Notes to:
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: C.S. Lewis and the
Euthyphro Dilemma
Chapter 3: C.S. Lewis and the
Possibility of Miracles
Chapter 4: C.S. Lewis, David
Hume and the Credibility of Miracles
Chapter 5: C.S. Lewis and the
Freudian Critique of Religion
Chapter 6: C.S. Lewis’ Argument
from Desire
Chapter 7: Conclusion
Appendix A: A Short Biography of
C.S. Lewis
Appendix B: C.S. Lewis on Faith
and Reason
Chapter 1:
Introduction
1. It is interesting to compare Lewis’
arguments here with those that Antony Flew (1993: 293-302) presents against
Skinner’s behaviourism. See also Carl Paul Ellerman (1990) and the reply
from Stephen R.L. Clark (1990).
2. In a similar vein, I remember being
struck by the resemblance between these passages from John McDowell and
Lewis. McDowell: “[Something of moral value] is conceived to be not merely
such as to elicit [a certain] ‘attitude’ … but rather such as to merit
it” (1985: 118). Lewis: “Until quite modern times all teachers and even all
men believed the universe to be such that certain emotional reactions on
our part could be either congruous or incongruous to it – believed, in
fact, that objects did not merely receive, but could merit, our
approval or disapproval” (1943a: 14).
3. Such as Peterson et al, eds.
(1996). The original version appears in Lewis (1952b), book one.
4. For more on the similarities between
Lewis and MacIntyre, see Walker (1990).
5. See Thomas Talbott (1987) and his entry
on The Problem of Pain in J.D. Schultz & J.G. West Jr., eds.
(1998: 339-41).
6. The argument, or hints of it, appears in
many of Lewis’ writings. See especially Lewis (1946c), (1947), (1960a).
Useful commentary includes A. Flew (1955), (1958); E. Gellner (1957); V.
Reppert (1989b); and of course G.E.M. Anscombe (1948) and the introduction
to Anscombe (1981). More contemporary material offering similar arguments
includes R. Talyor (1974: 112-20); W. Hasker (1973), (1998); V. Reppert
(1999), (2000), (2001); J. Aach (1990); A. Plantinga (2000: 227-40, 280-4);
and J. Beilby, ed. (2002). See also Reppert’s C.S. Lewis’ Dangerous Idea
(Intervarsity Press, Forthcoming).
7. For this strategy, see Peter Kreeft
(1982: 53ff) and S.R. Burson and J.L. Walls (1998: 241).
8. Another route would be to take the first
of these alternatives for some NT passages and the second for others.
9. Lewis made his own contribution to these
arguments in Lewis (1959). For an introduction to these issues from a
Christian viewpoint, see Lee Strobel (1998).
10. He clearly taught, for example, that God
is personal, and endorsed the doctrine of Hell. Neither fits well with the
assumption that Jesus’ teaching was pantheistic. One might suppose that He
was misunderstood here too, but if this strategy is applied in every case
it can hardly be used as a defence of the claim that Jesus was a good
teacher, for it would clearly imply the precise opposite. For this and
other relevant data, see P. Kreeft and R. Tacelli (1995: 165-70).
11. Another relevant piece by C.S. Lewis, not
referred to in the main tezt, is Lewis (1950).
12. On religious language see C.S. Lewis
(1944a), (1945a) and (1967c). On prayer, Lewis (1942b), letter 27; (1945b);
(1945e); (1953); (1959a); (1960), Appendix B: “On Special Providences”; and
(1964b). On punishment, Lewis (1949) and (1961a).
Chapter 2: C.S. Lewis and the Euthyphro Dilemma
1. There are also various ways in which the
‘because’ could be filled out. It must denote some asymmetric dependence
relation, but this could be a broadly causal relation, a constitutive
relation, or something else entirely.
2. There are complications here that ought
to be mentioned. First, there probably is not a one-to-one correlation
between God’s commands and moral truths; it seems plausible to suppose that
God often commands (or forbids) not particular actions but particular kinds
of action. Second, and connectedly, it often happens that there is a set of
actions of which we are obliged to perform at least one, without there
being any one action that we are obliged to perform. Third, it seems
possible for a person to be obliged to perform an action not because God
has commanded that action but because performing that action is the only
available way of performing an action of a type that God has
commanded. I see no reason to think these points cannot be accommodated
within revisions of (DCTa) to (DCTc), but I do not attempt such revisions
here. For a start on these issues, see Edward Wierenga (1983).
3. Philip L. Quinn labels this proposition
the “Karamazov Thesis” in his Divine Commands and Moral Requirements
(1978: 30). The name derives from Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers
Karamazov.
4. Plato’s Euthyphro, 10a1 (as translated
by Hugh Tredennick 1969: 31).
5. A general form of this question, which
could be asked of all formulations of DCT, runs: Do things have moral
status M because they stand in relation R to God, or do they stand in
relation R to God because they have moral status M?
6. Richard Joyce has pointed out to me that
if the ‘because’ in (ED2) does not indicate God’s reasons, then (depending
on just what it does indicate) it may be possible to endorse both
(ED1) and (ED2).
7. Or, if “God is good” is analytic, then
for “God” substitute “the creator” throughout the argument.
8. Though there are certain affinities between this
argument and Plato’s, Nielsen seems to be taking his inspiration here from
Kant. A good article on the Kantian argument is Mark Linville (1990a).
9. Richard Joyce (2002) points out that
such a conclusion would be “wildly overstated”.
10. This is because I also suspect that if
someone performs action A for reason B, then B is in some good sense a
cause of A, that (Arb5) may also use this broadly causal sense of
‘because,’ and because such a ‘because’ seems to me to be transitive. See
the references in the following note for more.
11. See Stephen J. Sullivan (1993) and (1994).
12. Joyce (2002) gives an elaborated version
of this response.
13. Paul Rooney (1995) offers a response to
the arbitrariness objection based upon the conditions of the rationality of
ends and of the rationality of means.
14. This reformulation of the arbitrariness
objection was inspired by Thomas B. Talbott (1982).
15. I suspect that more than anyone else, the
theologian Lewis had in mind here was William Paley. Lewis explicitly links
Paley with DCT in the Problem of Pain (1940a: 80).
16. See the interesting response made to this
point in Hanink and Mar (1987).
17. This, in broad outline, is the response to
the Euthyphro dilemma offered by Richard Swinburne (1974). For more on
Swinburne’s position see T.J. Mawson (2002).
18. Essentialism here contrasts with
Voluntarism, according to which God could have issued commands radically
different from those He has in fact issued. William Ockham famously
endorsed voluntarism.
19. God’s de dicto necessary goodness
consists in the fact that something that is less than perfectly good could
not be appropriately called God. His de re necessary goodness
consists in the fact that God (where “God” functions as a rigid designator)
is essentially good.
20. This approach is taken in Thomas Morris (1987b) and in Mark D. Linville
(1990b).
21. The formulation of (DCTf) to (DCTh) owes
much to Linda Zagzebski (1998).
22. Three roughly formulated possibilities
suggest themselves: (1) For any moral attribute God possesses, does God
possesses that attribute because it is a moral virtue, or is that attribute
a moral virtue because God possesses it? (2) Does God count His being, for
example, loving among the reasons for approving of Himself because
being loving is good, or is His being loving good because God counts
it among the reasons for approving of Himself? (3) Is an action in accord
with the nature of God because it is good, or is it good because it is
accord with the nature of God?
23. This line of thinking occurs in William
Alston (1989b) and Paul Rooney (1996).
24. This move is, of course, available to
defenders of the unmodified DCT. But that is only to say that the
unmodified DCT can avoid certain forms of the arbitrariness objection. I
have argued that such a position cannot avoid all forms of this objection.
25. See Mark Linville (1990b) and David
Basinger (1981).
26. Wittgenstein denied this (1953: #50,
24-5), presumably for reasons connected with the Lewisian maxim about
measuring rods quoted earlier. Despite this, it seems obvious (to me) that
the distance between the two marks on the rod in Paris is one metre. If
this remark is to be consistent with the Lewisian maxim, then the rod must
be a metre long in a different sense than other things. Providing this
sense is not difficult. The rod has that length with a necessity unique to
itself.
27. In this context, one interesting
development is Peter Geach’s rejection of God’s omnipotence in favour of
His almightiness. Omnipotence is understood as the power to do all
things (of a certain sort), almightiness is rather power over all
things. See Peter Geach (1977: chapter one).
28. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica
I q. 25 a. 3, quoted in Charles Taliaferro (1998). Richard Swinburne has
argued that God’s omniscience and omnipotence jointly entail His goodness.
The idea seems to be that since God knows the moral standard, and the moral
standard provides reasons to act which override any competing reasons, God
could only fail to act according to the moral law if He suffered from
weakness of will, an assumption which is incompatible with God’s
omnipotence.
29. Indeed, powers to exercise our powers in
certain ways are generally dubious. If such powers exist, then it seems
reasonable to suppose that there are also powers to exercise these
meta-level powers. In short, we are off on an infinite regress.
30. This response is inspired by Thomas V.
Morris (1987c).
31. The general approach here is that offered
in George N. Schlesinger (1987b). See also Wes Morriston (2001).
Chapter 3: C.S. Lewis and the Possibility of Miracles
1. Rudolf Bultmann quoted in Plantinga
(2000: 403).
2. Max Planck quoted in Strobel (2000: 58).
3. Consequently where I give ‘definitions’
of miracle they will all take the form “event E is a miracle only if
…” and it will be understood that the missing component of the definition
is bound up with the event’s religious significance as described in the
main text.
4. As presented here, this theory is
hopelessly underdeveloped and vulnerable to several well-known
counter-examples (see Armstrong 1983). Nothing in my argument hinges on the
(un)availability of a more sophisticated version of regularity theory.
5. At least this is how things would seem,
but see Dretske (1977).
6. In what follows, it will be fairly clear
that G.K. Chesterton adopts a regularity theory of laws, while C.S. Lewis
seems to prefer the more-than-regularity approach. I say only “seems”, for
some passages in Lewis suggest otherwise.
7. He writes, “Natural laws ... exert no
opposition or resistance to anything, not even to the odd or exceptional.
They are simply highly generalised shorthand descriptions of how things do
in fact happen” (McKinnon 1967: 309).
8. Naturalism may be roughly defined as the
view according to which nothing exists besides the material world, or that
the only stuff there is is the stuff that can be investigated by the
sciences.
9. We might for instance think that a
person being dealt a perfect hand in bridge is an exceptional or striking
event. But while some people might call such an event miraculous, they
surely wouldn’t mean this in any way that would spell trouble for the
atheist, not even if they thought that God was involved in the occurrence
of that event in some way.
10. This last point has been put rather
schematically and may seem weak. However, it can be defended (see the
following chapter) and is in any case superfluous to the defence of the possibility
of the miraculous.
11. One could equally well draw the conclusion
that we have misunderstood the words “violation” and “suspension”. Indeed,
this seems just another way of drawing the same conclusion. However, to
avoid misunderstandings, I will distance myself from these terms as far as possible.
12. Flew (1967): “a miracle is something which
would never have happened had nature, as it were, been left to itself”.
Mackie (1982: 20): “A miracle occurs when the world is not left to itself,
when something distinct from the natural order as a whole intrudes into
it”.
13. Strictly, an extra clause is necessary,
for there is a kind of miracle that this definition excludes. The kind of
miracle I have in mind is God’s making a certain event happen earlier or
later than it would otherwise have done, or making it occur in a different
place. Thus, the final clause should read, “together imply either that E
does not occur, or that E occurs at time and place (T,P)” where E in fact
occurs at (T1,P1) and (T1,P1)
≠ (T,P). See Hughes (1992).
14. The analogy between (a deistic) God and a
watchmaker became prevalent following the publication of William Paley’s
book Natural Theology (1836). Paley began with the observation that
were we to stumble upon a watch in a field, even if we could not fully
understand it, we would know that it had at some point been designed, and
that there must therefore have been a designer. He went on to argue that
much of nature is in relevant respects similar to the watch and that
therefore we should also infer the existence of a designer in this case.
Dawkin’s book, about the nature and potency of evolutionary explanation, is
basically a modern day response to Paley.
15. Stuart Judge (1991) seems to be making the
same point.
16. It is precisely this view of God which is
best labelled by the phrase “God-of-the-gaps,” for within semi-deism God is
only active in the events which are unexplainable in terms of (current?)
science, and thus his sphere of activity shrinks with every advance in
science. The worry, of course, is that things cannot go on shrinking
forever. They eventually disappear. However, not being a naturalist I see
no good reason to say that everything will one day be explainable in
naturalistic terms. Indeed, it seems to me that many advances in science,
while undeniably adding to our knowledge, only reveal that there is more
left to explain than we previously thought. See for example Michael Behe
(1996) and Betty with Cordell (1987).
17. See, for example, Brian Hebblethwaite
(1988: 9).
18. One of my reasons for being reluctant to
identify these ‘two’ distinctions is my suspicion that it would lead to
seeing the Bible as the result of a kind of ‘automatic writing,’ in which
the canonical writers must be envisaged as writing while in some kind of
trance. This seems to me an unacceptable consequence, but if that
consequence can be avoided (and maybe it can, but I cannot see how) then
perhaps these ‘two’ distinctions can be thought of as the same distinction.
19. It should be noted that even if the points
made below do not succeed in showing that regularity theory is mistaken, I
have nevertheless provided a coherent definition of the miraculous and have
therefore shown that miracles are not logically impossible. The imagined
regularity theorist does not accept the definition because it clashes with
his regularity theory, not because the definition is internally
contradictory or otherwise unacceptable.
20. The argument is, I believe, just as potent
against the combination of little-more-than-regularity and naturalism but
since my concern is more with the possibility of miracles than with the
correct account of the laws of nature this is of little importance here.
21. The reader may think that the argument
fails because while the regularity theorist doesn’t think that the law “all
elephants have trunks” explains the regularity, it doesn’t follow that they
should also think nothing (natural) explains this regularity. However, such
an objection misses the generality of Chesterton’s point. Any proposed
naturalistic explanation of this regularity would involve appeal to further
laws and therefore to further regularities, which would in turn require
explanation. Unfortunately this regress is vicious, and therefore
unacceptable, for at no stage does it remove the element of coincidence
which prompted the search for explanation.
22. For more on this passage see Ravi
Zacharias (1994: chapter 8).
23. Readers who are concerned as to whether
(Def4) fits with the Biblical understanding of the miraculous
(assuming that there is such a thing) are referred to C. John Collins
(2001).
24. A similar line of thought can be found in
Lewis (1964b: 100).
25. As the earlier Chestertonian argument
testifies, the laws of nature themselves are a second example.
26. On the philosophical side of that problem,
see the following chapter.
27. Historically, many variations of the
cosmological argument have required the inference from something like every event requires a cause outside of
itself to an infinite causal chain requires a cause
outside itself. Those wishing to deny that the universe has a cause are
very quick to point out that such an inference commits the fallacy of
composition. It is interesting to note, however, that a great many are so
keen to do this that they cannot help committing the same fallacy themselves.
David Hume, for instance, argues thus: “Did I show you the particular
causes of each individual in a collection of twenty particles of matter, I
should think it very unreasonable should you afterwards ask me what was the
cause of the whole twenty. This is sufficiently explained in explaining the
cause of the parts” (Hume 1779: 59-60).
28. To the mathematically astute, this may
seem dubious, since an infinite series of numbers can have a finite sum.
(For example, 1/10 + 1/100 + 1/1,000
+ 1/10,000 + ... = 1/9.) This
suggests that, even taking the whole series of them into account; the
series of earlier and earlier events (with no earliest member) might
nevertheless occupy only a finite period. The aim of this move is
presumably to have both the advantages of an infinite past (having no
earliest member) and those of a finite past (being in accord with
scientific theory). However, this would seem not to remove any of the
features of a real beginning which make it so problematic. As William Lane
Craig (2000: 226-7) has pointed out, “having a beginning does not entail
having a beginning point. Even in the standard [big bang] model, theorists
sometimes “cut out” the initial singularity point without thinking that
therefore space time no longer begins to exist and the problem of the
origin of the universe is thereby solved. Time begins to exist just in case
for any finite temporal interval, there are only a finite number of
[non-overlapping] equal temporal periods earlier than it.” Given what
follows in the main text, the naturalist seems to be in a dialectical bind.
29. Some might claim that a complete ‘Big
Bang’ theory would include an explanation of how something can come from
nothing. It would therefore include what are sometimes called “laws of
initial conditions.” Even if we ignore the dubious nature of such laws,
they would not solve the naturalist’s dilemma. After all, we must ask what
makes the statements of such laws true, since by definition it could not be
anything within the natural world. See Paul Davies (1993: 87-92).
30. G.K. Chesterton (1933: 139). Where I have the word ‘atheist’, Chesterton had
‘evolutionist’. Chesterton’s remarks here seem particularly appropriate in
a world so taken with the ‘Big Bang’ theory ... which seems remarkably
similar to the Christian idea of creation ex nihilo.
Chapter 4: C.S. Lewis
and the Credibility of Miracles
1. See Hume (1777). It is worth noting at the outset that
the only kind of evidence for the miraculous that Hume explicitly considers
is the evidence of testimony. Since I will be assuming that it is perfectly
possible to have other kinds of evidence it is important to notice that,
whatever Hume’s argument actually is, it easily generalises so as to take
other kinds of evidence into account.
2. I take my cue here from Beckwith (1989:
24).
3. The way Lewis has put his objection here
is, it must be admitted, a little sloppy and seems to contain some rather
odd assumptions. However, Lewis is surely correct that for Hume to assume
our experience is totally uniform is to beg the question. See also the
following note.
4. C. Stephen Evans sees the possibility of
interpreting Hume as Lewis has done and agrees that such an argument would
beg the question. However, like me, he thinks it is possible to interpret
Hume’s argument so that it does not commit this error. See Evans (1996:
153-4).
5. This is not to deny that the opponent of
miracles sometimes (and sometimes in perfect rationality) not merely
suspends judgement but positively disbelieves in the occurrence of a
particular miracle (or class of miracles). This is compatible with what I
have said in the main text, not least because Hume could adopt the
‘suspension of judgement’ strategy merely for the sake of argument, while
in fact disbelieving.
6. “In principle” because in any particular
case the sceptic may think that there was not even experience as of a miracle. The inclusion of an
experience as of a miracle in our evidence base may well, and probably
will, have to be argued for. But, in principle, such an argument could be
successful.
7. This is important for, as we shall see,
Hume refers to both the first stage of his In Principle argument and
to this argument as a whole as his “proof.” This is clearly because the
argument’s first stage is so much more important and so much more
contentious.
8. The infinitesimal may be roughly defined
as the infinitely small. But this is not technically correct, since it
entails that if x = 0, then x is infinitesimal.
9. For the sake of argument, I accept this
assumption. However, certain examples make me a little uneasy. Consider a
random number generator, whose output could be any positive integer, and
which on each use is as likely to ‘give’ any one number as it is any other
number. Obviously, the prior probability of some specified number being
‘given’ on a specified occasion is infinitesimal. However, it would seem
that we could have sufficient
evidence to believe that that number was the output on that occasion. But
perhaps there is something wrong with examples like this.
10. See Mackie (1982) especially p. 25.
11. This is because that assumption would not
be true (or at least we’ve no reason to believe it to be true), as was
demonstrated in the previous chapter. But even if the last chapter was
ultimately wrong, Hume and Mackie are not best understood as relying upon
this assumption, for that would make all their subsequent argument
superfluous.
12. As a model for how scientific laws are
confirmed this is surely mistaken. Not every event that happens as a
law/theory would have predicted serves to offer (any?/equal?) confirmation
to that law/theory. I don’t know quite how the model should be changed. Perhaps we should adopt the
Popperian sounding suggestion that only a sufficiently novel prediction turning out correct offers
confirmation to the theory/law, which made that prediction. In any case, it
is the account of confirmation outlined in the main text that Hume and his
defenders seem to adopt.
13. This criticism of the Humean argument is
put forward well by Richard Otte (1996). See also George Schlesinger
(1987a) and Alvin Plantinga (1986).
14. These examples are due to Steve Makin.
15. Chesterton seems to be onto a similar
point when in his short article called “Miracles and Modern Civilisation,”
he writes, “The philosophical case against miracles is somewhat easily
dealt with. There is no philosophical case against miracles. There are such
things as the laws of nature rationally speaking. What everybody knows is
this only. That there is repetition in nature. What everybody knows is that
pumpkins produce pumpkins. What nobody knows is why they should notproduce
elephants and giraffes. ... There is one philosophical question about
miracles and only one. Many able modern Rationalists cannot apparently even
get it into their heads. ... The question of miracles is merely this. Do
you know why a pumpkin goes on being a pumpkin? If you do not, you cannot
possibly tell whether a pumpkin could turn into a coach or couldn’t. That
is all ... What Christianity says is merely this. That this repetition in
Nature has its origin not in a thing resembling a law but a thing
resembling a will ... and therefore [Christianity] believes that other and
different things might come by it” (1904a: 386-7).
16. Since a miracle has been defined (in the
previous chapter) as an event that would not happen but for the special
activity of God, it is unclear how an event can be more or less of a
miracle. Either it is the result of God’s special activity or it isn’t. The
most charitable way to read Event e1
is more miraculous than event e2 seems to be something like Without the special action of God, event
e1 would be less
likely to occur than would event e2 or (equivalently?) Event e1 is more likely to be a miracle than
event e2. But there is a clear logical difference between
these statements and Event e1 is less probable than event e2.
Thus, Hume’s ‘argument’ here (see the following note) fails.
17. To be fair, I should say that this is not
really an argument that Hume is presenting here, but simply his conclusion.
The point in the main text is therefore that the conclusion is not
self-evident, and needs support. My other observations are an attempt to
show that this support is not forthcoming.
18. For more on the subject see the following:
Norman Geisler (1999: 459); C.D Broad (1916/7: 86-8); J.A. Cover (1999:
340).
19. I have in mind Andrew Rein (1986).
20. I’ve included the word ‘fair’ here to
prevent it from being claimed that the event, E, can be replicated when in
fact what has occurred (though similar), occurred under conditions so
different from those in which E was believed to occur that we cannot
legitimately infer that the same factor brought the events about in both
cases. In this context, looking again at the definition of the miraculous I
gave in the previous chapter, it becomes evident that Mackie’s clause
“given some actual earlier ... state of the world,” is not always
redundant. To illustrate this point consider the following scenario.
Imagine that someone holds that the origin of life on Earth must have been
a miracle. If someone then discovers that they can ‘create’ life in the
laboratory, have they disproved or undermined the claim that the origin of
life on Earth was a miracle? The answer to this question depends upon how
similar the way in which life arose on Earth can reasonably be believed to
be to the way life was ‘created’ in the laboratory. If to get it to happen
in the laboratory the scientist had to engineer special circumstances which
we have no reason to believe were (or which we’ve reason to believe were
not) present on Earth when and where life arose then the claim that the
origin of life was a miracle may still stand. This example is not a merely
theoretical one; for an introduction to this issue see chapter 3 (an
interview with Walter L. Bradley) of Lee Strobel (2000) and/or chapter 8 of
Michael J. Behe (1996).
21. Evans (1996: 157) makes much the same
remark.
22. In a letter to John Stewart, Hume wrote,
“But allow me to tell you, that I never asserted so absurd a Proposition as
that any thing might arise without a Cause.” This is quoted in Beckwith
(1989: 58).
23. What I label ‘incredible’ here is the idea
of a natural faculty of seeing the future. The Christian holds that
while some people have ‘seen’ into the future, they did not do so by the
exercise of a natural faculty.
24. At least this is true on one
interpretation of the principle. On others, the non-uniformity of nature
would be equally damaging to belief in miracles, for without a background
of uniformity no event could seem in anyway exceptional. Given that I
reject the following complaint against Hume from Lewis, this is no way
counts against my overall thesis.
25. The same argument can be found in many of
Flew’s other writings on this subject.
26. Strictly, the second half of this quote is
a response to Michael Root (1989) who offers very much the same argument as
Flew.
27. Because I have simplified the reasoning
involved here, the argument given is, strictly speaking, fallacious. The
universe could go on getting smaller and smaller (as you look further and
further into the past) but never disappear. For the argument to succeed you
would have to add something about the rate of expansion. But the general
point still holds.
28. Another promising strategy against Flew’s
argument would be to claim that, given the evidence, the assumption that
nature is uniform self-destructs. For if nature is uniform, the evidence
points to an event (or to events) which does not (do not) fit the overall
pattern of nature.
29. Much the same point is also made in Broad
(1916/7: 82).
30. It may be that a rather more simple third
reason can be added to these two. Namely, that some religions are
themselves rightly regarded with more suspicion than others. There are
presumably many reasons why such suspicion might be justified: that the
religion faces overwhelming philosophical difficulties; that some of its
central doctrines conflict with well confirmed historical or scientific
facts ... the list could go on indefinitely.
31. The only clear suggestions that Mohammed
did perform miracles come in the Islamic tradition (known as the hadith).
32. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, lib. 1 d. 6 n. 4.
33. See Suras 29:50, 13:27-31, and 17:90-3.
34. Isma’il Frauqi, Islam (Niles, Illinois: Argus, 1984), quoted by Clark (1997:
204).
35. The same point can be found in the final
chapter of Chesterton (1908).
36. Michael Martin (1990: 198) puts it this
way, “[A]lleged miracles may ... be due ... to a misperception based on
religious bias. People full of religious zeal may see what they want to
see, not what is really there. ... It would not be surprising that
religious people who report seeing a miraculous event have projected their
biases onto the actual event.”
37. One might interpret Hume’s comment that
“such events never happen in our days” as an attempt to discredit not
miracles in general but the miracles which Christians tend to be interested
in: those occurring in the life of Jesus. The point would be roughly that
temporal proximity to an event allows higher levels of certainty and that
the large time lapse in the case of Jesus’ miracles should push us towards
scepticism. A full response to this objection will not be given here (and
in any case I’m not the best qualified of people to attempt that response).
Suffice it to say that the objection seems to reduce to one about the
reliability of the Bible and other ancient texts. Such texts are not
rendered unreliable simply through age. Unreliability is an issue if either
(a) the texts as they were originally written were unreliable (which is to
say the original writers were unreliable), or (b) the transmission of the
texts has led to corruption which cannot be detected and corrected. But
there are genuine tests that can be applied to ascertain the truth in such
matters. For an introduction to this issue from a Christian viewpoint see
Lee Strobel (1998), Part I.
38. See Winfried Corduan (1997: 110). We would
be committing the same fallacy were we to argue that since we have not
conclusively proved that a certain event has a cause, we can be perfectly
rational in thinking it has no cause.
39. I am certain that other philosophers have
used this label but I have been unable to remember whom.
Chapter 5: C.S. Lewis
and the Freudian Critique of Religious Belief
1. On this point, see Bishop, L.C. and
Thielman, S.B. (1992). For a general comparison of the views of Lewis and
Freud see Armand M. Nicholi Jr. (2002) which, through an exploration of
their writings, assesses the relative merits of atheism and Christianity.
2. The status of psychoanalysis – that is,
whether it really is a science – is, to understate the point rather
dramatically, a matter of some debate: hence the scare-quotes. For an
introduction to this subject, see Frederick Crews ed. (1998).
3. Also useful is Freud (1933).
4. However, even this latter point is not
straightforward. As we shall see, Freud always associates religion with the
father figure and the Oedipus complex. However, in females the Oedipus
complex is directed towards the mother. The idea behind the Oedipus complex
is that a child quite inevitably has ambivalent feelings towards the parent
of their own sex. This is because the parent is not only a model and ideal
for the child but also stands in the way of satisfying the desire for
sexual relations with the parent of the opposite sex. Freud nearly always
explains the theory via an example, and the example is nearly always a
young male. Thus, if only in the examples, the ambivalent feelings are
directed towards the father who is therefore both loved and hated, feared
and admired. But clearly, such negative feelings towards the father must be
repressed, and normally are. All these attitudes become a part of the
subconscious mind, and retain a subtle power over the individual. But these
feelings are always lurking under the surface and could erupt into a
full-blooded neurosis at any time.
5. This is one of the reasons for which we
will be focusing upon The Future of
an Illusion, which makes no such assumption.
6. For an evaluation of Freud’s work as an
attempt at serious science and history see Schmidt (1935).
7. Though on this point see chapters three
and four, on the miraculous.
8. Though it is an obvious fact that
non-genetic arguments could be offered for the same conclusions, I shall –
so as to avoid unnecessarily long sentences – sometimes drop the word
‘genetic’. Thus, for example, I will sometimes refer to a genetic
argument to falsehood simply as an argument to falsehood.
9. A particular premise is essential to an
argument if (the argument’s supporters believe that) without that premise
the argument would give us no reason to believe the conclusion. That the
premise describing how the belief came to be held is essential to the
argument therefore prevents an argument (containing a superfluous premise
about how a belief arose) counting as a good genetic argument through its
being a good argument of some other kind.
10. Although see Crouch (1993), which quotes
from Salmon (1973).
11. This formulation is an adapted combination
that of Crouch (1993) and J.P. Moreland (1987). Crouch: “The genetic
fallacy is said to be committed when the source or origin of a proposition
is taken to be relevant to its evaluation” (p. 229). Moreland: “The genetic
fallacy is the fallacy of confusing the origin of a belief with its
epistemological warrant, and faulting the belief because of its origin” (p.
229). The most important difference from Crouch’s formulation is that she
allows that the fallacy has a positive form too: that you can commit the
fallacy by arguing from a belief’s origin to its truth, probable truth,
justification or warrant. She is surely right that there is such a fallacy,
but many wouldn’t include it under the genetic fallacy and, in any case,
for our purposes these cases are irrelevant.
12. Jeffrey Gordon (1991) offers a spirited
defence of Freud against the accusation of committing the genetic fallacy.
He would, I think, admit the truth of much that is said here. See notes 28
and 34 for his points of disagreement.
13. Though the actual falsehood of this belief
is not required for my example to make sense, this belief would indeed be
false: the Sun is roughly 93 million miles from the Earth.
14. This is not to endorse the following
unsound argument: Arguments A and B share the logical form F, but since
argument A is invalid any argument of form F is invalid, and so argument B
must be invalid. This would be to confuse the presence of a possibly
relevant similarity with the absence of all possibly relevant differences.
15. From here on, I will ignore the
distinction between introducing a new premise and changing the old premise.
The same distinction would be appropriate in the other types of genetic
arguments too.
16. The only reason to think that such a
belief is likely to be false would be if people who suffer from
hypochondria (or have beliefs that result from it) are much less prone to
cancer than others.
17. Actually, this formulation is too strong.
It would entail the conclusion without the need for (15). Nevertheless, the
idea is right. If we qualify the phase “relevant physical characteristic”
so as to exclude possible symptoms of cancer and take in only Alice’s more
general physical characteristics (such as age, weight, height, gender, and
lifestyle) the argument will run through as intended.
18. The motivation for this name is brought
out by the point in the previous note. The prior probability of a belief is
the probability it (that is, its truth) can be assigned independently of
(prior to) consideration of the factors that brought that belief about.
19. While I am stipulating the meaning of
these terms, I believe that my definitions of justification and warrant are
sufficiently close to concepts discussed in contemporary epistemology to
make my discussion of genuine interest to those working in this field.
20. To ensure this we would probably have to
add to the example somewhat, but such additions are certainly possible.
21. See Gettier (1963).
22. How to formulate this point is also a
matter of much debate, partly due to the ‘generality problem’: the
difficulty of explaining which of the many true descriptions of a belief
(forming process) are pertinent to deciding whether the belief was formed
in a reliable manner, and why. Another difficulty is that of preventing
Gettier problems appearing in a different place. See Zagzebski (1996:
300-8).
23. Given my definitions of justification and
warrant, and the stipulation that warrant includes justification, any
genetic argument to lack of justification would also be an argument to lack
of warrant. Technically, therefore, the best genetic argument to lack of
warrant would include a premise more like: beliefs produced via method M
are either formed in an intellectually irresponsible way, not sensitive to
the truth-value of their contents or both. This however, is of little
interest. We focus on the distinctive element in arguments to lack of
warrant.
24. This is not technically correct. Were it
the case that these extra premises are necessarily true, the arguments
would be valid without these premises; not because the conclusion would
follow even if the extra premises were false, but because they couldn’t be
false. But since we will have no reason to think such arguments valid
unless there is reason to think these extra premises true (necessarily or
otherwise), this technicality can be safely ignored here.
25. An alternative would be All beliefs relevantly similar to
religious belief which result from wish fulfilment are false.
26. Actually, Freud may not be arguing or
concluding anything here. He may simply be making an observation about the
likely effect of his critique upon its audience. Of course, we could admit
that Freud was right in that respect without thinking his critique of
religious belief a good one.
27. More is required to establish
coincidence. If ten coins were tossed simultaneously and all came up heads,
then this would be a coincidence. But if only, for example, coins 2, 3, 6,
9 and 10 came up heads this would not. However, the two scenarios are
equally improbable. The difference may be that we could imagine a good
explanation of the first situation (e.g. the coins are biased or
double-headed) that would remove the element of improbability but can
imagine no equally good explanation of the second situation.
28. This could, and possibly should, be
questioned. Freud does attempt to evaluate various kinds of argument for
theism. But even if his evaluations were correct, the proposed conclusion
would seem not to follow. Jeffrey Gordon (1991) seems to think that Freud’s
evaluation is right, and that it does give us reason to adopt this
conclusion.
29. For a little more on why concurrence in
belief needs an explanation see chapter 4, the section headed “An
Insufficient Number of Good Witnesses”.
30. Of course, to make the epistemic probability
of some belief lower than it would otherwise have been is not
necessarily to make that probability low.
31. In what follows, I shall refer to
religious belief as “desire-based”. There are many ways in which a belief
could be based upon a desire, many of which are unproblematic. The
interesting case is where I base a belief that p upon a desire which
is unlikely to be satisfied unless p. By “desire-based” beliefs, I
mean only to refer to beliefs formed in this manner.
32. To say that my seeming to remember that p
can be a legitimate occasion for belief that p is not to say that we
can produce a good (rightly persuasive) argument from that ‘seeming’ to the
truth of the belief. Indeed, it seems to me (and to many others) that we
cannot. Similarly, to say that the experience of a deep and
characteristically human desire for God is a legitimate occasion for belief
in God is not to say that there is a good argument from this desire to the
existence of God. Although, of course, there may be such an argument … see
the next chapter.
33. Augustine, Confessions, I.i.1.
34. The possibility described here is
overlooked by Jeffrey Gordon (1991). This oversight weakens his arguments
considerably. However, as the remainder of the chapter endeavours to show,
Freud’s argument (and consequently Gordon’s) has several other weak points.
35. Of course, to say that the desire is a
legitimate basis of (or occasion for) the belief is not to say that there
is a good argument from the desire to the truth of the belief. See note 32.
36. To my knowledge, there is only one other
(remotely plausible) reading of Freud. This reading supplements the
Freudian explanation of the origins of religious belief with Occam’s razor:
the principle that a good theory does not postulate more entities than are
necessary to explain the phenomena in question. This version of Freud’s
argumentation is dealt with by Alvin Plantinga (2000: 367-73). I have
nothing to add to his discussion.
37. Paul Johnson writes, “Taken as a group, they [intellectuals]
are often ultra-conformist within the circles formed by those whose
approval they seek and value” (Johnson 2000: 342).
38. Professor Peter Carruthers suggested the
possibility of this response.
39. It is unclear whether there is a response
to the genetic argument to atheism’s lack of warrant which parallels the
response I give to that version of the argument against theism.
40. This only shows that such Freudian
reasoning cannot be used to undermine the rationality of theism, atheism or
agnosticism as such. This is clearly consistent with allowing that
some individual cases of theistic belief, atheistic belief and agnostic
unbelief may be irrational for the reasons suggested in the main text.
41. Both Angus L. Menuge (1997) and Stephen M.
Smith (1998) have pointed out that C.S. Lewis, in chapter 12 of The Silver Chair (1953), puts a parody of this
argument into the mouth of the evil Queen of Underland. She attempts to
brainwash the story’s heroes, Jill, Eustace and Puddleglum into believing
that the “Overworld” is illusory. In particular, she attempts to persuade
them that their belief in a sun, which illumines the Overworld, is nothing
but a copy of a lamp, which illumines the underworld. The Silver Chair is the sixth of seven childrens’ stories
written by C.S. Lewis. The most well known of these stories is The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.
The seven taken together are known as the Chronicles of Narnia. Now easily available in countless
editions, these stories were originally published between 1950 and 1956.
42. Angus J.L. Menuge (1997a) goes further
than this and argues for the conclusion that the idea of our earthly
fathers is in some way secondary to the idea of God.
43. Francis Thompson (1996: 3). Francis
Thompson lived from 1859 to 1907.
44. Another problem is that Freud’s argument
only applies to religious systems, which posit the existence of personal
deities. Certain forms of pantheism, for example, are totally untouched by
Freud’s critique.
Chapter 6: C.S. Lewis’ Argument from Desire
1. C.S. Lewis in Sheldon Vanauken (1977:
93).
2. See C.S. Lewis (1960b).
3. I am sure some will be uneasy about
these definitions because they employ a kind of explanation that (some
believe) does not sit well with scientific models of explanation. Such
uneasiness would, I believe, be based on a mistake: the mistake of
believing that we could, in principle, give reductive explanations of all
causal relations. If this is a mistake, then some things must possess
intrinsic causal capacities simply in virtue of being the kind of thing
that they are. In any case our definitions could be replaced with ones
based upon the following schemas (which seem to capture the same basic
idea), the first of which makes explicit the problem just outlined while
the second attempts to avoid the problem altogether. Alternate Definition 1: A certain
feature, F, is natural to a (natural) kind K if, and only if, creatures of
kind K have an inbuilt disposition (a tendency) to possess F, and that
therefore, other things being equal, any particular member of K will
possess F. Alternate Definition
2: A certain feature, F, is natural to a (natural) kind K if, and only
if, a creature’s being a member of K (or those features of it which make it
a member, or which explain those features that make it a member) would,
other things being equal, be sufficient to explain its possession of F.
4. For instance, some creatures’
abnormalities (both congenital and acquired) can be surgically corrected.
5. This is not strictly true: making the
general premise all natural desires have a correlating object of desire
plausible requires illustrating the premise, and the illustrations require
that various other creatures belong to certain natural kinds. Nevertheless,
any good account of natural kinds should allow that the creatures in
question do indeed belong to natural kinds.
6. Indeed, combining (1) with the fact that
we sometimes desire things that do not exist (as we plainly sometimes do)
would give us material for another argument for (6) with all the vices of
that from (4) and (5).
7. For considerably more on the purely
intentional objects of desire as against real objects see Ermanno
Bencivenga (1988).
8. I have included the “instantiated”
clause, because it seems to me that there could be desires natural to
creatures of various imaginary (natural) kinds, like dragons, but which
there is no reason to suppose could be satisfied in this world (as it is).
9. The time references here are important
due to the possibility of past creatures foreclosing the possibility of
present creatures satisfying their desires. They are also important because
if everything is made present tense, then we would not have achieved
consistency with (A), (B), and (C).
10. Of course, “the world” does not refer only
to the material world of spatio-temporal experience but rather, to use
Wittgenstein’s phrase, encompasses everything that is the case.
Everything: whether it be temporal or eternal, necessary or contingent,
creature or creator, human or divine.
11. In plain English, a near equivalent would
be The world is such that all natural desires could be satisfied.
12. More accurately: the preconditions for the
truth of at least one human is happy (at some, not necessarily
present, time) are met at some (past or present) time.
13. Should it turn out that the desire for
communion with God cannot be (fully) satisfied in this life, an adjusted
form of the argument could be used to demonstrate the possibility of life
after death.
14. The opening words of Chesterton’s The
Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904b) are “The human race, to which so many
of my readers belong …” (220).
15. Another interesting line of argument in
favour of the existence of a desire for God comes from Augustine, who puts
forward a thought experiment to attempt to draw out this deep desire. Peter
Kreeft puts Augustine’s experiment thus: “He asks you to imagine that God
appeared to you and said that He would make a deal with you, that He would
give you everything you wished, everything your heart desired, except one
thing. You could have anything you imagine, nothing would be impossible for
you, and nothing would be sinful or forbidden. But, God concluded, “you
shall never see my face.” Why, Augustine asks, did a terrible chill creep
over your heart at those last words unless there is in your heart a love of
God, the desire for God? In fact, if you wouldn’t accept that deal, you
really love God above all things, for look what you just did: you gave up
the whole world, and more, for God.” (Peter Kreeft 1987b: 224)
16. I should point out that in Nicomachean
Ethics Aristotle seems to provide other accounts of happiness; accounts
not obviously consistent with the account I mention in the main text.
17. The reader may be interested to know that
Lewis listed The Consolation of Philosophy among the ten books that
most shaped his philosophy.
18. Interestingly, Aristotle’s conclusion that
the life of study (i.e. the life of a philosopher) is the truly happy life
is not nearly so far removed from the conclusions of Boethius and Aquinas
as it might seem. A significant part of Aristotle’s argument rests upon the
assumption that contemplation (the main element in the life of study) is
the primary activity that the gods are involved in, and that the life of
study is therefore the life most similar to that lived by the gods.
Aristotle also claimed that the gods would be most pleased with those
humans that took interest in the same things as the gods, and that this
would make the life of study still more truly blessed.
19. It may be that my claim should be limited
to token desires, with the assumption that a desire of any type could have
a phenomenology and will if the desire is a conscious one. The likely truth
of this remark, however, does not make it an especially pertinent one …
hence its confinement to the notes.
20. Notice, however, that a desire’s
satisfaction is not the same as the termination of that desire, so that the
phenomenology of satisfaction is not just the phenomenology of lack of
desire. This point will be illustrated and exploited later.
21. I would vehemently contest the claim that
each desire of the second type is really a desire to have a particular
belief and not really for the particular state-of-affairs that would make
that belief true.
22. Note, however, that desires do not just
partially explain action. They can also serve to justify actions or to make
them rational. This itself entails that only things that can be properly
said to behave rationally (or irrationally) in the light of their desires
can be said to possess such desires. Thus, the inherent tendency of heavy
objects to fall is not a desire. After all, though the tendency explains
the behaviour, we would be mistaken to suppose that it could ever justify
it.
23. For those interested in the matter, and
wanting to go beyond the various passages from Lewis, I recommend Corbin
Scott Carnell (1974) and Curtis and Eldredge (1997). The former explores
this desire primarily as a theme in literature, while the latter takes it
as a central element of the Christian life.
24. One such reference to sehnsucht
occurs in the first chapter of Surprised by Joy.
25. Forbes, 14th September
1992. The contributors included Nobel laureate Saul Bellow, historian Paul
Johnson, novelist John Updike, journalist Peggy Noonan.
26. Ravi Zacharias (1994: 303) and (1996:
132).
27. Augustine wrote, “Seek what you seek, but
it is not where you seek it” (quoted in Peter Kreeft 1990: 399). A quote
along these lines, often attributed to G.K. Chesterton, but perhaps not
correctly, reads: “Every man who knocks on the door of a brothel is looking
for God” (quoted in Curtis and Eldredge 1997: 136). Lewis writes something
similar in Surprised by Joy: “Joy is not a substitute for sex; sex
is very often a substitute for Joy. I sometimes wonder whether all
pleasures are not substitutes for Joy” (1955b: 138).
28. Since Lewis takes this to be a pertinent
point here, he also implies that he thinks that the desire is indeed a
natural one. The same implication is present when in a footnote in The
Problem of Pain (1940a: 117) he refers to our “immortal longings” as
things we have “because we are men, … because we are human.”
29. Its value could be multiplied by
increasing our inductive base, by adding further ‘illustrations’.
30. By saying that the question “is always
sensible” I do not mean that asking such a question is always advisable,
but rather that asking this question is never a sign of conceptual
confusion.
31. Indeed, as mentioned in the text, they
argue that the need is “existential.” This is not, of course, to say that
God is needed ‘for existence,’ but that life without (belief in or
communion with) God generates ‘angst’.
32. The reader who fears that this is far too
quick, and that the whole notion of need as opposed to desire suggests a
neat way to avoid the argument is encouraged to wait. We will consider an
objection based on this thought later.
33. These three ‘summaries of absurdity’ were
inspired by Manfredi and Summerfield (1990).
34. In this condition, we find ourselves
thinking either that we are fulfilled or that we will be if only we can
find the thing in life that brings fulfilment.
35. Correspondingly, illusions can be of
varying severity and disillusionment can be of varying depth.
36. Compare the thoughts of this section with
those of Francis Schaeffer (1968: 95-6).
37. Actually there are elements within that
evidence which would not be best accommodated by such an adjustment.
Pascal, for instance, claims that only an infinite “object” could
satisfy the desire. Furthermore, several of the atheists’ confessions of
this desire make explicit reference to God. What seems clear is that the
‘something more’ must be one of religious significance. For example,
neither the Platonic Forms nor Cartesian souls could satisfy the desire in
question. The same could be plausibly argued for the finite gods of
polytheism. Taking up Lewis’ thought that the argument is like a lived
ontological argument, perhaps the desire could only be satisfied by that
than which no greater can be conceived.
38. One problem that arises here, and with all
subsequent formulations of the argument, is that while it is not possible
that the God of monotheism should come into or go out of existence, the
same does not seem to be true of all extra-physical realities, and
therefore the argument is no longer strictly valid, and would only be made
so by the addition of something further. Various things suggest themselves,
perhaps the most easily formulated is: If there are (or have been or
will be) any extra-physical realities capable of satisfying the desire in question,
at least one of these is such that it could not come into or go out of
existence. A more modest suggestion would be: If there are (or have
been or will be) any extra-physical realities capable of satisfying the
desire in question, then these could not come into existence without the
(finitely) earlier, or go out of existence without the (finitely) later
existence of some other extra-physical reality. In the context of the
previous note, I take it that while neither of these is a necessary truth,
neither is an especially contentious claim, and that their disjunction is
less contentious still.
39. To see this consider the following
argument:
(13) If the argument of (10)-(12) is sound, then premise (10) is
true
(14) If (10) is true, then if the argument of (10)-(12) is valid, it
begs the question
(15) If the argument of (10)-(12) is sound, then that argument is
valid
(16) Therefore, if the argument of (10)-(12) is sound it begs the
question
(17) Therefore, either the argument of (10)-(12) is unsound or it
begs the question
This
argument is clearly valid, and its premises – (13), (14) and (15) – cannot be denied without contraction.
(13) and (15) are entailed by the definition of soundness, while the truth
of (14) follows immediately from the content of (10).
40. As is implied in the main text, the
support for this premise is substantially the same as that for (1*).
41. Empirical considerations would be relevant
to specifying the length of time that should be considered short. In some
cases, the expected period of satisfaction may be so short as to render the
principle useless. Thanks to Stephen Makin for this point.
42. See Blaise Pascal (1966: #132-#139,
66-72).
43. For further insight on this matter, I
imagine that readers would more profitably consult a psychologist or
psychiatrist than they would a philosopher. But having ‘inside knowledge’
about what it is like to be human, I strongly suspect that many of us find
the very idea of having an existential need for God as repugnant as we find
our own mortality. After all, to recognise that we have such a need for God
is to recognize that we are not self-sufficient. (Compare Sartre’s distaste
for his not being ‘self-caused’.) If my suspicions are right, we would
naturally avoid thinking about this need just studiously as we avoid
thinking about death. Supposing that these remarks are correct, our
awareness of the need for God will frequently be ‘repressed’ and plausibly
this ‘repression’ will often occur through diversion.
44. But not, the atheist would hope, at the
cost of begging the question. One such way of begging the question (as well
as making much else in the argument irrelevant) would be to construe the
alleged desire as a desire to realise that God does not exist.
45. Augustine, Confessions, I.i.1.
46. The Christian concept of the fall,
understood in terms of pride, arrogance or wanting to be our own god also
provides material for an explanation of the human desire for autonomy.
Interpreting this doctrine in the light of the suggested argument to atheism
from desire, a Christian might even say that this desire is in some sense
natural to humans, but only to fallen humans. However, since fallen
human is arguably not a natural kind, and in our sense a
desire can only be natural to a kind which is itself natural, the desire
would not be natural in the sense required in this atheistic ‘argument to
from desire’.
47. Two objections that I have not dealt with
here are: (i) that the argument assumes either a Platonistic (rather than
Christian) or at any rate too optimistic a conception of Human nature, (ii)
that the claim that we have a natural desire for God is inconsistent with
Lewis (or anyone else) being, as he reported himself to be, a “reluctant
convert.” The first of these objections is dealt with in Douglas T. Hyatt
(1997) and the second in Peter Kreeft (1989b: 230-1). Both are also
addressed by Hugo Meynell (1991).
Chapter 7: Conclusion
1. From Reppert’s C.S. Lewis’ Dangerous
Idea (Intervarsity Press: Forthcoming).
2. Thanks to Chris Friel for this point.
Appendix A: Short Biography of C.S. Lewis
1. Like most who have taken an interest in
the life of C.S. Lewis, I firmly believe that neither A.N. Wilson’s
biography nor the film Shadowlands is such an ‘expert source’.
2. Over the academic year 1924-1925 Lewis
taught a course entitled “The Moral Good – Its Place among the values.”
3. Lewis’ entry to Oxford initially
depended upon his passing two exams one for a scholarship and the second
for entry to the university. He passed the first easily, but failed the
second … twice. “He was allowed to attend Oxford after the war only because
the passing of [this exam] was waived for men who had been in the service.
If it had not been for this piece of academic generosity, [he] would
probably never have passed and never been able to make a career at Oxford
or any other British university.” George Sayer (1997).
4. See the entry under “Boxen” in Jeffrey
D. Schultz and John G. West Jr., eds. (1998: 104-6).
5. In later life C.S. Lewis was to write
the influential A Preface to Paradise Lost (London: Oxford
University Press, 1942).
6. See Lewis (1955b: 167) and my
introduction (pp. 6-7).
7. Lewis’ actual conversion occurred
quietly on September 28, 1931.
8. One more theme that ran through Lewis’
life, was relevant to the reconciliation of imagination and reason, and was
important in his conversion was the experience of “joy” or sehnsucht,
which Lewis came to see as a desire for God. I have not mentioned this in
the main text for two reasons. Firstly, it is too complex a “theme” to do
any kind of justice to in this short biography. Secondly, I have done my
best to convey the relevance of this experience in chapter 6, on the
Argument from Desire.
9. George MacDonald was perhaps the single
most important influence upon C.S. Lewis. Lewis, in a preface to a
collection of quotes from MacDonald, referred to him as “my master” (C.S.
Lewis, ed. 1946).
10. Lewis (and Tolkien) thought deeply about
Myth. Some of this thinking appears in Lewis (1944c), (1961b) and (1982).
11. There were, of course, other members,
including Warren Lewis and Charles Williams. Owen Barfield also attended,
but only occasionally.
12. For more on the Oxford Socratic Club see
Walter Hooper (1979) and Christopher Mitchell (1997).
13. Two useful estimations of his influence
are Chad Walsh (1979) and Philip G. Ryken (1997).
Appendix B: C.S. Lewis on Faith and Reason
1. This appendix draws heavily on R. Holyer
(1988b).
2. C.S. Lewis, letter to Sheldon Vanauken,
in W. Martindale and J. Root, eds. (1989), #195.
3. On Lewis’ use of the ‘cumulative case,’
see chapter 6 of S.R. Burson and J.L. Wells (1998).
4. See Lewis’ poem “An Apologist’s Evening
Prayer” in J. Como (1998: 179).
Last Updated: 15th
March 2003
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