~ The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Oh, gentlemen, perhaps I really regard myself as an intelligent man only because throughout my entire life
I’ve never been able to start or finish anything...
Every man has some reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone, but only to his friends. He has others
which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. But finally there
are still others which a man is even afraid to tell himself...
Monday, December 21, 2009
Miracles and Realism
"...in my experience miracles never bother a realist. It is not miracles that incline a realist towards faith. The true realist, if he is not a believer, will invariably find within himself the strength and the ability not to believe in miracles either, and if a miracle stands before him as an incontrovertible fact, he will sooner disbelieve his senses than admit that fact. And even if he does admit it, it will be as a fact of nature, but one that until now has been obscure to him. In the realist it is not faith that is born of miracles, but miracles of faith. Once the realist believes, his realism inexorably compels him to admit miracles too. The Apostle Thomas declared that he would not believe until he saw, and when he saw, said: 'My Lord and my God.' Was it the miracle that made him believe? The likeliest explanation is that it was not, and that he came to believe for the sole reason that he wanted to believe and, perhaps, in the inmost corners of his being already fully believed, even when he said: 'Except I shall see...I will not believe.'"
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