J.G. Keely's Reviews > Mere Christianity

Well, here's my problem: with a simple book, I feel I can adequately cover a fairly in-depth analysis in a review. The ideas which sprout from a criticism or reading often blossom into something much wider and greater than the original work, at which point one might stray to those other points and use the work to express something more about humanity, the world, literature, &c.

The problem with trying to review this work is that I would feel it necessary to give the author his due. This is usually my general motivation, and so my reviews either head towards rather complex to those books I feel I can capture in the space allotted, or to more simplistic impressions and ideas, such as in the case of this book, where a complete and respectful analysis is a work unto itself.

Not only this, but to confront this book and look at the points of self-contradiction, or straying, or inapt metapohor, or tautology would summarily and immediately bring me into a much vaster arena of Theological debate, which is an arena vastly larger than Lewis has devised here (or indeed, in his works in general).

Indeed, he admits this himself, but it remains part of his problem. There is a sense to which he is prone to a sort of chiaroscuro oversimplification, and of course he attests to his fondness for duality in this work. The problem there is that a system of duality automatically becomes not only defensive, but also paints itself as persocuted victim.

I would not claim that I have answers or that I am free from these same sorts of self-conflicts, but then I never claim to be, nor do I go out of my way to justify that I am in some sense 'correct'.

There are many who feel an itchy finger at this point, and would like to refute pointedly that assertion, but there is a distinction here. I do not value myself, my opinions, or my position out of a sense of correctness, but out of a sense of striving for correctness.

I do not respect the confident expression of ideas: this is more often a sign of being deluded than being informed. I respect in others the due diligance behind whatever they may or may not express. This becomes the failing behind Lewis, as well, and has been the failing I have sadly met in any theological (and most political, social, personal, &c.) conversations I've been fortunate enough to have.

I express confidently what I feel I have done the work to earn; not that this separates me from anyone else expressing themselves. However, the purpose of my expression is never to convince others or to ultimately 'be right'. I express myself in order to be tested and ultimately, realize why and how I am mistaken about the world.

Every expression is a hypothesis to be tested, again and again, and the stronger the confidence which experience has taught me to express it, the more I hope to be proven wrong and be opened to a new reality.

In short, if I am looking to be convinced, proven wrong, and challenged, and if Lewis has not only completely failed to do this, but is less convincing than others who came before him, then all he has become is a fan to the flame of tautological self-justified delusion.

As much as Dawkins has informed me, he is really the same creature for the other side, ultimately unconvincing because he, himself, is too convinced and too doggedly attached to see properly anymore.

Of course, it shouldn't be surprising that Lewis would entertain a false romanticism to entertain the adoration of the public without sacrificing an iota of his stuffy, Tory hubris: Tolkien did the same thing.

I'm glad you willingly gave this a read and some serious thought, even if it failed to impress you.

Yet, if your goal really is never to assume you're right about anything, I can't imagine you could ever be convinced of anything by anyone. (And yet I suspect you may have many assumptions you believe to be right.)

I myself, of course, think I am right about everything. What's the point of maintaining an opinion I believe to be wrong? If I thought it was wrong, or if I became convinced through debate with another that it was wrong, I would change it until, once again, I thought I was right.

I'm not sure man has ever been capable of purely detached rational thought. We are more than brains. In the last few decades, we are certainly less capable than ever, but that is a byproduct of a modern education system that discourages critical thinking.

I'd never suggest mankind was ever capable of being so detached, or that such a thing should even be the goal. Indeed, there is much of the world and of the self which is sensory and ephemeral and trying to rationalize everything, including that we don't understand, is usually just a technique for self-delusion and avoidance.

That being said, if approached the right way, the ideal of rational thought is certainly one worthy to seek. We should endeavor to be rational in the search of self-discovery and increased knowledge of the world, especially as this rationality helps us to recognize and avoid our own cognitive biases.

We may bear the goal of thinking critically and without bias as an ideal, but if we should never imagine that we will reach this state. Once we think that we are already unbiased, we will no longer look for and try to weed out our own bias.

In this sense, I would never imagine I am correct because to do so would mean that I wouldn't leave open the possibility that I am wrong about something, and hence the goal of learning and personal growth is discarded for the comfort of belief.

I have never encountered anyone who was ever 'right' about anything. There is nothing to which cannot be leant a further and deeper understanding through new data, discussion, and thought.

Critical thinking means always searching for a better answer, always testing what you have learned. If there are better answers and greater experiences out there, I cannot ever consider myself to be 'right'. I may have good ideas, ideas which tend to work, but simply because these often serve me well, I should not mistake this for some 'true understanding'.

I may be able to make certain predictions about the effects of gravity which will prove true, over and over, but this is no more an understanding of the concept of gravity than the ability to drive a car represents the knowledge of how one works.

I may be able to pilot a life on this earth, but I wouldn't pretend that means I understand how it all works.

If you consider yourself 'right', and then are proved wrong and change your opinion, then you must realize you were never right in the first place. So, why assume that you are right now when you weren't so before?

I don't really disagree with anything you've said in the comment above. I was being too flip. We arrive at our opinions not because we think they are "right" in an absolute sense, but because we think they are "more right" than something else. And when we find something that seems "more right" than that, we change the opinion. (If we are thinking creatures, that is.) I just find it amusing in debate when, if I defend a position, someone will fling back, "You think you're right about everything, don't you?" Well, I'm defending this position, because it seems more defensible to me than your position at this time. It doesn't mean I can't change it one day if I'm confronted with more convincing arguments on behalf of some other position, but I don't spend any amount of time defending positions I believe to be wrong.

Descartes? I haven't tried in about nine years to read Descartes, but I didn't know he wrote any theological works.

Descartes was notorious for his philosophical works on religion, including his 'proof of god'. Many of the thinkers in his day debated his religiosity, but he publicly declared himself devout.

Of course, publicly declaring anything else would have been a danger to his works and reputation, but he is responsible for a great deal of our modern religious thought.

His 'proofs' are in many ways an update of Aquinas' own attempts to justify god. They sorely needed the updating, as today we can quickly debunk most of Aquinas' proofs by an understanding of Newton's laws of thermodynamics.

I suppose you must have been reading Descartes work on geometry? Or perhaps music theory?

The ontological argument (a la Anselm and spruced up by Descartes) is incredibly easy to refute, as is any argument that embeds its conclusions within its very first premise. Even most theologians abandoned it a while ago.

The First Cause argument (a la Aquinas) so obviously also begs the question of Ultimate Origins and in its attempt to pirouette around these objections simply embeds its conclusions in its primary premises.

The only clever arguments left for the existence of God have been taken up by Plantinga and his are also rather easy to refute as well. Namely his attempt to revitalized the tradition of constructing deeply convoluted theodicies (his "Free Will Defense") and the biological evolution embracing and deeply flawed Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (which one can find multiple refutations to in the essay collection Naturalism Defeated?). To me, apologetics felt its death knell long before Mr. Lewis emerged on the scene. Of course only nonbelievers like me (and "existential Christians" like Tillich) would dare say such a thing.

Tillich unwittingly summed up the attempts of theology well in his own attempt to rise to the defense of God (as the "ground of all being"):

"God does not exist. He is being-itself beyond essence and existence. Therefore to argue that God exists is to deny him."

And then in another unwitting dash of bewildering irony once said:

"I hope for the day when everyone can speak again of God without embarrassment."

I wrote a blog once about the unintended effect of modern day theologians eroding the arguments for God while striving to build them up. I might dig it up later, if there's any interest, etc.

Keely wrote: "As much as Dawkins has informed me, he is really the same creature for the other side, ultimately unconvincing because he, himself, is too convinced and too doggedly attached to see properly anymore."

I've not read any of Dawkins work on religion or the issue of God's existence or lack thereof. However, I do know that he's gone on the record as saying that on a scale of 1-10 (1 being positive knowledge of God's existence, 10 being positive knowledge of the opposite) that he places himself at about a 7 or 8. He takes the implausibility stance. I think that this is fair and in the spirit of "provisional truths" via methodological naturalism which the natural sciences pride themselves in, and rightly so. However, I've come to realize that speaking of "God" in such assumptive terms is just plain sloppy. There's a vast multitude of conceptions of God to deal with. I think many of them deserve the "implausibility" stance, however I think many of them, namely the 3-Oed God (Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnipresent), can be refuted as soundly as one can refute the mathematical proposition that 2+2=5. I will claim a very strong knowledge that a God conceived thusly is logically impossible not merely egregiously unlikely on par with alien abductions, Elvis sightings, and the like. Zeus is logically possible, along with other conceptions which mostly do not fall in line with those of the dominant Abrahamic monotheistic traditions of the present day. There is no good reason to believe in any proposition that invokes supernatural entities, whatever they may be, but some of them simply fail from the outset, in short cannot possibly exist. One cannot simply deal with "God" as such, rather, specifics need to be brought to the table...if truth is what we're really after.

Yeah, I'd suggest Dawkins' problem has more to do with the fact that he's too far removed from the fledgling theology of the people his books are ostensibly written for. His examples and metaphors tend to have holes in them because he still expects that people will be at least somewhat reasonable in their approach.

You can see in his debates when he makes rational argument or refutation which goes completely unrecognized by the people he's speaking to. He often gets visibly frustrated at their ignorance, but he really doesn't have any grounds to.

Most people can't even calculate a tip, let alone recognize rational arguments. I'm not always sure how effective he is as the 'ambassador of atheism'. If he's that easily put off by ignorance, he should be writing for academics.

Like Lewis, he isn't going to win anyone over with his arguments because they are still entrenched in preconceptions. The difference is that Dawkins has earned his preconception, built them from the ground up like Descartes intended to do. However, to the lay person, it is impossible to tell who has earned their opinion and who has simply gone to great lengths to justify it.

Though Descartes' arguments have proven unsupportable by professional philosophers, they still inform the social discourse quite heavily. Even Aquinas is a common obsession for theologian professors, though I've not met any well-informed skeptics who put much stock in him.

It is curious to note that Descartes' proofs of god seem to refute themselves, if you are only willing to follow his method to the bitter end. This is one reason it has been posited that he was in fact a Deist or even an Atheist, undermining religion from the inside.

I certainly don't have the knowledge to test that theory, but skeptics certainly have to thank all the great theologians for showing us that there are no good proofs for god. Certainly saves us a lot of footwork.

Keely wrote: "Descartes was notorious for his philosophical works on religion, including his 'proof of god'. Many of the thinkers in his day debated his religiosity, but he publicly declared himself devout.

Nope--being extremely new to philosophy (Philosophy 101 set my mind on fire, not literally, a year before I read any Descartes), I started with the Meditations. I knew he had a variation of Anselm's ontological argument, but I had temporarily forgotten that when writing here. The other thing is, considering the arrogance (if not falsity) implicit in the statement that Descartes is most famous for, I would not consider Descartes any kind of theologian. That he gave a proof of God doesn't convince me he took God seriously. I was an English major in college, and even though I took geometry in HS, my mathematics skills are so generally poor that I'd doubt my ability to comprehend Cartesian geometry easily.

At the time I finished Philosophy 101 (just after turning 19), I was naive enough to take logical proofs of God seriously. By now, I don't. They're just intellectual games.

None of the "New Atheists" (that I've read: Harris and Dennett) are making attempts to refute the existence of God, at least in the classic way that it's been debated by philosophers since Socrates (at least). Rather, they either take it for granted that these arguments have been exhausted and fallen on their general side of the debate (which I think they have, if my recent posts above don't make it clear enough) and/or are primarily concerned in their writing with the fact that there's at least enough doubt on these subjects to merit an announcement, like Sam Harris, that religious beliefs of the sort that occupy our world are dangerous luxuries that we can no longer afford, or like Dan Dennett, that the effects of religions need to be carefully scientifically examined. I'm a huge, huge fan of Harris and suggest him above and beyond Dawkins any day on this subject. Gotta run. I'm sure I'll be back to this thread...

First, to Josh:

The Meditations are a theological work in that they approach and discuss the existence and purpose of god. Whether or not you take them seriously, discussions of the purpose and existence of god still form the center of many people's lives.

Also, you find 'cogito ergo sum' arrogant and false? That's an interesting view. I'm hard-pressed to think of a workable argument that doesn't start with that very proof.

And my dear Mr. Flesh:

I'm not particularly familiar with 'New Atheism'. I suppose it would prove more intriguing fare if I had someone to discuss it with. At this point, I find myself stuck debunking proofs of god because that's the level of philosophical discourse available.

I would be glad to move on from the 'dangerous luxury' of religion to more interesting fare, but it feels a bit like leaving the table early.

I'll certainly have to pick up some of these newer philosophers when I get a chance. Perhaps its time I let the masses do as they like and cloister myself in edification.

No, no--my saying "if not falsity" was supposed to mean I do *not* think cogito ergo sum is false. I can't argue with the logic of it.
What I meant in accusing it of arrogance is this: There is a certain arrogance implicit in taking your own thoughts as proving your existence rather than that God created you. Your starting point is nothing more than yourself. You might as well say "I think, therefore I am God"--it's not a very large leap. (Heck, the New Age worldview already does this, and it's not new anymore.)

At ages 19 and 20, I was into Rationalism--the first philosophy discussed in 101 that caught my interest--and even called myself a Rationalist for a while. (Thankfully, I don't now.) I was still in my 'I'm so smart" phase then, and in general, was incredibly arrogant. The Rationalist I paid the most attention to, though, was Leibniz--I read his Discourse on Metaphysics and his Monadology all the way through, whereas I never finished with Descartes. (I never got around to Leibniz's Theodicy, though; by the time I might have, I had stopped taking Rationalism seriously.) Leibniz demonstrates a problem not so much with Rationalism as with prodigies (which he was): he was so wrapped up in his brilliant thoughts that he did not necessarily pay attention to how people actually behaved--as opposed to how they'd behave if they were completely rational.

Part of what Descartes was doing was refuting the skeptic's argument, which asks how we can know that we exist. His statement doesn't indicate that his thought have created his existence, but that his thoughts act as a proof for his existence.

Each of us are defined by the thoughts that we have, and by our own recognition of consciousness. Descartes' addition to this was to recognize it as the basis of our existence. Our thoughts do not cause us to exist, but they do allow us to recognize certain aspects of our existence which are apparent to us.

"I think, therefore I am" is just another way of saying "If I didn't exist, I wouldn't be here, thinking about existence". Consciousness is part of what defines our existence, so it hardly seems a stretch to make a statement which defines a relationship between them.

To say "I think, therefore I am god" would only be true if thinking were the sole defining point of what makes a god. Since godhood also requires omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience, it is easy to quickly realize whether or not you are god.

I haven't studied Leibniz, but I gather he was not wrapped up so much in his brilliance as in his theory of optimism, which states that this is the best possible universe god could have created.

You aren't the first to criticize Leibniz for depicting a universe of mathematical perfection. That was half of Voltaire's 'Candide'. However, just because we do not recognize the maths which govern complex behaviors does not mean they aren't there.

Leibniz's most enduring legacy in philosophy is probably the Anthropic Principle, which states that if the universe were even slightly different, life as we know it would not exist.

I've always found this argument puts the cart before the horse, like stating that our heads would be useless if not for hats.

Keely wrote: "I've always found this argument puts the cart before the horse, like stating that our heads would be useless if not for hats."

Ha! Exactly. The so called "fine tuning argument" is just more presumptions piled on, more question-begging, all replete with the lurking phantom ornaments of wishful-thinking at the helm.

Yeah, as usual, it isn't a conflict between two good points-of-view, but a conflict between an understanding and a misunderstanding. I wish I knew how to bridge the gap, because I'm tired of ending up on one side or the other.

Well, I'm out.

Of course you are not going to like this. Nothing can convice the unbeliever but the word of God. As C.S. Lewis is not standing in front of you and arguing with you word for word, you are just going to say he is wrong and you think it is ridiculous.

Kristen wrote: "Of course you are not going to like this. Nothing can convice the unbeliever but the word of God. As C.S. Lewis is not standing in front of you and arguing with you word for word, you are just going to say he is wrong and you think it is ridiculous."

Ah, that ol' canard. Reminds me of something:

"In the first chapter Craig addresses the relationship between faith and reason, explaining first that, on his view, Christian belief is grounded not in reason, but in the witness of the Holy Spirit. In accusing all unbelievers of willfully rejecting the witness of the Holy Spirit, he denies the very possibility that one could come to unbelief through reasoned argument:

[W:]hen a person refuses to come to Christ it is never just because of lack of evidence or because of intellectual difficulties: at root, he refuses to come because he willingly ignores and rejects the drawing of God's Spirit on his heart. No one in the final analysis really fails to become a Christian because of lack of arguments; he fails to become a Christian because he loves darkness rather than light and wants nothing to do with God.[2:]

Let's set aside the astonishing implication that Jews, Muslims, and members of other non-Christian religions want "nothing to do with God." What could be more presumptuous than declaring that, whatever they might say to the contrary, all unbelievers have felt the Holy Spirit but willfully rejected it? Consider Paul Doland's account of how for years he struggled to maintain his Christian belief, but in the end could no longer sustain it:

I seem incapable of "experiencing" God. Many Christians thoughtlessly blame me for this, claiming that I haven't had enough faith, didn't try hard enough, or wouldn't have accepted such experiences even if I had had them. All of these accusations are wide of the mark; they haven't walked in my shoes. They don't know how many times I've prayed and asked Jesus into my life. Since I don't go around challenging the validity of Christians' religious experiences, I would appreciate it if Christians would refrain from passing judgment on my lack thereof.[3:]

How can Craig respond to the countless non-Christians throughout the world who claim to sincerely believe that they have never felt the Holy Spirit? It seems that he must maintain that they are lying and therefore culpable for their nonbelief, since if any of them were merely confused about what they have felt, or deceiving themselves, they would not be willingly ignoring the pull of the Holy Spirit. But in any case, his only basis for maintaining that non-Christians are willfully ignorant of the witness of the Holy Spirit is his own religious experience. Does his experience trump the testimony of a billion others who claim to have had no experience, or an experience that leads them to some other religion? Imagine: What would a Christian think of a Hindu who made such assertions about those who report no experience of Ganesh?"

-from a review of revered Christian apologist William Lane Craig's book (hilariously entitled) Reasonable Faith, complete with further refutations of all of the canards of Christian and (more broadly) theistic apologetics

Kristen wrote: "Of course you are not going to like this. Nothing can convice the unbeliever but the word of God. As C.S. Lewis is not standing in front of you and arguing with you word for word, you are just go..."

Of course you're going to like CS Lewis, but that's just because you haven't accepted Poseiden, Shiva, Ra, and the deities in the Greek and Norse pantheons into your heart. Of course its easy to reject the Odyssey as mere fiction, but that's because Homer isn't standing right in front of you to explain the level headed reasonableness of arbitrary fideism. You are so lost.

Good points, Flesh. Thanks for bringing some textual ardor to the discussion.

Kristen, I am curious what you mean by "nothing can convince the unbeliever but the word of god". Do you mean that there is something else which should convince me, or that I will be convinced once I hear god's word?

I've read large parts of the bible and surrounding theological literature, I've spoken at length with believers, and the one thing I have never found is the word of god. I have found the word of man, and many claims about god, but nothing has ever lifted these claims above the others.

What differentiates the beliefs of a Muslim, a Jew, a Christian, and a Shinto? They all believe themselves to be right, and they all feel a connection with god that transcends all else.

I've never felt such a connection. Am I at fault if god has never spoken to me?

I do not critique Lewis for being a believer. I enjoyed Milton, Petrarch, and Tolkien, and they are all writers of christian belief. My problem with Lewis is that he claims to be a well-reasoned, thoughtful believer, but then fails to deliver on that claim.

Lewis is certainly intelligent and thoughtful in his writing, but only to a point. Eventually, he always hits a wall where he cannot connect his real world experiences to his spiritual assurances.

He never fails to critique others when they don't think things through or present good examples and arguments, but when it is his turn, he is no more capable than the 'sinners' he puts down.

It is not his belief which I critique, but the fact that he holds the entire world to a very different standard than the one he holds for himself. It is hubris for him to assume that he is less prone to the flaws of humanity than anyone else.

the mind serves to justify the desires of the heart'- john piper

Yes, that seems precisely the conflict: we can justify anything to ourselves as long as we want it enough. Lewis has forgotten that justification must precede our actions, not follow them. Justification should be the reason we choose to act, not an excuse for things already done.

i think you're right keely. if a man or woman were ever truly "brilliant" enough (and if that were where we needed to look!) to forensically and logically expound undeniable proof for anything, then we wouldn't be here. truth is, those things we don't need to question, we already take for granted. but it is there, in that quest for meaning, that drives us to these points. we can't blame lewis for finding it. and where he makes "logical leaps" we can trust for his sake he does either for the book's purpose to his intended audience, or he is able to glue with his personal vehicle he calls Faith. either way, meaning to anyone is hopeful in definition - it is inherently cause to our actions, to our beliefs. it begs the question that it cannot be solely purported by Logic alone, as powerful as it is. but because something as intangible and unanalytic as Hope and Faith bring meaning into existence, so Logic is the marriage to meaning, but it cannot define it. I would suggest that logic were the pendulum to meaningful ends- meaning brings you to act, or lack of meaning brings you to not act... which is nihilistic i suppose? no one could ever claim Lewis was an existentialist, a nihilist, or anything close (-: but he allowed his ear to be bent to the nagging questions that would not let go of him. that took Faith, and Logic put it together. for Meaning to pull you from your daily formulae of logic and superstition and impress you with hope and purpose is something that really can't be worded so much, I think. it took a whole lot of humility for him to let go of his ability to grasp or not grasp- it seems it took him a lot of maturity. i hope one day it will hit me like that. maybe that's why i appreciate the book so much.

on the note of finding fault in others' arguments- remember the time he wrote this book, and why. his readers were begging him to explain his course of beliefs, and that included his answers to himself (the faults in "others" you refer to) who had been a well-known outspoken skeptic of Christianity as an atheist. it's not because he isn't a humble person, in my opinion. but he also is just a person. if no one had opinions we'd have nothing to read. how boring is that! (-:

"it took a whole lot of humility for him to let go of his ability to grasp or not grasp"

It's true, it takes a great deal of humility for anyone to admit that they simply don't know, and that for our the searching, all our knowledge, we can never really know. But it isn't humble for Lewis to declare that his feelings are correct despite not knowing. It's arrogant, hubristic, and hypocritical, especially when he declares others wrong based on those feelings.

"if no one had opinions we'd have nothing to read. how boring is that!

I doubt that lack of opinions will ever be a problem, everyone has them, but opinions are not, in and of themselves, interesting or useful. What is important is what lies behind the opinion.

Certainly, none of us are brilliant enough to know for sure, but we can strive to do the best we can with what we have, and to trust in what we understand. But when we overextend that trust into belief, we are refusing to accept that we might be wrong. Faith is a refusal to accept that we 'cannot grasp'.

That was the problem with Lewis: he could not accept that he didn't know, he needed to be right, and to be righteous. I don't know whether it was a lack of humility or of courage, the end result is the same. He had no problem tearing others down for their hypocrisies, but kept his own very close to his heart.

Hope and meaning are not illogical, nor are emotions. 'Logic' simply means doing what is best in a situation based upon the information we have at hand. Hope, personal meaning, belief, and faith are all important parts of what we are and how we live, but that doesn't mean they can't be destructive or taken to an extreme, nor are they separate from our logic.

Anger, sorrow, and death are also important parts of us, and all are a part of thought, and of logic. For a deeply depressed person in constant emotional pain, suicide might be logical, even if it isn't actually helpful or productive.

In the end, our logic is only as useful as the knowledge and ideas that underpin it, which Lewis demonstrates here: when speaking on topics about which he is well-informed, his logic is admirable, but it is much less useful when he tries to wrap it around his insecurities, fears, and need to truly feel sure in an unsure world.

Good post, Keely.

Well, I was unsure for a bit there about my inability to actually know if this was a good post, but my gut tells me it was totally sweet.

FYI, Lewis did not claim to be a theologian, rather he shared his own belief and experience, having begun as an atheist, then being"dragged into the kingdom, kicking and screaming" as he said. To get another view of Lewis, I suggest you guys read A Grief Observed....written at a time when , in total honesty, he admitted being angry with God.
I would suggest John Stotts Basic Christianity as another account of Christianity, (which I do profess, btw)...Stott was a pastor in London for many years. The church which he pastored is still a strong church there. (and there are not many!) He was at All Souls Church in London. Also, for today's seeker, I strongly suggest hearing (on line) or reading Dr. Tim Keller, at Redeemer Church in New York City. One book of his I suggest is The Reason for God.
There is meaning to life, gentlemen, and Alisha, keep seeking!
Hebrews 11:6 is a grand verse of Scripture for the seeker. Shalom!

Keely, "To believe everyone else is so faulty but still think yourself infallible is not only insulting, but a black mark on any otherwise reasonable mind." Are you certain of this, and do you feel strongly about it? If so, I disagree and therefore you think that you are right, and because I believe that Christianity is real and say, Islam is not, that , though you claim to be tolerant, you say that my belief, my opinion, would constitute a "black mark" ...along with C. S. Lewis...because he knew what he believed. Have I understood you correctly?

Thanks for the book suggestions. Always good to have more sources to look into.

" "To believe everyone else is so faulty but still think yourself infallible is not only insulting, but a black mark on any otherwise reasonable mind." Are you certain of this, and do you feel strongly about it?

I should note here that I'm drawing a line between believing something and having a reasonable assurance about it. Certainly we all live in the world, and all must act, so taking refuge in the skeptic's argument of 'nothing is real, nothing matters' is just as silly as holding steadfastly to a belief without reason.

Part of what I was looking for in Lewis, as a former cynic and atheist, was a reasonable path of ideas leading to his beliefs, which I hoped to find in his personal accounts of those beliefs, but alas, I did not.

But yes, I would have to say that using one's own feelings as the main support for a declaration that others are flawed is a black mark on a reasonable mind. If you are a Christian because you feel it is right and declare all Muslims wrong for what they feel is right, you are holding others to a higher standard than you hold yourself, of which Lewis is also guilty.

That is not taking things on god's authority, but declaring your personal feelings to be the authority, which is an act of hubris.

But this fault is certainly not limited to spiritual beliefs, nor to spiritual people--we all have things which we have believed in error, which should teach us our own fallibility, and the difficulty of acquiring knowledge.

"though you claim to be tolerant"

I am not certain I ever made that claim. If someone said that men are better than women, I would not tolerate their belief. If someone said all children should be caned, I would not tolerate that. If someone said America was founded by reptilian aliens, I would not feel the need to be tolerant.

I will listen to and discuss any opinion or idea, and will hope to find within a grain of truth, some new insight, but that is the extent of my tolerance. I feel no need to tolerate hubris or hypocrisy.

Keely wrote: "Of course, it shouldn't be surprising that Lewis would entertain a false romanticism to entertain the adoration of the public without sacrificing an iota of his stuffy, Tory hubris: Tolkien did the same thing."

For a more in-depth look into the writings of Lewis and Tolkein (specifically how their faith shaped their writings and vice-versa), I would recommend
Lord of Elves And Eldils: Fantasy And Philosophy in C.s. Lewis And J.r.r. Tolkien. I think you will find it to be an excellent analysis of Lewis, Tolkien, and their critics and defenders over the years.

Thanks for the suggestion; though, having hit the high points with Lewis and Tolkien and found little of worth, I think I'll extend my searches elsewhere before contemplating a return to unrewarding ground.

When you are finished searching elsewhere, would you be so kind as to return here and tell us what you've found? Thanks.

Well, I've found a lot of interesting things, like the psychological sophistication of Greek theater, where the Sarranids came from, that the 'Isle of Man' has a name synonymous with the 'Isle of Wight', and that the black sea has a second, Cimmerian Bosphorus.

If you mean in terms of Christianity, I'm afraid it's rather bleak. There is no one 'bible', just a lot of collections of various works called by that name. In fact, most versions list the ten commandments differently (and are probably referring to the wrong rules as 'commandments').

Every version of the book is fraught with translation errors, accidental inclusions of marginalia, skipped lines, and contradictions. Likewise, it doesn't stand up very well when compared to other historical accounts of the same period.

Actually, it doesn't stand up well to its own accounts, either, since the gospels all disagree about where Jesus was born, where he traveled, what he did, what he said, and what sort of person he was.

I have discovered that it's not a very good basis for morality. It has some good stuff in there, but it also has a lot of bad stuff, and everyone I've ever met just picks and chooses the parts they like, which suggests that they already have a moral basis which they are applying to the bible, instead of receiving it from the book.

I've also never seen anything that separated the belief of Muslims from that of Christians, Jews, or other faiths. They are all based on the same arguments of faith, so they are either all correct, or none of them are. Since they are mutually exclusive, I must conclude they are all wrong.

I've also never seen or heard of anything which would make it likely that any god existed. God is almost always the least likely, most convoluted conclusion to any mystery or problem.

I've also learned that Aquinas' 'Proofs of God' can all be easily explained away by the Laws of Thermodynamics. I'm afraid that, unless some new, remarkable information comes up, I've come to consider the whole religion thing as a lost cause.

I've found great beauty, great wonder, and shocking understanding in the world, but none of it had anything to do with faith. I'm afraid my experiences with religion have only demonstrated how little it has going for it.

thanks.

Keely wrote: "There is no one 'bible', just a lot of collections of various works called by that name. In fact, most versions list the ten commandments differently "

I'm a little surprised that you mention different numbering of the 10 Commandments by different denominations as a proof that the Bible is not consistent. The commandments aren't even numbered explicitly in the Bible - the numberings of the commandments are attributed to differences in the denominations reading the Bible, not the book itself.

As for which translation of the Bible is best, I think http://www.catholic.com/library/Bible... says it best:

"In the end, there may not be a need to select only one translation of the Bible to use. There is no reason why a Catholic cannot collect several versions of the Bible, aware of the strengths and weaknesses of each. It is often possible to get a better sense of what is being said in a passage by comparing several different translations.
So, which Bible is the best? Perhaps the best answer is this: The one you’ll read."

Keely wrote: "I've found great beauty, great wonder, and shocking understanding in the world, but none of it had anything to do with faith."

Have you tried reading The Evidential Power of Beauty: Science and Theology Meet? I'm not saying it provides any conclusive proof of the existence of God - I'm just saying you might find it interesting, given your obvious love of beauty and art.

". . . the numberings of the commandments are attributed to differences in the denominations reading the Bible, not the book itself."

It's true, though as the article you linked points out, those differences in interpretation produce translation bias.

"So, which Bible is the best? Perhaps the best answer is this: The one you’ll read."

Yeah, I haven't found one worth reading, yet. I need a version more concerned with the original text than with the thousands of years of sectarianism that have redefined it.

It's so unusual to have an ancient mythic text that people are still personally invested in, morally and politically. Not only do you have the complications of trying to understand a distant culture, you also have to strip away the modern glosses of Victorian glosses of Enlightenment glosses of Renaissance glosses of Middle Ages glosses of Byzantine glosses of Roman glosses of Pauline glosses of theological in-fighting.

And these aren't just relics of a progressing scholarship, as with other texts, but a convoluted series of political acts and social controls which attempt to subvert and redefine the text completely. One thing I like about Greek and Roman history is that no one feels the need to flatter Crassus or demonize Claudius anymore. We can try to approach them as a historian should: with a reasoned, balanced, informed view.

This is why scholarship is usually a welcome companion in our journeys through history and ideas, but many strands of biblical scholarship seem to lead away from the text, and it's this scholarship from which the expert translators are drawn. Though we are separated from the text by a vast river of warring interpretations, we remain close to the text emotionally and politically. It's the worst of both worlds: we are personally involved but functionally distant, which is not an appealing place to start.

Sure, I could compare translations and read conflicting analyses and in the end, finally come to an understanding of the text, but it seems like putting the same amount of time and energy into other works would be more productive, since I will be less likely to fall athwart of a translator who needed to give the text a certain meaning in order to flatter the decrees of some patriarch.

"I'm just saying you might find it interesting, given your obvious love of beauty and art."

And here I thought loving beauty would hardly set me apart. All human beings find joy in the recognition of the patterns and ratios which result from the processes of the world around us. It is by the recognition of these patterns that we live, learn, and act, so it makes sense that they are dear to us: they are familiar and they give us the power to comprehend. Does the author argue some further necessity?

I was perusing reviews to get an overview of the book, and the negative reviews paint Dubay as bringing little to the subject in the way of new insights. Meanwhile, the positive reviews fail to mention what is unique or compelling about his vision. Any thoughts?

Hi Keely, I agree with most of what you say about this book, but not with your view on religious faith. I just read "Mere Christianity" and posted a review. Very interesting approach, but, as you noted, weak logical arguments.

Yeah, independent of what Lewis believes, I just find his justifications and thoughts to be weak. It can be the same with thinkers of any creed--there are a number of Richard Dawkins books I have the same problem with: that he builds up part of a good argument, but doesn't finish it, or finishes with a weak analogy.

But the difference is that I've gone on to read other Dawkins books and found that he does have those arguments, even if he didn't always succeed in putting them forward as well as he might, while after five or six of Lewis' books, it's just the same errors and half-formed ideas over and over.

I'll have to check out your review.

Keely, you persistently claim that Lewis had no logical foundation for his belief. I may just be naive here, but didn't he start out Mere Christianity explaining the logical thought chain that eventually brought him to belief? Convinced by the sense of right and wrong, or the Moral Law as he calls it, that he has observed that pervading the human experience, he was compelled to look for answers and found Christianity to be the most logical conclusion. It wasn't that he started with preconceived value judgements and tried justifying them after the fact, but rather the other way around. Please, can you go into detail about what is actually wrong with Lewis' argument rather than simply asserting that it is wrong? I'm curious to know your view. Thanks!

"Convinced by the sense of right and wrong, or the Moral Law as he calls it, that he has observed that pervading the human experience, he was compelled to look for answers and found Christianity to be the most logical conclusion."

Well, because that's not a logical argument. There are a lot of reasons that humanity might have a central, moral law that tends to govern our behaviors. It might be a social development: cultures with a developed sense of law, and of right and wrong would be more harmonious and hence, more successful, and so any culture that didn't have that would be overtaken by those that did, so now, all cultures are set up that way.

Alternatively, animals tend to do much better when they work together and have a community with rules and structure. Hence, human beings could have this inner moral sense because it's beneficial for us, and we figured that out by trial and error, because those who didn't follow it got kicked out of society and didn't have much luck passing on their methods.

To decide that we have a moral center because an infinitely powerful anthropomorphic being that is not beholden to any scientific laws and which has no origin or substance magically caused us to is not a logical supposition. To posit the existence of such a creature requires a setup vastly more complex than the one that seems to exist around us.

Hence, by Occam's Razor, which states that we should never believe in a complex theory when there is already a simple one that explains the state of things, it is illogical to argue that Christian god is the source of morality, unless there is some other argument which makes that theory more likely than the others.

So, since Lewis was looking for an answer to his question and instead of settling on the most simple, supportable idea, he went for a complex, unknowable idea, I must assume that he was not guided by logic, but by some preconception of his own that led him to make that leap.

And, since he did not structure his arguments in favor of god in a logical way, demonstrating why they must be so and why other explanations are less viable, I would say that he does not at any point put forth a logical argument for god or Christianity.

Hope that makes sense.

Well he does address those, at least briefly. A section of the introduction is devoted to counterarguments, and I believe both of those are mentioned. Now don't get me wrong, they aren't backed up in detail, but I don't think they should be expected to be. This work is based off of a series of radio interviews about the basic beliefs of Christianity; it's not meant to be a philosophical treatise. There simply is no time or room to address every counter in full detail. Your critiques would be warranted if this were an academic theological work, of course, but it's simply a book of pop apologetics written for the masses

On a side note, do you mind if I ask what you do for a living? I see you've read almost a thousand books and you come across as very knowledgable and intelligent, so I'm wondering where you find the time for all this. I hope to be as well-read someday

"it's simply a book of pop apologetics written for the masses"

Yeah, and that's my main disappointment with it. Lewis, himself, did not think he was a very able apologists, and completely abandoned his attempts after being utterly trumped in the famous debate with Elizabeth Anscomb.

But then, I have read books with straightforward, simple language that put together much better and more cogent arguments than Lewis is able to provide. Perhaps it wouldn't be as bad if he simply put out his thoughts without also leaping to conclusions. The main problem is not that his arguments are incomplete, but that, despite this, he still behaves as if they are complete and conclusive.

"There simply is no time or room to address every counter in full detail."

No, certainly not, but I think it would have been more effective it he had taken the time to make one or two complete arguments rather than putting forth a dozen false starts that lead nowhere at all. I'm afraid I don't see the point, unless it is just bland, unconsidered self-justification.

"On a side note, do you mind if I ask what you do for a living?"

Well, I don't have what one would refer to as 'a career' right now. Mostly I'm doing freelance work in various fields: criticism, theater, visual arts, videogame design--stuff like that. Beyond that, I spend my free time working on a lot of different projects that will probably never garner any money for me, but which I find interesting and informative.

Fair enough. Thank you for your thoughtful review Keely

Kevin wrote: "There simply is no time or room to address every counter in full detail. ..."

Agreed. "Mere Christianity" is less than 200 pages long. Even the much more thorough
Summa Theologica - weighing in at over 3,000 pages over 5 volumes - is "incomplete" as well.

These books aren't meant to be the end-all, be-all of Christian thought. ("Summa" is actually "a summary", not "the sum total".) The continuation of these arguments and the delving deeper into how they affect our lives and our mission to reach out to those around us... that is the purpose of these books, < 200 pages or 3000+.

Apologetics is a branch of theology and theology is a science that is, itself, a branch of the mother of all sciences, philosophy. Like any science, it is your personal level of interest that determines how deeply you wish to learn and discover its subject. Same thing with explaining it to someone else.

So the type of book you wish to read on the subject has to do with at which level you wish to learn. An elementary school geology book is not going to get into muons, quarks, special relativity, thermodynamics, and plate tectonics to explain why we have rocks and dirt. Same with God: do you just want an elementary school-level explanation of God
or do you want to go deeper?

Another example from the arts: a child, starting to draw, uses connect-the-dots and color-by-number. Later on, they may learn how to freehand sketch an oval with guidelines to sketch their favorite animated characters. If they wish to continue to draw, paint, sculpt like a master, they no longer use dots and numbers and the like.

For the beginner, "Mere Christianity" fills the role well. It is not meant to be a tutorial on how to evangelize to others - it is meant to "merely" present the basic arguments to connect a small number of dots for you to connect into a rough picture. Like "Lives of the Saints for Children", it provides a beginning way to sketch or sculpt your life into something that resembles their saintly lives. Later on, you grow on your own to make your own saintly life... if you choose to do so.

Have many people chosen to misuse Lewis as the theologian par excellance? Yes. Is that the fault of this book? I don't think so, any more than I blame D&D or heavy metal music for some unstable person killing themselves.

Certainly something to consider, and I'm not critiquing it for being a primer, even if there are those who place more stock in Lewis' theological dawdlings than is merited. My problem is that it's not even a very good primer. Not only are the arguments it does contain especially scanty, even in comparison to other introductory works, but Lewis is constantly trying to attach these scant arguments to grand claims and treating the presentation as if it is already complete.

It is not merely that he does not go far enough in some instances, but that he also goes too far in others, and so doubly betrays the point of an introductory approach, which, in my mind, should be to present some basic, solid material for consideration and not to get caught up in the myriad vagueries of conclusions the work itself is incapable of supporting.

If Lewis had taken a more cautious and thoughtful approach, then I would not so much mind him putting forth certain tentative extensions for the reader's consideration. I'm not saying he should have to hem and haw about his topic--it's commendable to be straightforward and say what you mean, and what you think--but neither is it his place, particularly in a primer, to state in the tones of the very authority of truth notions far beyond the breadth of that what he has, in fact, presented.

The work simply contains too much prejudice and assumption to serve as a proper introduction, since it is more focused on final conclusions than with a baseline understanding of the ideas at hand. Indeed I would suggest that, to continue your metaphor, he is placing tectonics and thermodynamics alongside rock and terrain types without demonstrating the connection between.

"Lewis has some skill and intellect, but the way he meanders about duality, truth, social darwinism, pathetic fallacy, comparative anthropology, and scientific process tends more towards self-justification than any profundity."

--- You clearly didn't understand the nature of the book or its purpose.

Firstly, these are transcripts of his BBC radio broadcasts. This was initially meant to be listened to in brief recordings, and it was meant to entertain as much as enlightenment.

You've basically read old radio entertainment. So whatever "meandering" you may find... I would submit that it is still quite a bit more focused than almost any oral presentation you would hear today.

And secondly, he writes in the preface to this book that it was simply meant to DESCRIBE the most common threads of historical christian belief in words and analogies that listeners might better understand and connect to.

It was never meant to be a DEFENSE of those beliefs. He even says in the preface, "...indeed it is not much good discussing whether certain beliefs are true before we know what they are."

The book was not meant to evaluate whether these ideas are true... but to better describe what they are.

So to whatever degree you find "self-justification" in this book... I think that was likely a preconception that you brought to the reading yourself... because Lewis makes it clear that this was not an effort to justify anything at all.

...And please... don't belittle the man with all these pretentious remarks about him being "alone and afraid in a grand world ripped by World Wars" who feels a "desperate need for meaning."

Are you not aware that this man was the head professor of the Renaissance Literature department at Cambridge University? He essentially grew up as an atheist... including through his military service in the WWI... and became converted to Christianity as a result of his intellectual discussions with J.R.R. Tolkein, 10 years or so after his military service.

Do you NEED him to be a lonely desperate man struggling for meaning... or did you simply assume that he was?

But either way, nothing is further from the truth for this man. His academic works on literature are still used to this day, and he deserves more respect than the condescending pretense that you seem to have for his intellect.

"Firstly, these are transcripts of his BBC radio broadcasts . . . You've basically read old radio entertainment."

Yes, but I've also read other works originally meant for performance, such as Shakespeare, Aeschylus, Homer, and Douglas Adams, and the brilliance of the work still came out perfectly well in the text.

"I would submit that it is still quite a bit more focused than almost any oral presentation you would hear today."

'Better than crap' is not a very strong defense. Beyond that, I do listen to a fair amount of radio, lectures, and speeches, and I did not find Lewis' work was capable of matching them.

"it was simply meant to DESCRIBE the most common threads of historical christian belief in words and analogies that listeners might better understand and connect to.

It was never meant to be a DEFENSE of those beliefs . . . but to better describe what they are . . . to whatever degree you find "self-justification" in this book... I think that was likely a preconception that you brought to the reading yourself... because Lewis makes it clear that this was not an effort to justify anything at all."

You do realize that just because someone claims something, that doesn't make it true. Whenever a person begins a sentence 'I'm not racist, but . . .', the preface doesn't actually absolve what they are about to say.

I did not find Lewis' presentation of ideas to be neutral or well-balanced, nor were they thoughtful and informative. I would have appreciated a work that actually looked at what these ideas are, but I didn't get that.

"He essentially grew up as an atheist . . . and became converted to Christianity as a result of his intellectual discussions with J.R.R. Tolkein, 10 years or so after his military service . . . Do you NEED him to be a lonely desperate man struggling for meaning... or did you simply assume that he was?"

Well, if what he presents in this and his other works were the 'intellectual arguments' that convinced him, then I must say it didn't take much convincing. Everyone who lived through WWII was harrowed by it--it was a world-changing event that caused nearly everyone to question the nature of the world.

These were not merely radio talks, they were radio talks given during and about World War II, and in reading them, it seemed clear to me that Lewis was grasping for meaning in a world he saw as flawed, cruel and uncaring. That's why he is often so quick to cut down others for the flaws he perceives in them, but is then unable to present his own approach to life as any more viable than theirs--indeed, he sometimes even presents the same behaviors of rationalization as good when believers do them, but bad when others do.

for example, in the Screwtape Letters, the demon talks about how you can fool most humans by asking them to consider 'reality' and what is 'real' in the world, because they never actually bother to define the term, but just take it for granted, and hence, it allows them to believe in and justify anything. But then, in the following chapters, Lewis talks about how Christians are good because they do what is 'natural', and that the natural is good--but then he never bothers to explain what 'natural' is supposed to mean, or how it differs from justifying something by calling it 'real'.

This is the sort of bland justification that looks to me like he is grasping at straws when building his arguments instead of providing a real foundation for them, which shows a certain desperation to believe. I don't need him to be struggling for meaning, it's what he does on every page of his books. And you know what, it isn't a bad thing to struggle for meaning--it's what all great philosophers have done--the real problem is when, despite the fact that none of his arguments quite get there, he still declares that this sense of meaning has been found and proven.

Well, a late-stage brain tumor would account both for the auditory hallucinations and the inability to formulate coherent thoughts.