Work Classification Layer
Compare Works
Pick two or more works to set their attribute fingerprints, dimension-by-dimension passages, and shared school embodiments side by side. Especially useful for author-stage comparisons (Wittgenstein early vs late) and for setting a single tradition's foundational texts against each other.
Miracles: A Preliminary Study
Naturalism is self-refuting — and if naturalism fails, the antecedent improbability of miracles disappears
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Miracles: A Preliminary Study (Mature (after Mere Christianity and Screwtape; the most philosophical of Lewis's apologetic works)) |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Non-Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Linear |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Infinite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Space · Curvature | Flat |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | Local |
| Matter · Extent | Infinite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Matter · Conservation | Conserved |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | Local |
| Observer · Time Instance | Single |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Partial |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Both |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Personal |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Scripture |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Infinite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Variable |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Irreversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Information · Cosmic Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Personal Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Granularity | Discrete |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
Miracles: A Preliminary Study
The historical time of the Christian narrative — Incarnation, miracles, Resurrection — as events that can be examined for their credibility.
Space
Miracles: A Preliminary Study
The created world as the natural space within which the supernatural can occasionally and lawfully interpose.
Matter
Miracles: A Preliminary Study
Material nature is real and lawful; the question is whether it exhausts reality or whether a higher level of agency can act on it.
Observer
Miracles: A Preliminary Study
The rational human knower whose reasoning ability is the central data point against naturalism; the religious observer who recognises divine action.
Energy
Miracles: A Preliminary Study
Natural energies as usually law-governed; miracles as discrete acts of supernatural agency that do not violate but supplement natural causation.
Information
Miracles: A Preliminary Study
The discrete miracle as an information-bearing event — an act of divine self-disclosure that the human observer can recognise as such.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
Anscombe's 1948 Socratic Club critique — that Lewis's anti-naturalism argument confused "causes" with "reasons" — was widely taken to have damaged Lewis's case; the 1960 revised chapter is a substantial reply but the debate continues (Reppert's C. S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea, 2003, defends a strengthened version). The book's treatment of "natural law" is sometimes loose by post-1960 standards in philosophy of science. The argument has been more influential in popular Christian apologetics than in professional philosophy, where the supernatural framework remains contested.