I like how Lewis thought that critical thinking (“materialists and sceptics”) was evil, and that he was so threatened by science. How this guy is regarded as such a convincing apologist by some people, I’ll never know. He was self-righteous, sniveling, judgemental and fallacy prone. he was also an advocate of the argument from morality, which has some relevance to this thread (since most people are moral, that proves a magic fairy is making them that way).
Perhaps it’s not so much about wanting to credit the magic fairy making them good as wanting to be able to blame the OTHER magic fairy for when they turn out to be an unmitigated bastard.
One of my favorite quotes along these lines is from The Snake Oil Wars by Parke Godwin: “Who wants to believe he can be a son of a bitch without help?”
I’m not sure the more sophisticated Christians find him all that convincing. (But then, the “sophisticated Christian” is, IMHO, a pretty rare animal. And if Josh McDowell is as popular as he is, what does that say about Christians’ ability to evaluate arguments? :eek:)
I think Lewis’ appeal lies in his fiction; he popularized and glamorized a lot of Christian mythology, and made it palatable to the more literate among the rank-and-file anglophone Christian believers. Never underestimate the power of a compelling fictional narrative. ([cough] Like The Bible! [cough])
And yet, he had pretensions – I will not even dignify them as “delusions” – to the contrary. Also from Screwtape:
The bolded sentence has got to be the most dishonest line a Christian ever wrote.
That’s saying something! 
I think it’s problematic to use Screwtape as evidence for what Lewis himself thought/believed/taught.
Bullshit.
Why? His fiction was clearly an expression of his Christianity, and the ideas he had thereupon.
Please elaborate on why you think it’s problematic.
Because—and I had thought this was so obvious as not to need elaboration—the passages that were quoted were the words of a fictional character; and as a general rule one cannot assume that the words an author places in the mouth (or pen) of one of his characters accurately reflect what the author himself believes.
In this case, the character in question is a devil, so of course one cannot take everything Screwtape says at face value.
Admittedly, The Screwtape Letters was written partly for didactic purposes, for Lewis to express his beliefs, opinions, and insights on various matters. Which is why I didn’t, and wouldn’t, claim that one cannot learn anything about what Lewis believed from reading Screwtape, only that it is problematic. Even when Lewis is expressing things he himself believes, we cannot assume we have the full explanations, nuances, qualifications, etc. that we would get if he were writing in his own voice.
Since we do have plenty of non-fiction (books, essays, letters) in which Lewis did express himself in his own voice, I would rather see claims about Lewis backed up by other sources beyond just Screwtape.
I have seen that one on occasion - is it interpreted to mean that education itself is ungodly?
How does it relate to Jew’s propensity towards education for education’s sake?
Did I understand that right? You are equating your own certainty of belief in god to homophobia?
No fucking kidding!
I t doesn’t. Corinthians is a Christian book, not a Jewish one. Paul himself was Jewish, of course, but he was well off the reservation theologically.
I have to agree with Thudlow. Lewis might sincerely believe in devils, and he might also believe that they have a hopeless weakness for error. They revolve around a different ethico-rational axis than humans, or angels, or you name it. We shouldn’t necessarily take this one line and hold it up as Christian doctrine. Unfortunately the theists are not always particularly rational, and it’s tempting.
yah I just now made up ‘ethico-rational’
Screwtape is most certainly a vehicle for expressing Lewis’ real views. The use of literal devils is neither here nor there, I assume he was using them allegorically, but the point of the book is about the kinds of thought patterns which (in Lewis’ mind) lead one subtly away from God. When Lewis had his devil say that logical argument leads to God (and therefore devils should avoid it), that’s what he really thought. That’s exactly the kind of thing he said in Mere Christianity.
That’s interesting, I didn’t know that. Still, Lewis is an artist and he is just working some puppets with his devils. Maybe Lewis subconsciously attributed all his unresolved musings to the devils, who knows?
Well his interpretations of those thought patters are kind of drivel if he is serious about ‘worshiping’ sex; or the self, or what-have-you. People may have sex, or selves, or property without it becoming an act of worship. It would be hard to humor such an elision.
I’m not saying I think he was right, just that he was sincere.
Not everything in Screwtape is crap, though, he does have some insights about the banality of selfish thoughts, and how people can be distracted from noble ambitions by trivial appetites, but I think the drivel outweighs the good.
I almost want to make that my signature.