this wonderful piece by James Anderson and Greg Welty: https://www.proginosko.com/docs/The_Lord_of_Non-Contradiction.pdf )

It’s kind of like a transcendental argument too. Check out that wonderful lily pond analogy on page 45. CSL points to an aspect of human experience, rational minds, which is a retorsive starting point (remember from the post on chapter 3) since you cannot have the thought which denies that there are rational minds without being a rational mind yourself, and then asks what must be the case given that contingent rational minds exist? To which the answer is a cosmic, necessary, self-existent rational Mind, who we call God.

So, ultimately, what kind of argument is it? I’m not sure. I actually think CSL should have tightened this one up a bit. I think it’s probably closest to a contingency style cosmological argument with human rationality as the starting point. I think the argument could be interpreted as an epistemological one where, a chain of reasons needs to stretch back to a self-existent Reason in order for my own thoughts to be rational, but it’s better as a metaphysical argument where human reason needs a rational metaphysical explanation, and that explanation is a necessary rational Being, God.

But again, it could be pitched as an inference to the best explanation, like one of CSL’s arguments from chapter 3. Theism provides the best explanation for the intelligibility of the universe, “[Theism] and perhaps [theism] alone, fits in with the fact that Nature, though not apparently intelligent, is intelligible—that events in the remotest parts of space appear to obey the laws of rational thought” (49). And again, “No philosophical theory which I have yet come across is a radical improvement on the words of Genesis, that ‘In the beginning God made Heaven and Earth’” (51).

Cosmic Mind Objections

CSL treats two objections to his argument in this chapter:

1. Doesn’t the Cosmic Mind think through us then?

Wouldn’t it be better to say that I am a natural being and that God’s reason sometimes flows through me? CSL replies to this one with Emanuel Kant’s transcendental unity of apperception, a wild phrase to be sure. He argues that “Reasoning doesn’t ‘happen to’ us: we do it. Every train of thought is accompanied by what Kant called ‘the I think’.” (pg. 43). Our thoughts our fundamentally united by our ‘self’. Our phenomenal consciousness, that “what-its-likeness” of our consciousness, is unified and individuated from the rest of the cosmos. There’s a what-its-like-to-be-me that’s distinct from everything else in the universe. That conscious awareness of the ‘I think’ which accompanies all of our conscious thoughts shows that we are a subjective self and not the universe experiencing itself through us or a higher consciousness thinking its thoughts through us.

2. Couldn’t an emergent Cosmic Mind likewise explain cosmic reason?

On the bottom of pg. 45 through the top of pg. 47, CSL considers whether or not Naturalism could still be saved by positing an emergent cosmic consciousness or mind, like he first introduced on pg. 11. If the universe itself is conscious, then it would be prior to our minds and can serve as the cosmic mind needed to ground Reason, no?

“No” -CSL.

CSL argues that this emergent cosmic mind won’t do, since

This cosmic mind would be, just as much as our own minds, the product of mindless Nature. We have not escaped from the difficulty, we have only put it a stage further back. The cosmic mind will help us only if we put it at the beginning, if we suppose it to be, not the product of the total system, but the basic, original, self-existent Fact which exists in its own right. But to admit that sort of cosmic mind is to admit a God outside Nature, a transcendent and supernatural God. This route which looked like offering an escape, really leads us round again to the place we started from. (pg. 46-47).

So that’s chapter 4. It’s wonderful! His arguments may or may not be sound, but the reasoning is a really unique synthesis of a few different philosophical styles and arguments.

Chapter 5 – A Further Difficulty in Naturalism

I don’t want to spend as much time on this chapter, so here’s hoping that I don’t. I wrote a note in the margins at the top of the chapter title page summarizing the chapter with a quick quote from CSL: “the conscience of man is not the product of Nature”. I think that pretty much sums it up.

CSL starts by acknowledging that while the Naturalist cannot deny theoretical (or logical) reasoning without philosophically cutting their own throat, they may be able to deny practical reasoning (moral reasoning) or claim it is nothing more than illusions or biological by-products.

CSL recounts the social Darwinistic picture of how a conscience could have arisen given Naturalistic evolution on page 56 but then argues that while the “account may (or may not) explain why men do in fact make moral judgements [] it does not explain how they could be right in making them. It excludes, indeed, the very possibility of their being right… if Naturalism is true, ‘I ought’ is the same sort of statement as ‘I itch’ or ‘I’m going to be sick.’” (pg.56-57).

CSL is arguing that all moral language is drained of its oughtness, its right or wrongness, on Naturalism. All morality is reduced to preference. But this view, while not self-defeating like the view that reason can be reduced to physical causes, is unlivable. “The Naturalist must not destroy all my reverence for conscience on Monday and expect to find me still venerating it on Tuesday.” (pg.60).

He continues, “If we are to continue to make moral judgements (and whatever we say we shall in fact continue) then we must believe that the conscience of man is not a product of Nature. It can be valid only if it is an offshoot of some absolute moral wisdom, a moral wisdom which exists absolutely ‘on its own’ and is not a product of non-moral, non-rational Nature.” (pg. 60).

Now that’s pretty quick, but I think it makes sense. If you’re a Naturalist then you can believe that moral facts exist or don’t exist. If they don’t exist then you run into CSL’s criticism. If they do exist, then what are they? Where are they? What are moral facts and why think that Naturalistic evolution would put us in touch with them? Why think that our cognitive faculties would evolve to be aimed at moral truths and why think we would evolve to act according to moral truths or moral facts instead of in accord with sheer reproductive success and survival? This is a longer conversation, but that’s the thrust of CSL’s argument. Let me know what you think in the comments for sure.

Chapter 6 – Answers to Misgivings

In this chapter, CSL answers a few misgivings about his argument thus far and about miracles in general. I only want to touch on his announcer analogy, since it’s on theme with the argument from Reason type stuff he’s been leveling since chapter 3. If you want me to cover the rest of his answers to misgivings leave me a comment and we’ll talk them through in the comment section.

CSL acknowledges that there is a tight relation between the intellect and the brain but argues that “Reason is something more than cerebral biochemistry.” (pg. 63). The relation of the supernatural aspect of the human person—that immaterial intellect or mind or what have you—to the physical brain is akin to an announcer and the microphone/sound system which transmits his voice. If the sound system is damaged, it will only let through so much of the speaker’s voice, like if the human brain is damaged, it can affect how much of the human mind is able to interact with physical reality. The announcers voice can be conditioned by the apparatus but the apparatus is not the origin of the speaker’s voice—the speaker is. If we knew there was no speak at the microphone and it was just the wind (a non-rational cause) blowing against the mic making noise, we wouldn’t pay attention to the noise as though it were trying to tell us anything. So it is with the rational mind and the physical brain. If all we were getting was the result of non-rational physical causes when we speak with other humans, we’d be silly to treat their speech as though it was the product of rational thinking.

Whew! Okay we’re through chapter 6. That was a lot, even with the truncated analysis of chapters 5&6! Thanks for bearing with me. If you have not been having fun yet, it’s about to get a lot more fun, so keep going. I’m pumped that we made it through the most philosophical of all of CSL’s corpus and now we’re going to be getting into more of his theological teachings.

Let me know what you thought of the first 6 chapters, or chapters 4-6 specifically. Do you have lingering questions? Drop them in the comments and let’s see if we can answer them.