Do You Want to Read CS Lewis's Miracles with Me?

A Parker's Ponderings Book Club Proposal

I’ve seen people do read-alongs here on Substack with varying degrees of success.

Jared Henderson

is absolutely crushing it with his and people are really enjoying it and being blessed by it. I never thought I’d be interested in doing something like that—that is, setting a schedule for my audience to read certain chapters of a book by certain dates and then me writing a companion piece on those chapters for whoever is reading along on schedule—but I’ve been thinking a lot about C.S. Lewis’s Miracles lately and that’s a book I’d absolutely love to do a read through on.

I’ve written several papers on Miracles during my 3 Master’s degrees and I was even lucky enough to get access to Lewis’s own books, with his marginal notes, from the Wade Center at Wheaton College while I was working on one of my papers. I believe I still have the notes I copied and would love to share those in my companion pieces— nothing too revelational but still cool. Anyways, throughout my studies, I ended up meticulously annotating one of my copies of Miracles to help me with any future projects. So it wouldn’t be too much work for me to turn my marginalia into companion pieces to help my audience understand Lewis.

Miracles was written partly in response to Dorthy Sayers’s request to Lewis. She said something like “hey, we need a good book on miracles and you need to write it” if I’m remembering this correctly (I’ll double check this kind of stuff before I publish my pieces on the book). Lewis said “word, I’m in, but I’m going to throw in 4 or 5 chapters where I advance Arthur James Balfour’s argument from reason in various forms” (he didn’t really say that but he definitely did that). He then goes on to give us some really rich theological musings about the nature of God, God’s relation to nature, and the nature of miracles. So the book is very philosophical and very theological and very C.S. Lewis. It’s one of my favorite books of all time.

I’m thinking I can help my audience get into philosophy and theology on some deeper levels by using Miracles as a jumping off point.

I know that a lot of you reading this are not Christians. That’s fine. I think this study will help you get a very good grasp on why certain Christians think the way we do. The philosophical insights are immensely fascinating, even if you disagree with his conclusions. The first 4 to 6 chapters are chalked full of arguments in epistemology, phenomenology, and the philosophy of mind. If you’re interested in philosophy this will benefit you. If you’re interested in the philosophy of religion, this will benefit you. If you’re into apologetics and Christian theology, the rest of the book will definitely benefit you—again, even if you disagree with Lewis’s conclusions or reasoning processes, it will be good to examine them and figure out where and why you disagree.

So, here’s what I’m thinking, a six week read through broken up into the following sections with zoom calls for paid subscribers:

- Chapters 1-4 – Arguments from Reason against Naturalism

- Chapters 5-6 – Morality and Reason Are More than Biology

- Zoom Call for Paid Subscribers

- Chapters 7-9 – Nature and the Nature of Miracles

- Chapters 10-12 – On the Creator-Creature Relation (Author Analogy)

- Zoom Call for Paid Subscribers

- Chapter 13 – Argument from Reason Revisited

- Chapters 14-Appendix – The True Myth

- Zoom Call for Paid Subscribers

Something like that with the zoom calls being recorded and put up as exclusive content for my Patrons, YouTube Members, and paid Substack subscribers to watch back later.

I could see something like this turning into a book project, which would be sick—publishers holler at me. But even if not, it seems like a really fun project. It’d be a way for me to write and teach—which I love—and a way for you all to learn and debate ideas.

But is there any interest in this?

Would you be interested in my analysis of Lewis’s Miracles? If you’re a free subscriber, would those zoom calls entice you to becoming a paid subscriber? I am trying to do this as a living, so learning what kinds of things would get you to level up and support my work is really beneficial. If you’re a paid subscriber or Patron or YT Member, would you be interested in joining those calls live or watching them back if you can’t make the live sessions?

I know people don’t often comment on Substack but please do and let me know your thoughts. I have a lot going on but I think something like this could really be worth it for me and you.