In this recently published book, Revealed Mysteries Rationally Defended, Dennis Bonnette turns his attention to miracles, and helps us understand how the supernatural enables us to know perfection. This is the last in a series of six books, all of which we have excerpted. Please consider purchasing a copy of this book to support the valuable work of Professor Bonnette.
Read excerpts from Book 1, Book 2, Book 3, Book 4, and Book 5.
Revealed Mysteries Rationally Defended, is the sixth and last of a series of publications containing shorter portions of the much larger volume – each with themes coherent in themselves as subjects of independent investigation, and yet, still subordinate to the overall message of Rational Responses to Skepticism.
Revealed Mysteries Rationally Defended itself contains six chapters. Each one was originally published online as an independent article – making it easier for the reader to make complete sense of its content without reading the other five chapters or the entire large volume from which it came.
The first chapter addresses the credibility of reports of supernatural miracles. Its focus is not primarily on the evidence that could prove the truth of particular miracles. Rather, it is an examination of the reasons why believers find miracles credible, whereas unbelievers do not. Curiously, the very difference in these approaches itself turns out to be an indirect proof of which group is right.
Skeptics tend to follow the position of David Hume, who claimed that, since miracles would violate the laws of nature, the evidence supporting them is never sufficient for rational belief, since it is always more probable that the reports are false due to misperception, faulty transmission, or deception than that such violations of nature’s universal regularity should occur.
Why is it, then, that believers, especially Catholics, find such reports of miracles so convincing that they will commit their very lives to a faith which depends on claims of such miracles? This chapter presents reasons why such belief appears fully rational to believers, even though skeptics, because of their a priori view of the improbable nature of miracles, will never accept such reports. This chapter shows why it sometimes pays to examine the exact nature of how evidence is obtained before rejecting it out of hand.
The second chapter explores the intriguing question of what it is like to experience being dead, that is, in some form of afterlife. This chapter examines this issue, not from a theological perspective, but from a purely rational philosophical one. Not only are there rational philosophical proofs that the human soul continues to exist after death, but also some understanding of the nature of such life after death is now available through the scientific examination of near death experiences.
Veridical evidence is examined. That is, for example, the verifiable fact that the person who is clinically dead knows things during that state which would be impossible for him to know while having virtually complete absence of brain activity. This includes, upon awakening, remembering things occurring in other rooms or things impossible for him to hear or see while unconscious. Amazingly, over eighty percent of those blind from birth have clear visual experiences while clinically dead! Moreover, many persons experience having a “spirit body” or “soul body,” which is like a transparent bodily form, free of all pain, able to move at will — even through physical objects.
Chapters three and four treat a major biblical topic in light of rational and scientific analysis. Today many people think that the biblical story of Adam and Eve is simply pious mythology. Evolutionary biology speaks about human beings having evolved from primitive hominins as whole populations with “bottlenecks” of no less than several thousand individuals – never in terms of a single mating pair of first true humans.
Moreover, many Christians follow a biblical interpretation that places Adam and Eve at a mere six to ten thousand years ago. This is clearly contrary to anthropological evidence from ancient artifacts and the controlled use of fire that indicate much earlier dates for true human beings – at least some three-quarters of a million years ago. Further complicating the matter, present genetic diversity has been claimed to preclude an earlier genetic “bottleneck” of a single mating pair from whom all true human beings must have descended — a literal Adam and Eve.
Many attempt to defend the truth of a literal Adam and Eve, but fail to take into account the complexity of the task. A true solution requires more than merely asserting some date in the past when our first parents are alleged to have existed. These estimates, ranging usually from six-thousand years ago (for certain biblical literalists) to somewhere around two-hundred and fifty thousand years ago (based on Mitochondrial Eve and Y-Chromosome Adam), still fail to comport with anthropological evidence indicating that true human beings existed hundreds of thousands of years even earlier.
In order to get a true and correct understanding of actual human origins, it is necessary to see the absolute and direct connection between the truths about human origins given to us through the three distinct intellectual disciplines which must contribute correct information in order to solve the problem. The three sources of information concerning how a literal Adam and Eve are possible are (1) philosophical, (2) theological, and (3) scientific in nature.
If one attempts to understand the true story of Adam and Eve, but employs correct data from only one or two of these three sources, false conclusions may well be drawn. For example, those who think Adam lived less than ten thousand years ago may get the philosophy and theology right, but their understanding of true human origins is seriously in error, since they fail to take into account scientific evidence that true human beings existed hundreds of thousands of years ago, based on clear signs of human intellectual activities by earlier hominins – and theology demands that Adam be the first true human being to live on planet Earth!
All three sources must be employed correctly in order to obtain the true story of human origins. This is accomplished in chapters three and four of this book.
Philosophically, while materialistic evolutionists maintain that the emergence of human intelligence is simply the natural outcome of millions of years of gradual improvements in sensory abilities attending increasing brain complexity, the truth is that intellectual knowledge is qualitatively distinct from sensation, cannot emerge gradually, and requires the God-given gift of a spiritual soul. The first true man is the first primate with an intellectual, spiritual, and immortal soul.
Theologically, the first true man – a primate with intellectual powers – was Adam. All true men on planet Earth must be descendants of Adam and Eve.
Scientifically, it is necessary to show that the above philosophical and theological criteria for a single mating pair of first true human beings are compatible with legitimate scientific evidence that includes present genetic diversity and signs that true man lived at least some three-quarters of a million years ago.
Readers of the third and fourth chapters of this book will be pleasantly surprised to find demonstrated therein that all three criteria – philosophical, theological, and scientific are, indeed, fully coherent and compatible. Doing so will entail employing some recent scientific analysis.
Chapter five considers an objection frequently made by skeptics against the Catholic belief that the Blessed Mother of Jesus can answer all the millions and millions of prayers addressed to her each day.
This chapter offers several possible rational explanations as to how this seemingly impossible feat could well be accomplished, including the possibility that God simply answers the prayers on Mary’s behalf. Also, while the billions of total prayers over time appear daunting, they are ultimately limited by the finitude of time, whereas the Blessed Mother has all of eternity in which to act – while God, since his eternal being is entirely outside of time, could apply her responses retroactively to the time they are needed. These and other possible solutions are explained.
The sixth chapter purports to center on UFOs and space aliens, but does so somewhat indirectly. It addresses these presently contentious issues by first establishing certain absolute truths essential to the natural foundations of religion as well as the clearest modern proof of true religious revelation itself. Once these are established, simple logic demands that, since what has been demonstrated conclusively to be absolutely true cannot ever be contradicted by new evidence, any claims about UFOs and space aliens cannot contradict the settled claims of true religion.
Chapter six does all this by starting at the very foundations of epistemology and metaphysics, using them to erect a natural theology with perfect certitude. The first principles of metaphysics and logic are established – beginning with the initial judgment of being as encountered in lived experience. This first certitude is enunciated by philosopher Jacques Maritain as “Scio aliquid esse; I know something to be.”
From this immediately-given, absolutely-certain judgment is formed the concept of being and its correlative first principles: identity, non-contradiction, sufficient reason, and causality. These most basic ontological truths are then employed to show how the classical proofs for God can be developed from them. A variation of the famous proof from motion is presented along with comments on how all the classical proofs for God, especially the Five Ways of St. Thomas Aquinas, remain valid and conclusive today, just as they were when written centuries ago.
Nothing new that we may learn about space aliens or UFOs can undo the apodictic certitude of these arguments and their conclusions.
Chapter six also includes other themes important to Christian revelation, including the nature of God as Creator of all things and his relation to the world, resolution of the “problem of evil,” and proofs for the spirituality and immortality of the human soul.
This very comprehensive chapter of the book also addresses Catholicism’s clearest modern proof: the three massively-observed miracles that took place on 13 October 1917 in Fatima, Portugal.
The Fatima miracles entailed three distinct events: (1) the prediction, (2) the solar observations by some forty thousand to one-hundred thousand witnesses, and (3) the sudden drying of the people’s clothes and the ground after a steady, soaking rain. Careful analysis of the solar observations reveal that they were not objective behaviors of the sun itself, but rather massive visions being experienced by tens of thousands of people simultaneously! Unlike the visual experiences of the people, the sudden massive drying miracle so contravenes the laws of nature that neither space aliens nor demons could have produced it. This chapter explains the reasoning behind these conclusions.
Finally, often overlooked, even by those who grant the miraculous nature of some of the events at Fatima, is the categorical sign that Fatima is intended by God as proof of the truth of Catholicism itself. This is clearly shown by the fact that on 13 October 1917 the lady that appeared to the children said “I am the Lady of the Rosary.” In all six apparitions the lady told the children and the world to pray the Rosary.
The Rosary’s origin and general use is exclusive to the Catholic Church. While firmly rejected by most Protestants, it is noteworthy that the Rosary was adopted by Catholicism only after the Orthodox Church broke from Rome. Therefore, the messenger from God and the message of Fatima bore the unequivocal stamp of Catholicism by focusing upon and affirming the centrality of the Rosary. Even the very title of the person from Heaven appearing at Fatima was “the Lady of the Rosary.”
If any genuine miracles took place that day, they affirm God’s direct approval of the Catholic religion.
In summary, chapter six begins by examining the first certitudes on which all human knowledge is based. It then applies these first principles to the data of experience so as to produce absolutely certain proof of the existence of the God of classical theism. It finishes by presenting the clearest modern proof that Catholicism is God’s own true religious revelation for all humanity.
While chapter six of Religious Mysteries Rationally Defended deals only indirectly with UFOs and space aliens, chapter seven meets these topics head on as its title indicates: “Feasibility of Actual Space Alien Visits to Planet Earth.”
This chapter first directly addresses the inherent astrophysical objections to the physical possibility of extraterrestrials visiting Earth – objections that have largely been ignored by science fictions writers like those entertaining audiences on TV shows, such as Star Trek. It then examines the probable nature of recent reports of drones and mysterious orbs as well as the possibility of massive public deception about an “alien invasion” as speculated about in the fictitious Project Blue Beam.
Finally, chapter seven examines of the possibility of demonic deception underlying many of the reports about UFOs and alien abductions. In sum, the objective evidence appears to reject the objective reality of any actual visits to planet Earth by physical space aliens from other planetary systems.
In the eighth and concluding chapter of the book, the author recounts his own all too painful experience of the reality of suffering – a suffering substantially relieved by his own direct encounter with an objective, genuine miracle. This miracle is presented to readers in a short essay entitled: “A License from God.” It is hoped that including this very personal account of how God’s mercy has touched the author’s own life may serve to promote religious faith in its readers and give them greater reason to trust in God’s love and mercy.
Revealed Mysteries Rationally Defended is the sixth and final book in the series which is taken from the much larger volume, Rational Responses to Skepticism. It offers fresh light on some of the most central revelations and mysteries found in all of God’s creation – ranging from a most complete and accurate explanation of the literal reality of our first human parents, Adam and Eve, down to a concrete example of God’s great love and mercy shown to a present day man and his wife on the occasion of her entering the eternal presence of God.
******
Other Themes of Christian Philosophy
One of the unhappy consequences of pure materialism is that its doctrine entails that nothing above the subatomic level actually exists. One need merely ask what happens when two atoms combine, say sodium and chlorine, when they join to form table salt or sodium chloride. Does this make one being, or, is it still two distinct atoms forming a temporary union? According to the materialistic philosophy of atomism, two atoms sharing an electronic link to form a molecule are no more one thing than are two people shaking hands a single organism.
The major historical alternative to atomism is Aristotle’s doctrine of hylemorphism, which says that all physical things are composed of matter and form, where form is an immaterial principle which makes a thing one substance of a certain nature. What is at stake is whether unified things with specific and diverse natures exist above the subatomic level. Are human beings single things of a same nature throughout? Are we just a pile of atoms or are we one thing of a unified nature? Common sense and experience says we are one single substance. Thus, if someone is punched in the stomach, we don’t say that just a stomach was punched. We say the person was punched, since we are human in every cell of our being from head to toe.
But how do we know that we are a single substance, such that the nature of all our parts is human—not a “foot nature,” “a hand nature,” and a “brain” nature? The evidence is abundant.
First, all parts of a whole function for the good of the whole, not just itself. That is, our stomachs do not just digest food for itself, but to feed the metabolism of the entire organism. Our feet sacrifice their comfort on long hikes for the sake of moving the entire person from one place to another.
Even more definitive is our actual experience of existential unity as we react to, for example, the attack of a mad dog. We simultaneously see and hear and feel the attack of the beast with all our senses in a single unified subjective painful and horrified experience. Then, we marshal all our psychological and physical powers to fend off this attack, keenly aware of our same self both as the central receptor of the incoming fire of all the senses and as the central agent of the outgoing actions of all our being to repel this dangerous attacker.
In this vivid experience we are directly and immediately self-aware of the unified nature of our person and all its senses and physical powers interacting with external forces in terms of a “unified command center.” This evident unity of our human person requires a real principle of unity, which accounts for our specifically human behavior—a nature or form (as Aristotle would call it), which makes a single, unified substance existing over and above the physical elements which compose it. This principle of life that makes us an individual human being is what is called the soul.
The Human Soul’s Immaterial Nature
This same self that enables the body to act in a unified manner also exhibits activities and powers that transcend the materiality of the body alone.
First, our senses apprehend the physically extended complexity of our environment in such manner as to grasp whole objects in a single, simple way that is impossible for purely physical things to do. Most clear is the instance of vision, where we can see both tops and bottoms of objects in a single act.
Electronic devices, like televisions, can represent objects physically extended in space solely by having different parts of the representing medium represent different parts of the object. For example, for a television to represent a tree on its surface, hundreds of thousands of pixels across its face are either illuminated or not, so as to depict the parts of the tree. No single pixel “sees” anything, since it is both inanimate and is either illuminated or not. It is only the pattern of illuminated pixels that represents the whole tree.
But a dumb canine, bounding into the room, instantly can see the whole image of the tree, top and bottom, in a single act of sight—unifying the physically extended and disparate parts of the image into a single subjective experience that cannot be itself physically extended in space. Why not extended in space? Because then one part would represent one part of the tree and a separate part would represent a different part of the tree and nothing would “see” the whole. That is the nature of material things. Different parts do different things.
But the act of seeing the whole tree in a single act requires that the sense power involved must not be itself extended in space. And to not be extended in space means to be immaterial.
Thus the sensitive soul, which enables an animal to experience sensation, must itself not be material, since it enables the animal to perform immaterial actions–actions not extended in space.
The Human Soul’s Spiritual Nature
Animals show evidence of immateriality in their simple apprehension of sense objects, as I have just shown. But, the problem for life in the animal kingdom is that even such “immateriality” fails to escape completely dependence upon the animals’ material bodies and organs. This is evident because both sense objects and sense images are always experienced under the conditions of matter, as we humans see in our own sense lives.
Sense experience is always “under the conditions of time and space.” This means that such experiences are always concrete, particular, singular, and have imaginable material qualities, such as specific size, color, shape, weight, sounds, and so forth. If one imagines a triangle or horse, it must always be with a particular color, size, shape, and so forth. Such images are always under such “conditions of matter,” and thus, fail to show complete independence of matter, that is, of material organs, such as the brain.
Like animals, man has sense powers. But, unlike animals, man also exhibits superior intellectual acts, such as understanding universal concepts, judging, reasoning, and making free choices. For present purposes, I shall focus on the first act of the mind: abstracting universal concepts.
Universal concepts or ideas are free of all material conditions and manifest the genuinely spiritual nature of the human soul. Thus, while it is easy to imagine a triangle or a horse, it is utterly impossible to imagine “triangularity” or “horseness,” since such an image would have to simultaneously contain the concrete shape and other qualities of every possible triangle and horse, which is impossible. I can imagine a particular triangle. For most people, this turns out to be an equilateral one! But triangularity can be expressed as well in concrete triangles that are acute, obtuse, and even isosceles. Yes, we tend to associate an image with a concept. But one person may imagine a mouse when thinking of “animal,” while another is imagining an elephant instead. That is why, when communicating with someone, we do not finish by saying, “Did you get my images?” Rather, we say, “Do you understand my meaning?”
Moreover, many universal concepts simply have no physically concrete instances, for example, such inherently spiritual ideas as justice, virtue, beauty, truth, or equality. Conceptual knowledge is radically different from, and superior to, mere animal sensory experience or imagining.
Universal concepts are neither extended in space nor do they manifest being under material conditions, which would, as in the case of images, imply dependence on matter. As such, they are spiritual in nature.
While this is not the only argument for the human soul’s spirituality, it is the most well-known one, dating at least as far back as Plato’s dialogue, Phaedo. Since the less perfect cannot be a sufficient reason for the more perfect, it is clear that merely material organs, like the human brain, cannot account for the formation of spiritual universal concepts. Since man can produce such spiritual entities as universal concepts, it is clear that he must possess such powers, not in his body, but in his soul–a soul, which must be as spiritual as is the concepts it produces.
Thus, philosophical proof exists of the spiritual nature of the human soul. Importantly, this rational truth casts further light on the nature of God.
The Spiritual Soul Must be Created
While the sense knowledge we share with animals is shown to be immaterial (meaning that it is not extended in space), still such knowledge is understood to be dependent on material organs. This is evident because both images and sense objects are always known under the conditions of matter, that is, with a particular shape, color, extension, and so forth. But our intellectual knowledge of universals is spiritual as is the human soul, because, not only are concepts not extended in space, but also they have no sensible qualities at all, which shows that they cannot be the product of sense organs. That is, unlike images, concepts exist independently of matter.
Because of this, the human spiritual soul is utterly superior to organic matter. Sense organs alone cannot produce what is spiritual. Thus, we have a problem as to the origin of the human spiritual soul. For, how can matter produce what is strictly immaterial? How can the lower or less perfect produce what is higher or more perfect? It cannot.
Bodily beings produce only more bodily beings. Spiritual entities exceed the powers of bodily beings to procreate. Since the human soul is not dependent on matter for its existence, it exceeds the procreative power of merely material organs. And a spiritual being cannot be changed into another spiritual being, since they lack the hylemorphic (matter-form) composition needed to explain change in physical nature. Since the human spiritual soul comes to be from neither bodily being nor from pre-existent spiritual being, it can only come into existence through creation, that is, from nothing that preexists its coming into existence (Summa Theologiae, I, q. 90, a. 2, c.).
Since it begins to exist at the beginning of human life, the human spiritual soul must be created by some spiritual agent extrinsic to the human beings, whose procreative activity occasions its creation at the moment of conception.
But to create means to make something without any preexisting material. It takes infinite power to create. St. Thomas Aquinas demonstrates this truth as follows:
“For a greater power is required in the agent insofar as the potency is more remote from the act, it must be that the power of an agent which produces from no presupposed potency, such as a creating agent does, would be infinite, because there is no proportion between no potency and the potency presupposed by the power of a natural agent, just as there is no proportion between non-being and being” (Summa Theologiae, I,q.45, a.5, ad 3).
What St. Thomas is pointing out here is that the measure of power is taken, not merely from the effect produced, but also from the proportion between what is presupposed by the agent in order to produce the effect and the effect produced. That is to say, while it takes a certain measure of power to make a horse from pre-existing horses, it would take far greater power to make a horse from merely vegetative life—not to mention the power required to make a horse from non-living matter. But, to make a horse, while presupposing nothing at all, requires immeasurably greater power.
As St. Thomas points out, there is no proportion between having nothing at all from which to make something and the thing produced, just as there is no proportion between non-being and being (Ibid.). But, what is immeasurable is literally “without limit,” or infinite. Hence, it takes infinite power to make something while presupposing nothing preexistent out of which to make it.
