CS Lewis, Christianity, and Saint Paul

Great Debates
1

I have found it rather difficult to rationally support the doctrines of Christianity and I hope this thread will lead others to posting their reasons for belief. I very much take issue with some apologists, mainly CS Lewis simply because he proclaims to know the meaning of existence. Some have argued that religion to man is simply an identification of one’s personal being; it is in essence, his meaning of life. Humans are perhaps the only creatures on earth who seek meaning for their existence, it would be foolhardy to think flowers and trees spend their days contemplating where they go when they finally die. It is pretty much agreed upon that they do not, they have no empirical knowledge of death and do not often take their own lives, a search for meaning and the explanation of death is truly only a human affair.

Man has attempted to explain the enigma of death, an enigma to which he has no prima facie familiarity with, by proclaiming a belief in the eternal. Death no longer is the completion of man’s finite existence but gives birth to another life, or an “afterlife”. Now some Christians and other members of various religions have trouble living in a world without meaning. The mysteries of the world which have fuelled the greatest members of our race (mainly scientists and inventors) in their effort to understand have at the same time dulled many into a ridiculous existence. These particular peoples no longer deem knowledge and truth the most important tools to overcome life’s bittersweet reality but have seen life as a waiting game or according to Lewis, a “waiting hall”. The doors are not so much important as the hall itself where man hopes for a benevolent God and a paradise-like afterlife, some Muslims even believe young salacious virgins await them called Houri.

Lewis view of life conflicts with Einstein who believed the only truly religious man is the one who recognizes the Universal law of causation, this in turn means a “god” or some celestial being cannot interfere in the course of events here on earth:

It seems apologists such as Lewis have recognized the cunning of morality and used it to recruit others. Lewis, like Kant, recognized that a morality not based on God has its benevolence based on human desires. The desire to help for example is only wanted because it is pleasing to the particular person, he in essence enjoys helping. “The reason his action lacks moral worth is that he * chooses * to help * only * because he * wants * to.” This theory for benevolence relative to morality would fall through when helping is no longer pleasing. This can be demonstrated by the readily available persons who contribute money to the needy and poor cute children advertised on television. They in turn receive a picture and one helps them because they need food to survive. The individuals who contribute to these peoples and not others are hypocritical less they would help shovel dung and pull weeds for a man who is faced with the possibility of losing his farm. Such hard work is not pleasing and is even less if the man is immoral and rather antagonizing at times. This work however saves the man’s farm and his method of survival; it is what puts food on the table for him. Lewis argues that instead of aiming to help because it is pleasant, one should aim to help because it is what Jesus said to do. It is an egotistical endeavor where one helps because the end is personal salvation. Christians are told in turn to love the unlovable, even those who are unpleasant so that they will be saved in Christ Jesus and others will be doomed to eternal hellfire. Men of rationale have pointed to the fact that God’s existence has yet to be rationally proven and Jesus’ own sayings conflict in the Gospels, however this fact is ignored by Lewis so he can promote Christian morality.

Lewis proclaims that a morality based on humans and their errors falls through. It is not the “natural law” and this natural law, which is a law not so natural simply because some choose to follow it and others not to, is the only doctrine of “real right and wrong”. The real right and wrong is Jesus’ teachings in the Gospels. Lewis take on morality is rather perplexing because he goes on to say in his * Mere Christianity * that various religions and moralities have said various things but there haven’t been many differences. Lewis simply argues there has “never been a totality different morality” in response to his advocation of the “natural law” more properly called the laws created by the Gospels. This definition of morality conflicts with other ethical views. Something is good to one person is good because he thinks it is good. It was once viewed as good for African tribes to sell their elderly parents. It was good for God to command to genocide the 12,000 inhabitants of Ai in the book of Joshua; it was also good for the Romans to crucify 6,000 followers of Spartacus. The proper and “good” ritual for some of the natives Columbus met in 1492 entailed festivities where the “dead were boiled, pounded into a gruel, mixed with wine and drunk by their relatives at spirited parties.” Women would even actively recruit more wives for their husbands because it increased their valour. This to Lewis is not “totally different” and he uses this fact to promote Christian doctrine.

Lewis ignorance of human history in his promotion of Christian dogma has caused him to cast all dissenters into perdition. According to Lewis, a Christian is only one who is “close to the spirit of Christ”. Now the natives Columbus encountered on the archipelago of the Bahamas never knew Jesus, so if we are to assume that Columbus was truly the first explorer to encounter the lands of the western hemisphere and these natives were like the others, all of the living natives for 1500 years received the fate of hellfire and torment for no less than eternity, all through no fault of their own. Young girls who are born into African tribes not exposed to Christian doctrine also will receive eternal hell and Lewis will attempt to explain this in a faulty quote from the Gospel of John later on. Nevertheless, according to the Catholic faith’s doctrine of Original Sin from Saint Augustine those who are saved are pre-selected and they must have been baptized and a member of the church. All deserve eternal damnation, even the sinful infants. This can seem rather confusing to new readers of Lewis’ apologetics but he will make the mistake of appealing to the Gospels in order to promote his natural law.

Lewis’ promotion of “natural law” and love seems fine at first glance but will dissipate when viewing the Gospels from an objective point of view. Jesus brother James will eventually condemn our understanding of orthodox Christianity at Antioch. Paul wrongly favored the acceptance of Jews who were not law abiding to the Torah, he in essence let in anyone into Judaism who proclaimed Jesus as the son of God. One can only imagine the hard feelings experienced by the other male Jews who underwent circumcision and strict dietary laws. If, according to the Gospel of John, the only true commandment is “to love”, then this perhaps conflicts with the Gospel of Matthew when Jesus says he did not come to abolish the law (torah) but to fulfill it, and anyone who ignores the torah will be granted the lowest seat in heaven. In other words, the morality created by God according to Lewis seems to be fallible by nature. Jesus is either for the Torah, as is readily proclaimed by Matthew, or he is against it, as he abolishes various laws seven times in Mark. Lewis ignorance of this fact is perpetuated more so when taking a look at Christian history.

Jesus, a peasant according to the Gospels, died a tragic death. A belief in Jesus as the Messiah is viewed as an obstacle for scripturally literate Jews because such a fate is specifically condemned in Deut 21:24. After his death his teachings were then left to his disciples who would go on to ‘found the religion’ and so forth. This is assumption is not true less we would little use for Saint Paul. Paul who never saw Jesus ministry nor met the historical Jesus was traveling on the road to Damascus three years after Jesus’ death when Jesus suddenly appeared to him on the road in a divine dream. Paul saw no use in confirming this miraculous revelation, he doesn’t see it fit to visit Jesus’ remaining disciples to confirm and spread the gospel, he instead decided to go to Arabia for three years. This curious move leads him to meeting James (Jesus’ brother) and Peter in Jerusalem to which no historical account exists, whatever occurred caused Paul to not come back for 14 years. Paul’s rambling adventure throughout the Eastern Mediterranean led to Jews being accepted (Paul would never use the term Christian, neither would Jesus) with little to no qualifications. The majority of biblical scholars believe the incident at Antioch was disasters, Paul’s compadre Barnabas will even side with Peter and James on issues such as circumcision and Paul will be left recruiting early Christians in “house worship” gatherings. These were in effect the earliest “orthodox” followers and these in house meetings were the first church groups. Lewis interpretation of Jesus would perhaps be accepted by these groups, however not so with Jesus disciples.

2

Disagree with Lewis all you want but don’t accuse him of being ignorant of human history, even as you ignorantly assign to Lewis the exclusivist position of St Augustine that without conscious acceptance of Christ in this life, all will be consigned to eternal Hell. At least, I think you assign that position to him. You throw a lot of things together in this diatribe against Lewis & it gets rather confusing.

3

Could you please be much more explicit about where you’re getting these philosophical positions that you’re attributing to C. S. Lewis? One of the things that annoys me in many of the discussions I hear of Lewis from both his fans and his detractors is the tendency to assume that Lewis was the sole representative of Christianity in the twentieth century. This leads people to assume both that any doctrine that they’ve heard expoused by a significant group of Christians must be defended somewhere by Lewis and that any doctrine espoused by Lewis must be standard Christian doctrine. On reading the title of this thread, I clicked on it and read though it to find out how much you’re quoted from Lewis. To my surprise, the only lengthy quotation you give is from Einstein. There are several other short quotations (at least, they are in quotation marks), but it’s not clear if you’re quoting Lewis or somebody else. In fact, why did you even bring up Lewis in this thread? It seems to me that you’re really questioning the standard doctrines of Christianity, not anything particular to Lewis. If that’s what you’re doing, it would be better to label the thread that way and forget about whether Lewis defended these particular doctrines. It’s going to be hard enough to work out what the standard doctrines of Christianity are without going to the extra work of worrying about whether Lewis mentioned each one.

4

I appealed to Lewis so his fans and perhaps detractors would scurry to this thread to discuss his theological views. They are what make Christians believe in the modern era, apologetics wold not be needed if the doctrines originally prescribed a millinium ago held up to the modern world.

If one can rationally defend lewis, he can perhaps rationally defend Christian doctrine. I will take either.

5

It is possible to defend C.S. Lewis, and possible to defend Christian doctrine. These things can even be done simultaneously, but they are not the same thing, and defending one is not defending the other. I see no reason to defend Lewis against one so apparently ignorant of his work, particularly in the absence of any substantive criticism of him. Have you actually read anything written by C.S. Lewis?

6

Lewis just really needed to get laid. Christianity is a myth, and Lewis took it way too seriously. Smart guy, but he really wasted his time. Don’t waste your own.

7

I suppose I admire Lewis in the aspect of his ethics. He’s an apologist and essentially telling his followers how to have “faith” in the modern era, in other words, he’s teaching Christians how to be Christian without reading the absurdities written down from members of argicultural societies 2,000 years ago.

One particular problem I have is some classify him as philosopher, I suppose an Ethicist. A philosopher is a man of wisdom, he knows what he knows and knows what he does not know. He perhaps doubt many things if he is prone to skepticism. Lewis claims to know the meaning of life and it’s that Jesus of Nazareth was the son of a God and we’re here to receive salvation. Lewis provides no rational argumentation for his belief nor addresses the issue of willing beliefs. To ‘will’ a belief to Lewis is good, , this is essentially the only way one can believe yet to Christians to ‘will’ a belief in another religion is bad.

8

Christianity isn’t a myth, it is a religion. Like all religions, it has a mythology (body of myths). I bring this up because Lewis had the interesting and bizarre view that all religions’ mythologies were ways to the truth, but Christianity was the only mythology that was actually literally true. I never understood what brought him to that conclusion, which is logically indefensible. How do you decide that Mary’s virgin pregnancy is fact, but Kunti’s virgin pregnancy (Hindu) is fiction?

9

He got quite a lot of that from Tolkien, who was also a believer in the importance of myth. IIRC, it was Tolkien who convinced Lewis of that idea.

10

Amen to that. I think this thread, as you’ve envisioned it, is far too vague and general to yield anything useful. If you wanted to pick one particular point that you think Lewis made, then we could discuss exactly what he meant, how he argued for it, and whether that argument was valid. But I found the OP overly ambitious, confusing, and hard to follow. You don’t write as clearly as Lewis did.

11

I’ll ask again: have you actually read anything that Lewis wrote? Where do you find him teaching how to be Christian without reading the bible? As to him being a philosopher, he might be classified as one partly because he began his teaching career as a philosophy tutor at University College at Oxford. To say that he provides no rational argument for belief is to ignore Mere Christianity. Whether you find it convincing or not, it is an attempt to lay out an intellectual basis for Christian belief using reasoned argument. You say he does not address “willing beliefs”, and in the next sentence you say that to Lewis, to “will” a belief is good. You should read some Lewis if you want to discuss him, and you should read your own words to see if they make any sense.

12

Especially since the virgin birth nonsense came from a mistranslation of the bible. This mistranslation has been known for centuries, and it is a very reasonable assumption that Lewis knew of it as well.

13

I think you may be confusing things. Matthew and Luke both claim that Jesus’s bio-dad was the Holy Spirit, not Joseph. Where the mistranslation comes in is in Matthew’s use of a quotation from the Old Testament book of Isaiah:

(bolding mine)

Matthew loves to point out how Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecy, including this supposed prophecy of a virgin birth; but the word translated “virgin” in the passage he quotes really just means a young woman, not necessarily one who’s never had sex.