Miracles and Physics (2nd Ed)

This myopic view presents one of the dangers confronting the modern Christian regarding the perceived conflict between the supernatural and the rigors of modern science. This book was published to provide the facts that demonstrate the orderly relationship between faith and reason, between science and miracles.

In these incisive pages, scientist and theologian Stanley Jaki makes the case for establishing a proper understanding of the miraculous in history while recognizing the demands of modern science. He argues against the naïveté that forces shallow methods upon the scientific disciplines, resulting in the evaporation of both reason and miracles. On the flip side, he criticizes the inherently irreligious spirit that empties the world of wonder out of homage to an outdated rationalism.

As Jaki deconstructs the position of several philosophers, including Kant, Descartes, and Hume, you will learn how to evaluate scientific views of philosophy in the aftermath of Newtonian physics. With systematic reasoning, candor, and occasional humor, Jaki fills in the gaps that twentieth-century physics cannot explain and answers overarching questions such as: Is God simply the “clockmaker,” or is He intimately involved in human affairs? Jaki also explains:

• Why the rejection of a personal God has nothing to do with science
• The three main sources that foster awareness of God
• Why Einstein perceived that his cosmology pointed to the Creator
• How the theory of relativity indirectly supports the belief in miracles
• Shortcomings in the view of determinism
• Why Alexis Carrel, winner of the Nobel Prize in Medicine, came to believe in miracles

Ultimately, Jaki convincingly proves that, by beginning with any starting point other than the external reality, mankind is led by the “hollow glitter of mathematical operators that give no certainty about anything real, let alone about miracles and Providence in human history.” Jaki wrote this book, he explained, to prevent minds from being ravaged by such logical fallacies.