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In his famous argument against miracles, David Hume gets to the heart of the modern problem of supernatural belief. 'We are apt', says Hume, 'to imagine ourselves transported into some new world; where the whole form of nature is disjointed, and every element performs its operation in a different manner, from what it does at present.' This encapsulates, observes Peter Harrison, the disjuncture between contemporary Western culture and medieval societies. In the Middle Ages, people saw the hand of God at work everywhere. Indeed, many suppose that 'belief in the supernatural' is likewise fundamental nowadays to religious commitment. But dichotomising between 'naturalism' and 'supernaturalism' is actually a relatively recent phenomenon, just as the notion of 'belief' emerged historically late. In this masterful contribution to intellectual history, the author overturns crucial misconceptions – 'myths' – about secular modernity, challenging common misunderstandings of the past even as he reinvigorates religious thinking in the present.
Though he is now praised for the realism of his fiction, Defoe often introduced evidence of supernatural presences into his writings. From his satirical poem The Storm. An Essay (1704), which excoriates non-believers in the reality and power of the Divinity, to his Essay on the History and Reality of Apparitions (1727), which argues the necessity of belief in angels, spirits, and the Devil, Defoe warned that denial of the supernatural world inevitably ends in the denial of God and the damnation of the non-believer. At the same time, he rejected superstition, ghost stories, idolatry, and paganism as corruptions of the supernatural. Using the paradigm developed by Blaise Pascal, he showed that belief in angels, spirits, and the Devil brought no harm, except for the loss of some material comforts in life, while denial of the signs of Providence delivered through these supernatural messengers was a bad bet.
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