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Lewis
was a thinker with … outstanding philosophical instincts
(Victor
Reppert) [1]
Through the writings of C.S. Lewis we have explored four issues in the philosophy
of religion: the Euthyphro dilemma, the philosophical status of miracles,
the Freudian critique of religious belief, and C.S. Lewis’ argument from
desire. As demonstrated in the introduction to this dissertation, these are
just a few of the philosophical themes and arguments to be found in the work
of C.S. Lewis. While it seems overly optimistic to suppose that these
explorations have established the truth of the claim at the head of this
page, I hope that they have at least rendered it plausible.
Although I have disagreed with Lewis in a few of the details,
I have attempted to defend a broadly Lewisian (and therefore broadly
Christian) stance on each of these issues. Indeed, I have attempted to
defend these Lewisian positions using, so far as possible, Lewis’ own
methods.
In chapter 2, on the Euthyphro dilemma, my initial contention
was that the dilemma is not so easily avoided as has been commonly assumed.
In response to this dilemma, I replaced Lewis’ endorsement of the doctrine
of divine simplicity (through his claim that God is goodness) with the
assertion that God possesses His (perfect) moral attributes essentially.
Like Lewis’ own position, this claim, if true, would secure a strong modal
status for morality while still allowing that morality is rooted in God. I
argued that the resulting position, Divine Nature Theory, was immune to the
Euthyphro dilemma.
Chapters 3 and 4 were concerned with the philosophical
standing of miracles. Chapter 3 began with a brief discussion of the
logical character of the laws of nature. Against the background of this
discussion, we assessed various arguments against the possibility of
miracles. These arguments were shown to depend upon an inadequate
conception of the miraculous. Building upon certain suggestions from C.S.
Lewis we offered the following definition of miracle: an event that
would not have happened had nature been ‘left to itself’. This definition
was then refined in response to objections. The chapter closed with a
tentative exposition of a Lewisian cosmological argument based upon the
inherent limits of explanation via laws of nature.
Chapter 4 addressed the Humean argument against miracles.
Hume claimed to have demonstrated that there could never be sufficient
evidence to justify belief in a miracle. Lewis’ own response to Hume was
shown to be incomplete. We remedied this incompleteness by drawing on and
developing other elements of his writing (and that of G.K. Chesterton).
Chapter 5 sought to evaluate the Freudian critique of
religious belief. That critique contends that religious belief is rooted in
wish-fulfilment and is therefore irrational. Had he been aware of the term
“genetic fallacy,” it seems clear that Lewis would have used it to describe
the Freudian critique. The main work of the chapter was, therefore, to
discover general principles to help us decide which arguments commit this
fallacy. The principles discovered led us to judge the Freudian case
against religious belief a failure. As if this were not sufficient,
following Lewis we saw that atheistic belief is also explicable in Freudian
terms.
In chapter 6, we examined a related argument from C.S. Lewis.
While Freud claimed that its root in the desire for God discredits
religious belief, Lewis argued that the desire for God might be an
indication of God’s real existence. According to Lewis’ argument from
desire, since humans have a natural desire for communion with God, and the
world is such that natural desires can always be satisfied, God must exist.
After explaining the concept of natural desire, this argument was
developed and defended against various objections. I strongly suspect that
how an individual reader will receive the argument will depend upon the
extent to which they are themselves aware of an inner ache, which cannot be
silenced by anything that this world has to offer. Even those aware of such
a desire within them may question the argument built upon it, but the
argument may still have done some significant work. If we are hungry, we
will listen to a man who claims to know where we can find food. The
philosopher or apologist who employs the argument from desire would surely
be happy, if, after considering this argument, someone really began to
listen to those who claim to have found (or been found by) the One who can
satisfy their inner longings.[2]
Last Updated: 15th
March 2003
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