Lewis makes a case for the reality of miracles by presenting the position that something more than nature, a supernatural world, may exist, including a benevolent creator likely to intervene in reality after creation.

In form the book is a parody of the Book of Genesis, with Blake's Urizen being more similar to the demiurge of the Gnostics than a benevolent creator.

But while the words in the sermons changed with locale, the themes were the same: the brevity and capriciousness of life and the maddening mystery of evil in a world with a supposedly benevolent creator.

In particular, it challenged long-standing beliefs in such concepts as a special and exalted place for humans in the natural world and a benevolent creator whose intentions were reflected in nature's order and design.

We deem it expedient to establish a paper," they remarked, "and bring into operation all the means with which out benevolent creator has endowed us, for the moral, religious, civil and literary improvement of our race.

You might come to the conclusion that sad, myopic humans are the ones who obesses about that, not a benevolent creator - and you may decide to be a spiritual person not affiliated to any of the existing, misogenistic and homophobic clubs on offer...

Those who managed - at the risk of life, limb and elementary civility - to see "Éloge de l'Amour" found themselves in the hands of a sad, inscrutable but nonetheless benevolent creator.

There he explained his theory of primitive monotheism, the belief that primitive religion among almost all tribal peoples began with an essentially monotheistic concept of a high god - usually a sky god - who was a benevolent creator.

A minority of workers, D'Antonio writes, looked at Hershey and saw not "a benevolent creator" but "an egotistical captain of industry."