Atheism and Theism 147to emphasize, however, against a common assumption among theists who
claim to believe in the miraculous, is that it is a mistake to think of miracles
as interventions from outside creation. The miraculous belongs to the cat-
egory of the preternatural (L. praeter ( going beyond) naturam(the natural))
but as Aquinas very soberly explains in his chapters on miracles in the Summa
Contra Gentiles III, God’s special actions are additions or subtractions within
an order in which he is already active.
Imagine for example that a long and densely packed commuter train starts
to accelerate out of control towards the crowded main platform of a central
station. The seemingly inevitable collision will result in hundreds of deaths.
Now suppose that, unaccountably, the hitherto jammed brakes take effect
and disaster is averted. This might be a fluke but let us suppose that it is in
fact a miracle. We could try to think of God’s action as arising outside the
causal order and thus as in a sense coming from nowhere; but that generates
interactionist puzzles and suggests a basically deist God suddenly deciding
to make a contribution to a creation to which he is otherwise indifferent.
According to the view developed above, however, the miracle consists in God
extending his many-part contribution to a process in which he is already
involved. The designs of Providence are little known to humankind, but it is
a comfort nonetheless to know that Providence is always with us.
10 Theism – Philosophical and Religious
Finally, let me offer a brief observation about the relationship between the
conclusions of speculative reason and the deliverances of religion. As I have
explained, I am committed to a version of theism – Roman Catholicism –
that is not light on doctrine. Some readers might imagine, therefore, that
I would claim that given time and intellectual power a thinker could reason
from metaphysical first principles to such theological details as the Trinity,
transubstantiation, the dogma of the Immaculate conception of Mary (that
she was born without stain of original sin) and the doctrine of the Virgin
birth. This is not so. Indeed, as Aquinas (thus far the greatest philosopher-
theologian) was wont to observe, the knowledge of God provided by reason
alone amounts to a form of agnostic theism: a warranted conviction that there
is a God, and an equally warranted uncertainty as to his nature.
Nonetheless, I maintain that there is also warrant for the wealth of
doctrine taught by the Church. By implication, therefore, I believe there
are other sources of knowledge about God. Some make much of the potential
of personal religious experience but this is fraught with epistemological
uncertainties, and notoriously liable to social and psychological eccentricity.
Without the possibility of a well-attested general revelation protected for all