Miracles and the Critical Mind

It has been said that miracles were once the foundation of all apologetics. Then they became a crutch, and finally today they are frequently treated as a cross which apologetics has to bear. In Miracles and the Critical Mind Colin Brown makes a fresh examination of the arguments about the miracles of Jesus and their place in faith today. Brown examines in detail David Hume's celebrated attack on miracles, recognizing, however, that it is set against the background of an ongoing controversy that began in Jesus' own lifetime and continues unabated to the present. This leads him to reappraise the role of miracles in Christian apologetics in the light of the work of B. B. Warfield, C. S. Lewis, Alan Richardson, and contemporary evangelical and Catholic writers. According to Brown, the miracle stories enable us to focus on God in Christ; the role of the apologist is to elucidate the truth-conditions that belong to acceptance or rejection of miracles. Integrating philosophy, theology, critical work, and apologetics, Brown offers a comprehensive account of the debate on the miracles of Jesus from the early church to the present time. The five main sections of the book cover the pre-scientific age from the second-c apologists to Luther and Calvin; the rise of skepticism in the 17th and 18 c; the legacy of the 19th c; the ongoing debate among philosophers, apologists, and biblical critics; and, finally, a reappraisal of the place of miracles in the truth-claims of Christianity and the NT picture of Jesus. The concluding chapter reviews the place of the miracle stories in the 4 Gospels. While traditional interpretations have tended to see the stories as proof of the personal divinity of Jesus, Brown sees the miracles of Jesus as standing in the tradition of prophetic signs which embody and illustrate the message and significance of Jesus. They point not only to his person but to the activity of the Trinity.