Cootsona: Reflections on Culture, Life, and Faith
In this blog, I reflect on topics related to my upcoming book, Say Yes to No. Simply put, these are topics that fascinate me on how to live to the fullest, how to make sense (or not) of the culture around us, and how to respond to God.
2012-02-01T11:08:00.000-08:00
At this weekend's Science and Religion Conference (February 3-4) at Bidwell Presbyterian Church, I'm presenting a paper on how C. S. Lewis interacted with science. Here are the notes toward that paper, and I'd love your feedback.
thesis: CliveStaples Lewis presented four arguments against scientism or “the ScientificOutlook” (his term), but he was not against “real science”:
- In the historical development of modern science, the scientist often became “the magician” who could bend reality to fit his will (his introduction to Poetry and Prose in the Sixteenth Century).
- The myth of evolution, conflates evolution with progress, by melding evolutionary theory with a preceding philosophy of progress. (“De Fulitate,” “Is Theology Poetry?”)
- Materialism is often combined with science as “scientific materialism,” but this is self-defeating because it obviates finding truth. (Miracles, chapter 3)
- Christianity fits best with science rightly understood. (“Is Theology Poetry?”)
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| Hemispheres by Sarah Sears, conference art work |
Assumption: I amtaking C. S. Lewis as Christian intellectual and humanist scholar who attackedthis form of putatively scientific philosophy as incompatible with reason andalso with Christian belief. I seek to apply Lewis’s insights to the widerdialogue of science and theology.
2012-01-08T22:16:00.000-08:00
In light of my upcoming Wednesday night class on C. S. Lewis and the Lenten devotional I'm writing, "Faith, Hope, and Love in a World of Hurt," here's a rough entry from that devotional, which contains a famous quote from Lewis on how God uses suffering our lives.
Thisis a tough truth, but C. S. Lewis, at least, was willing to say that we areoften asleep, or at least, deadened to God’s voice. We can become complacent.So God uses pain in our lives to rouse us. True faith, Lewis asserts in The Problem of Pain implies full surrenderto God. Sometimes the only way to get us there is through suffering.
The human spirit will not eventry to surrender self-will as long as all seems to be well with it…. We canrest contentedly in our sins and in our stupidities; and anyone who as watchedgluttons shoveling down the most exquisite foods as if they did no know whatthey were eating, will admit that we can ignore even pleasures. But paininsists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks tous in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse adeaf world.As usual, I turn the question to you: What do you think? Can pain and suffering lead us to faith? Is it a useful tool in God's hands?
2012-01-01T05:00:00.000-08:00
As we start a new calendar year, there is no more important topic than love. So I begin with St. Clive, and his associated reflections.
C. S. Lewis wrote Four Loves and reflected on the different Greek words for love (storge or affection, philia or friendship, eros or romantic love, and agape or gift-love). In it, he reminds us that thenature of loving someone is that it opens us up to pain, but that the pain isworth the greater good of love. To not love is ultimately hell... and, really, that's not a bad definition of hell, separation from God, the place where there is no love.
C. S. Lewis wrote Four Loves and reflected on the different Greek words for love (storge or affection, philia or friendship, eros or romantic love, and agape or gift-love). In it, he reminds us that thenature of loving someone is that it opens us up to pain, but that the pain isworth the greater good of love. To not love is ultimately hell... and, really, that's not a bad definition of hell, separation from God, the place where there is no love.
Of all arguments againstlove none makes so strong an appeal to my nature as ‘Careful! This might leadto suffering.’
Tomy nature, my temperament, yes. Not to my conscience. When I respond to thatappeal I seem to myself to be a thousand miles away from Christ. If I am sureof anything I am sure that His teaching was never meant to confirm mycongenital preference for safe investments and limited liabilities. I doubtwhether there is anything in me that pleases Him less. And who couldconceivably begin to love God on such prudential ground—because the security(so to speak) is better? Who could even include it among the grounds forloving?... One must be outside the world of love, of all loves, before one thuscalculates….
Tolove at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainlybe wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact,you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefullyround with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it upsafe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe,dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it willbecome unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, orat least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heavenwhere you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of loveis Hell.’
How's that for a definition of hell and a reminder of the importance, and cost, of love?
2011-12-29T08:00:00.000-08:00
The Second Coming of Christ
(Note: This is the final in a series of posts on heaven and hell, or probably better, the "final things," for which theologians use the term, eschatology.)
Fewhave offered a more gripping introduction to the theme of the Second Comingthan the poet, W.B. Yeats (no friend to orthodox Christianity) in his 1921 poemof the same name:
In Matthew 25, Jesus follows this prediction with three parables. One concernsten bridesmaids, only half of whom prepared for the customary arrival of thebridegroom. The second describes three recipients of various amounts of moneyor “talents,” a huge sum in the first century. The boss gives them five milliondollars, two and half million, and half a million (in today’s terms). He thenencourages them to invest. Finally, a shepherd separates the righteous “sheep”from the unrighteous “goats” based on their good deeds toward society’soutcasts. Though each has its unique features, the similarities speak mostclearly. All depict a separation of two types of response—bold investing vs.fearful inactivity, attentive preparation vs. lazy indolence, unselfconsciouscompassion vs. inattentive hard-heartedness. Each parable encourages action inlight of a cataclysmic moment. All describe some period of delay during whichwe wait and work. All three parables remind us to be ready and awake. (A single Greek word, gregoreo, stands behindthis combination, and since it represents the root of my first name, I couldnot pass up the opportunity to mention it.)
Jesus does not command an emotion, but a healthy expectation that transformseverything we do. C. S. Lewis explains it this way: 
(Note: This is the final in a series of posts on heaven and hell, or probably better, the "final things," for which theologians use the term, eschatology.)
Fewhave offered a more gripping introduction to the theme of the Second Comingthan the poet, W.B. Yeats (no friend to orthodox Christianity) in his 1921 poemof the same name:
TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Bible offers language no less world-ending, world-transforming, andworld-beginning event. It first foretells and then promises Christ’s SecondComing. The Hebrew Scriptures provide the backdrop for his return. Jesusemployed a key Old Testament concept, the Son of Man (here the traditional andliteral rendering of ben adam) to describe the event of his return. In the Bookof Daniel, the setting is Israel’s captivity under the oppressive thumb ofBabylon following the destruction of the prized city of Jerusalem in 586 BC.Daniel has visions of four kingdoms—Babylonian, Median, Persian, Greek—representedby a lion, a bear, a four-headed winged leopard, and a ten-horned dragon-likebeast. Then comes the establishment of a fifth, eternal kingdom. Jewishtradition interprets this final kingdom as the Messiah’s. (By the way,“Messiah” and “Christ” represent the same meaning in Hebrew and Greekrespectively. Both mean literally “the anointed.”) Christian biblical scholars,with an eye toward God’s coming as a human being in Christ, highlight thatanimals symbolized the previous kingdoms and that here the kingdom comes in a humanform as the Son of Man.
As I watched in the night visions,
I saw one like the Son of Man
Comingwith the clouds of heaven.
And he came to the Ancient One
Andwas presented before him.
To him was given dominion
Andglory and kingship,
That all peoples, nations, and languages
Shouldserve him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion
Thatshall not pass away,
And his kingship is one
Thatshall never be destroyed. (Daniel 7:13-14)
Jesus reshapes this figure of the Son of Man and thus refashions expectationsfor Messiah (a crucial sticking point in Jewish-Christian dialogue). Instead ofone advent as a politically dominant liberator, the Messiah appears twice. Hecomes in the meekness of a baby and returns as the righteous and powerfulSavior and Judge. The first time arrives with the opportunity to turn our livesaround, “Repent, and believe in the good news!” (Mark 1:15). On the secondtime, the opportunity for repentance has passed. In Matthew 24 (told inparallel in Mark 13 and Luke 21), Jesus looks toward the end of history. Heforesees that signs and particularly suffering will proceed the end when theSon of Man will appear to gather the elect.
Immediatelyafter the suffering of those days
thesun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
thestars will fall from heaven,
and the powers of heaven will be shaken.
Thenthe sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes ofthe earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds ofheaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loudtrumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one endof heaven to the other. (Matthew 24:29-31).
ButJesus quickly adds, “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither theangels of heaven nor the Son, but only the Father” (24:36).
In Matthew 25, Jesus follows this prediction with three parables. One concernsten bridesmaids, only half of whom prepared for the customary arrival of thebridegroom. The second describes three recipients of various amounts of moneyor “talents,” a huge sum in the first century. The boss gives them five milliondollars, two and half million, and half a million (in today’s terms). He thenencourages them to invest. Finally, a shepherd separates the righteous “sheep”from the unrighteous “goats” based on their good deeds toward society’soutcasts. Though each has its unique features, the similarities speak mostclearly. All depict a separation of two types of response—bold investing vs.fearful inactivity, attentive preparation vs. lazy indolence, unselfconsciouscompassion vs. inattentive hard-heartedness. Each parable encourages action inlight of a cataclysmic moment. All describe some period of delay during whichwe wait and work. All three parables remind us to be ready and awake. (A single Greek word, gregoreo, stands behindthis combination, and since it represents the root of my first name, I couldnot pass up the opportunity to mention it.)
Wecannot always be excited. We can, perhaps, train ourselves to ask more and moreoften how the thing which we are saying or doing (or failing to do) at eachmoment will look when the irresistible light streams in upon it; that lightwhich is so different from the light of this world—and yet, even now, we knowjust enough of it to take it into account.
Thiscall to be “gregoreo” encourages neither unreasonable excitement nor fearfulparalysis. Instead it calls us to act today because we live under the promiseof fulfillment. The parables all lead to greater rewards: attending a joyouswedding, receiving more money, “entering into the joy of your master.”
I imagine an analogy. I have seen many promising artists wait for their breakin New York City. You are a starving young jazz pianist. Every day you practice,hoping to be discovered. Most of your hours are filled with waiting tables inorder to pay the bills so that you can audition. And, even after years of hardwork, nothing’s happening. On a random Tuesday morning, you are in a churchsanctuary, working through your standard practice regime, engaging your giftand passion for the piano. Unceremoniously, a stranger walks in. He listensattentively, but without interruption. When you are finished, you are greetedwith applause and these words, “Hi, I’m Wynton Marsalis, and I need apianist for the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. Are you free?”
2011-12-26T08:00:00.000-08:00
TheResurrection of the Body
Afew years back, I saw a skit on Saturday Night Live in which acouple of cynical, chatty, and flip urbane New Yorkers interview contemporarypersonalities. In one segment, these interviewers questioned the guy whodisplays “John 3:16” at football games as a witness to the Gospel. Why does hedo it? He responded clearly, “So that others may believe in Jesus Christ and haveeternal life.” After this stark reply, one interviewer queried the other:
Theyboth exploded in catty laughter, either masking deeper anxiety or revealing ashocking shallowness. In any event, that was the end of the conversation! Atopic like everlasting life treated with such mocking! The problem for themwas—with sagging jaw lines and increasing flab—do we really want this body totake us into eternity? Obviously they misread the intention of eternal life.The Christian church does not teach that we will live forever in this earthlybody. What then do the Christians mean by the doctrine of the resurrection of thebody?
The Apostle Paul concerns himself throughout his writings with the persistentquestion of suffering (a form of theodicy). Why must God’s people suffer whenwe are following God’s will for us in Jesus Christ? Romans 8:18-25 provides themost extensive responses. He begins by expanding the scope to the entirecreation, “the universe” in contemporary terms. (Paul uses creation three timesin verses 19, 20, and 21.) The people of God groan, with all non-humancreation, because our destinies have been wrapped together. But suffering doesnot have the final word. A cry arises in us as a sign of something more. We hopefor glory. For Paul, our hope does not represent vain presumption, but secureexpectation. That long-expected, glorious day will also dry all tears.
What does Paul say specifically about the new creation? He affirms that therewill be glory (verses 18 and 21)—a word for the divine Presence in fullness, inthis case unveiled in Christ’s final coming. Paul looks to freedom (verse 21)from decay—that the fallenness of the world will cease. And so we look forwardwith hope (verses 24-25), which is the theological virtue that corresponds toGod’s future, to the final triumph of the cosmic comedy. Finally, God’s Spiritrepresents the first payment of this new creation (verse 23)—there will be thefullness of joy of which we now only know in part.
Paul contemplates the resurrection of the body most extensively in 1Corinthians 15:35-44. Paul, as many after him, struggles with an apt analogyfor resurrection. His conclusion offers profound hope. Eugene Peterson’s freshcontemporary paraphrase, The Message, gives it directness:
But as a pastor, I know that church members remain unsatisfied with onlygeneralities. In fact, when I have taught this material in adult educationclasses, the specifics captivate the students. Once I presented the idea thatthe immortality of the soul was not a truly Christian teaching, but a loan fromPlato who taught that the body was mortal and decaying and the soul inherentlyimmortal. Once we died, Plato asserted, we thankfully freed ourselves from theshackles of the body. I countered thatHebrew thought conceives of human beings as a unity of body and soul. The classwas not pleased to hear this denial of our soul’s immortality. They did notwant to taste death. (It reminded me of Woody Allen’s quip, “I don’t want toachieve immortality through art. I want to achieve it by not dying.”) I had tomoderate my point by saying, when we are raised, it is God who does the work,not because of something intrinsic to our nature.
And then I have also been asked the practical questions: What exactly will bethe nature of my resurrected body? Will my father recognize me in heaven? Onother hand, can I cremate my grandmother? What will my disabled child looklike? From the sketch presented so far, the critical element in our resurrectedbodies as the New Testament understand it, is not our flesh and bones. It is ourconcrete selves. Generally, Eastern religious traditions, such as Buddhism andHinduism, describe a state in which our individuality disappears. Buddha talkedabout the transition from one life to the next (remember we keep migrating fromone body to the next in Eastern thought) as a flame being passed from onecandle to another. Alternatively, we become a drop of water in the ocean ofBeing. Instead the Christian faith believes that God will raise us as concreteindividuals, who altogether comprise God’s people. Ultimately, because it isGod’s work, we can cremate or bury because our resurrection does not depend onflesh and bones. (Specifically, how else can we understand God’s promise of aperfected, whole body in the resurrection for a victim of a violentdismemberment?) Our resurrected bodies will be us, but freed from the defectsinherent in a fallen world.
We will recognize one another in heaven. Who and what we are on earthrepresents the concrete self that God created. The body-soul unity that nowcomprises us will dissolve at death, but our individuality—the “pattern ofinformation” is another metaphor—will be instantly recreated at death into theresurrected body. The English writer, Susan Howatch—who made her own headlinesby funding a chair at Oxford in science and theology—describes this doctrine inher novel, The Wonder Worker. She presents a dialogue on the bodilyresurrection between a confused agnostic, Alice, and an Anglican priest,Nicholas Darrow, using the contemporary analogy of information. Alice’s aunthas just been cremated.
“‘Body’ in that context is probably a code-word for the whole person. When wesay ‘anybody’ or ‘everybody’ or ‘somebody’ we’re not talking about flesh andblood—we’re referring to the complex pattern of information which the medium offlesh and blood expresses.”
I struggled to wrap my mind around this. “So you’re saying that flesh and bloodare more or less irrelevant?”
“No, not irrelevant. Our bodies have a big impact on our development aspeople—they constitute to the pattern of information, and in fact we wouldn’tbe people without them. But once we’re no longer confined by space and time theflesh and blood become superfluous and the pattern can be downloaded elsewhere…Do you know anything about computers?”?
“No.”
“Do you believe we’ll live forever?”
“I hope not in this body!”
Theyboth exploded in catty laughter, either masking deeper anxiety or revealing ashocking shallowness. In any event, that was the end of the conversation! Atopic like everlasting life treated with such mocking! The problem for themwas—with sagging jaw lines and increasing flab—do we really want this body totake us into eternity? Obviously they misread the intention of eternal life.The Christian church does not teach that we will live forever in this earthlybody. What then do the Christians mean by the doctrine of the resurrection of thebody?
The Apostle Paul concerns himself throughout his writings with the persistentquestion of suffering (a form of theodicy). Why must God’s people suffer whenwe are following God’s will for us in Jesus Christ? Romans 8:18-25 provides themost extensive responses. He begins by expanding the scope to the entirecreation, “the universe” in contemporary terms. (Paul uses creation three timesin verses 19, 20, and 21.) The people of God groan, with all non-humancreation, because our destinies have been wrapped together. But suffering doesnot have the final word. A cry arises in us as a sign of something more. We hopefor glory. For Paul, our hope does not represent vain presumption, but secureexpectation. That long-expected, glorious day will also dry all tears.
What does Paul say specifically about the new creation? He affirms that therewill be glory (verses 18 and 21)—a word for the divine Presence in fullness, inthis case unveiled in Christ’s final coming. Paul looks to freedom (verse 21)from decay—that the fallenness of the world will cease. And so we look forwardwith hope (verses 24-25), which is the theological virtue that corresponds toGod’s future, to the final triumph of the cosmic comedy. Finally, God’s Spiritrepresents the first payment of this new creation (verse 23)—there will be thefullness of joy of which we now only know in part.
Paul contemplates the resurrection of the body most extensively in 1Corinthians 15:35-44. Paul, as many after him, struggles with an apt analogyfor resurrection. His conclusion offers profound hope. Eugene Peterson’s freshcontemporary paraphrase, The Message, gives it directness:
Someskeptic is sure to ask, “Show me how resurrection works. Give me a diagram; drawme a picture. What does this ‘resurrection body’ look like?” If you look atthis question closely, you’ll realize how absurd it is. There are no diagramsfor this kind of thing. We do have a parallel experience in gardening. Youplant a “dead” seed; soon there is a flourishing plant. There is no visuallikeness between seed and plant. You could never guess what a tomato would looklike by looking at a tomato seed. What we plant in the soil and what grows outof it don’t look anything alike. The dead body what we bury in the ground andthe resurrection body that comes from it will be dramatically different.
You will notice that the variety of bodies is stunning. Just as there aredifferent kinds of seeds, there are different kinds of bodies—humans, animals,birds, fish—each unprecedented in its form. You get a hint at the diversity ofresurrection glory by looking at the diversity of bodies not only on earth butin the skies—sun, moon, stars—all varieties of beauty and brightness. And we’relooking at pre-resurrection “seeds”—who can imagine what the resurrection“plants” will be like!
This image of planting a dead seed and raising a live plant is a mere sketch atbest, but perhaps it will help in approaching the mystery of the resurrectionbody—but only in you keep in mind that when we’re raised, we’re raisedfor good, alive forever! The corpse that’s planted is no beauty, but when it’sraised, it’s glorious. Put in the ground weak, it comes up powerful. The seedsown is natural; the seed grown is supernatural—same seed, same body, but whata difference from when it goes down in physical mortality to when it is raisedup in spiritual immortality!
Certainly, every detail about our resurrection is not fully laid out. Paul istrying to understand and express the depths of the God. At several otherplaces—in 1 Corinthians 2:9-10, for example—he simply admits the limits of hisunderstanding:
But,as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
Norhuman heart conceived,
WhatGod has prepared for those who love him”—
Thesethings God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searcheseverything even the depths of God.
Overall,Paul sketches the great promises, but leaves the details open.
But as a pastor, I know that church members remain unsatisfied with onlygeneralities. In fact, when I have taught this material in adult educationclasses, the specifics captivate the students. Once I presented the idea thatthe immortality of the soul was not a truly Christian teaching, but a loan fromPlato who taught that the body was mortal and decaying and the soul inherentlyimmortal. Once we died, Plato asserted, we thankfully freed ourselves from theshackles of the body. I countered thatHebrew thought conceives of human beings as a unity of body and soul. The classwas not pleased to hear this denial of our soul’s immortality. They did notwant to taste death. (It reminded me of Woody Allen’s quip, “I don’t want toachieve immortality through art. I want to achieve it by not dying.”) I had tomoderate my point by saying, when we are raised, it is God who does the work,not because of something intrinsic to our nature.
And then I have also been asked the practical questions: What exactly will bethe nature of my resurrected body? Will my father recognize me in heaven? Onother hand, can I cremate my grandmother? What will my disabled child looklike? From the sketch presented so far, the critical element in our resurrectedbodies as the New Testament understand it, is not our flesh and bones. It is ourconcrete selves. Generally, Eastern religious traditions, such as Buddhism andHinduism, describe a state in which our individuality disappears. Buddha talkedabout the transition from one life to the next (remember we keep migrating fromone body to the next in Eastern thought) as a flame being passed from onecandle to another. Alternatively, we become a drop of water in the ocean ofBeing. Instead the Christian faith believes that God will raise us as concreteindividuals, who altogether comprise God’s people. Ultimately, because it isGod’s work, we can cremate or bury because our resurrection does not depend onflesh and bones. (Specifically, how else can we understand God’s promise of aperfected, whole body in the resurrection for a victim of a violentdismemberment?) Our resurrected bodies will be us, but freed from the defectsinherent in a fallen world.
We will recognize one another in heaven. Who and what we are on earthrepresents the concrete self that God created. The body-soul unity that nowcomprises us will dissolve at death, but our individuality—the “pattern ofinformation” is another metaphor—will be instantly recreated at death into theresurrected body. The English writer, Susan Howatch—who made her own headlinesby funding a chair at Oxford in science and theology—describes this doctrine inher novel, The Wonder Worker. She presents a dialogue on the bodilyresurrection between a confused agnostic, Alice, and an Anglican priest,Nicholas Darrow, using the contemporary analogy of information. Alice’s aunthas just been cremated.
“Butif Aunt’s now ashes, how can one talk of a resurrection of the body?”
“‘Body’ in that context is probably a code-word for the whole person. When wesay ‘anybody’ or ‘everybody’ or ‘somebody’ we’re not talking about flesh andblood—we’re referring to the complex pattern of information which the medium offlesh and blood expresses.”
I struggled to wrap my mind around this. “So you’re saying that flesh and bloodare more or less irrelevant?”
“No, not irrelevant. Our bodies have a big impact on our development aspeople—they constitute to the pattern of information, and in fact we wouldn’tbe people without them. But once we’re no longer confined by space and time theflesh and blood become superfluous and the pattern can be downloaded elsewhere…Do you know anything about computers?”?
“No.”
“Okay, forget that, think of Michelangelo instead. In the Sistine Chapel heexpressed a vision by creating, through the medium of paint, patterns ofcolour. The paint is of vital importance but in the end it’s the pattern thatmatters and the pattern which can be reproduced in another medium such as a bookor film.”
2011-12-21T08:00:00.000-08:00
TheLast Judgment
MichelangeloBuanorroti began painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel at the age ofthirty-five. It was 1510 and it would be seven years until Martin Luther’snailed his Ninety-Five Theses nailed to the Wittenburg Cathedral door toinitiate the Protestant Reformation. But from 1536 to 1541, as he labored onthe fresco of The Last Judgment, Rome was feeling the impact of the Protestantrevolt against its religious authority. In Michelangelo’s enduring artisticimage of the Christ’s judging the world, Christ pronounces the fate of allhumankind with awesome finality. The 314 figures clearly divide into twogroups. One is raised into the glories of heaven with the Apostles and thePatriarchs. The other, the damned, cower in abject despair. In light of thereligious controversies of the day, significantly one man is barely saved byhanging onto the rosary, a symbol of medieval Catholic devotion to the VirginMary.
In addition, as the Princeton theologian, Daniel Migliore, comments,
And that brings me to my usual question, What do you think?
(A postscript: In March, I posted something on "Heaven and Hell" as I took in the controversy over Rob Bell's Love Wins. That post has dwarfed all my others in the number of hits it has received. As I noted, that post, as well as this one, is excerpted from the final chapter of my book, Creation and Last Things: At the Intersection of Theology and Science--I added the link to Amazon in case my publisher becomes a little uncomfortable with how much I'm putting into my blog.)
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| Michelangelo's Last Judgement |
In addition, as the Princeton theologian, Daniel Migliore, comments,
Themartyrs of the faith who surround Christ seem to take satisfaction in thetorment of the damned.
And thereMichelangelo—surely one of the world’s greatest artists andintellectuals—reveals a base flaw. His view of the final judgment—and oftenours as well—conflates a sincere devotion to God’s sovereignty with a touch ofhate for our foes.
Jesus Christ is the antidote to these unhelpful notions. In him, we certainlymeet our Judge. Yes, Christ will judge all people. Yes, he will root outevil. But this Judge is also our Savior. I gained a valuable insight from KarlBarth on the nature of Christ’s judgment: the only God we know as Christians isthe God who is for us, the God revealed in Jesus Christ. Or as Migliore writes,
the very same Christ who was crucified and raised for us will also be ourjudge on the final day.
 |
| Snap Shot of Paul taken on my iPhone |
Jesus walked onthe streets and taught God’s grace. Jesus sat at table with his disciples,saying, “Take and eat. This is my body broken for you.” This judge gave himselffor us. Paul says it best in the final verses of Romans 8 as he lifts hisrhetoric to truly heavenly heights:
ForI am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor thingspresent, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anythingelse in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God inChrist Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)And to put a coda on this: As I prepare for my class this spring on Rob Bell's Love Wins and the Bible, I realize this is one of Bell's major concerns as well--that somehow we never forget that "God is love" (1 John 4:8). Our vision of our final destiny must always keep in mind that we will meet at loving God. And to be timely, this is the Jesus we also meet at Christmas, "the Word who became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood' (as Eugene Peterson paraphrases John 1:14).
And that brings me to my usual question, What do you think?
(A postscript: In March, I posted something on "Heaven and Hell" as I took in the controversy over Rob Bell's Love Wins. That post has dwarfed all my others in the number of hits it has received. As I noted, that post, as well as this one, is excerpted from the final chapter of my book, Creation and Last Things: At the Intersection of Theology and Science--I added the link to Amazon in case my publisher becomes a little uncomfortable with how much I'm putting into my blog.)
2011-12-17T16:00:00.000-08:00
Even this week, that particular post was by far the most popular. So I thought I'd excerpt a few subsections that lead up to my comments on heaven and hell. I'd also be interested in any comments you have. They could be especially helpful as I prepare for a class in April and May on Rob Bell, Love Wins, and the Bible.
The Science of the End
John Polkinghorne, the particle physicist and theologian,spoke to his assembled, attentive audience for the University of Edinburgh’sGifford lectures in 1993-94. He reminded them that cosmologists do not onlypeer into the past. They also attempt to discern the future. On a cosmic scale,he noted, science tells the story of the end of the universe. Its history is aenormous tug-of-war between the expansive force of the Big Bang, driving thegalaxies apart, and the contractive force of gravity, pulling them together. Ifexpansion continues, the galaxies will continue to separate, and the universewill decay into low-grade radiation. Continued contraction will collapse theuniverse into a fiery, big crunch. These two effects are so evenly balancedthat we cannot tell which will win.WilliamStoeger, a world-class astronomer and staff scientist for the VaticanObservatory, has added a few possibilities for our earth’s demise in an articlewith the daunting title, “Scientific Accounts of Ultimate Catastrophes in OurLife-Bearing Universe.” They are destruction of earth by asteroids andcomets, the decline of our sun, and the explosion of a nearby supernova. However it arrives, the destruction of life on earth remains certain.
Butwe come then to a significant problem for Christian faith. These endings hardlyrepresent the glorious fulfillment of “a new heaven and a new earth” thatRevelation 21:1 promises. But John Polkinghorne reminded his listeners in Edinburghthat
Cosmic death and human death pose equivalent questions of what is God’sintention for his creation.
Only God offers hope. God’s new creation will be a transformation of thecurrent order, no less surprising than our resurrection, initiated by Jesus’resurrection at the first Easter.
Howcan Christians relate scientific cosmology and Christian eschatology? There isa comparable scientific phenomenon to God’s continual work in the world.Evolutionary science depicts the created order as constantly unfolding intoever-greater complexity. Quantum theory’s indeterminacy describes creation asirreducibly open-ended. I am reminded again of a jazz chart—the basic melodyand chord structure are written out, but the actual song has elements ofsurprise or improvisation. The future depicted by scientific cosmology displaysopenness to creating “new things” (as in Isaiah 43:19) and thus to God’scontinual action in the world.
Onthe other hand, science does not provide complete answers to the end of theworld. It offers an ending only in the sense of how the physical system willprobably run down. It does not, indeed cannot, speak of the end in the sense ofa goal or direction. Science cannot—if it remains true to its ownparameters—speak of forces outside of nature. Even with science in hand, theologianscome to the question of whether Christ’s return relates directly to thedestruction of the universe as a whole, of specifically the earth, or whetherthe end of this world is simply an act of God without natural precedent. Putbluntly, will Jesus return because an asteroid destroys the earth?
RegardingGod’s action, science must therefore remain silent. At best, scientific studymay lead us to the threshold but cannot open the door to God. Here we come tothe limit of general revelation, of God’s disclosure through nature. Only inGod’s revelation in Scripture can we find the new creation.
The Resurrection of Christ
Science describes only indirectly ways the world may end.The Bible, however, speaks clearly of God’s directing the final act of the cosmicdrama. Three times Revelation (1:8, 21:6, 22:13) calls the Lord the “Alpha andOmega,” which represent the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet.Nothing precedes nor slips away from God. God knows the entire history ofcreation. We can discern the script of this history through Scripture of bothold and new creation.
Theinitiating act of the new creation is the resurrection of Jesus Christ on thefirst Easter, the third day after his death on a cross. And there, at the crossof Christ, one must begin. There we find the most heavily attested historicalfact of Jesus’ life. Two historians, the Roman Tacitus, in about 110 AD andfirst-century Jewish chronicler, Josephus, clearly speak of Christ’s death on across. Besides the disciples had no reason to make it up. The cross representeda shameful, four-letter word in Latin, crux,since it signified a death reserved for political traitors and villains andnever for Roman citizens. Cicero’s Orations denounced both the reality of the cross and its usageby polite Romans. Death on cross was “the most cruel and abominable form ofpunishment”, and the very word “should be foreign not only to the body of aRoman citizen, but to his thoughts, his eyes, his ears."
Herethe science of medicine has much to say. A physician can describe death aspainful, as excruciating (from the Latin, excruciatus, “out of the cross”). Death by crucifixion damagedno vital organs, and the crucified sufferers could no longer lift themselvesand the weight of their body rested on their chest and did not allow them tobreathe. Death usually came slowly through dehydration or asphyxiation.
Outof this shame and surprise—for no Jew could conceive that the Messiah wouldever have died this death—a surprising testimony arose: “Christ died for oursins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he wasraised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.” Paul wrote thisearliest written record around 55AD in the First Letter to the Corinthians,saying that 500 others witnessed this appearance. In these appearances, Jesus’resurrected body at times resembles ours, such as when he urges Thomas to touchhis wounds (John 20:27). He also appears unlike a normal body when hedisappears suddenly (Luke 24:31). This new creation is both similar anddissimilar from the old creation. To the degree that one finds correspondenceto this world, science can offer insight. To the degree it speaks of a newcreation, science has little to add.
TheResurrection of Christ restored the disciples’ faith and hope and sends them ina mission. It also vindicated Jesus as Messiah, turning the shame of the crossinto God’s victory of death and sin. Finally, the Resurrection of Christinitiates the new creation. On that first Easter morning, as Jesus cracked openthe tomb and burst forth, the crack of the new creation spread through the oldcreation and has not stopped since.
2011-12-15T10:10:00.000-08:00
Sometimes—or maybe often—theroad ahead seems really difficult and dark. Our faith is tested, and we can't figure it all out. So our only recourseis prayer. I have found this prayer, from the 3rd and 4thcentury Christian theologian and pastor, Augustine of Hippos, immensely powerful and comforting:
God of our life, there aredays when the burdens we carry chafe our shoulders and weigh us down; when theroad seems dreary and endless, the skies gray and threatening; when our liveshave no music in them, and our hearts are lonely, and our souls have lost theircourage. Flood the path with light, turn our eyes to where the skies arefull of promise; turn our hearts to brave music; give us the sense ofcomradeship with heroes and saints of every age; and so quicken our spiritsthat we may be able to encourage the souls of all who journey with us on theroad of life to your honor and glory.
Let me know what you think.
2011-12-13T08:41:00.000-08:00
I'm working on a devotional for Lent, "Faith, Hope, and Love in a World of Hurt," which reflects on how God forms these three virtues in us when we suffer. I'm scouring great insights from Christian thinkers throughout the centuries. Here are two gems from St. Clive. The first is when the senior devil, Screwtape, writes to his junior tempter, Wormwood, about how to lead a human astray. The second is one of Lewis's most famous.
Together they lead to a quote from the 19th pastor and writer, George MacDonald, that might be a summation of Lewis's insights into the value of pain and suffering,
Together they lead to a quote from the 19th pastor and writer, George MacDonald, that might be a summation of Lewis's insights into the value of pain and suffering,
The Son of God suffered unto death, not that men might not suffer, but thattheir sufferings might become like his.So here are the two quotes from Lewis:
Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.
God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.What do you think? Do those help, confuse, or do something else?
2011-12-05T15:15:00.001-08:00
(Note: This is a paper I'm presenting at the December meeting of the Chico Triad on Philosophy, Theology, and Science.)
Naturalism (or the almost synonymous position ofmaterialism) represents the philosophical position that the natural world (orthe material world respectively) is all there is without remainder. At onepoint in his key argument against naturalism, Miracles: A Preliminary Study, Lewis states his definition succinctly, “Somepeople believe that nothing exists except Nature. I call these people Naturalists.”[1]In accord with Lewis, I will generally use “naturalism” because that is C. S.Lewis’s preferred term, but sometimes I will employ “materialism”interchangeably. This philosophical position obviously presents problems forChristian faith as it points to the Source of all being beyond this materialworld. In this chapter, I will look at Lewis’s apologetic strategy of arguingthat naturalism is self-defeating.
Naturalism (or the almost synonymous position ofmaterialism) represents the philosophical position that the natural world (orthe material world respectively) is all there is without remainder. At onepoint in his key argument against naturalism, Miracles: A Preliminary Study, Lewis states his definition succinctly, “Somepeople believe that nothing exists except Nature. I call these people Naturalists.”[1]In accord with Lewis, I will generally use “naturalism” because that is C. S.Lewis’s preferred term, but sometimes I will employ “materialism”interchangeably. This philosophical position obviously presents problems forChristian faith as it points to the Source of all being beyond this materialworld. In this chapter, I will look at Lewis’s apologetic strategy of arguingthat naturalism is self-defeating.Whatever it is called, naturalismhas again returned with renewed vigor, though not always improved insight. Andwith it, a combative anti-theism has arisen in our country. The prominentHarvard neuroscientist Stephen Pinker has laid down the gauntlet in this way:
Theneuroscientific worldview—the idea that the mind is what the brain does—haskicked away one of the intuitive supports of religion. So even if you acceptedall of the previous scientific challenges to religion—the Earth revolvingaround the sun, animals evolving, and so on—the immaterial soul was always onelast thing that you could keep as being in the province of religion. With theadvance of neuroscience, that idea has been challenged.[2]
It seems that materialism haswon the day with scientists and that, according to many, it represents thecrucial contemporary argument against religious faith. It represents a crucialcomponent of the “New Atheism” that has resulted in millions of books beingsold by the likes of Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Daniel Dennett.
Inthe conflict between Christian faith and naturalism, C. S. Lewis’s nextapologetic argument, even if he formulated it most definitively almost seventyyears ago, still takes hold. We have a contemporary culture that hears thesiren cries of naturalism. Lewis, as he moved into theism and then Christianbelief in the 1930s, continued to wonder about whether life ends and is simplyannihilated. I too, having grown up for my first eighteen years withoutreligious faith and now engaging in scientific literature that so often deniesa reality beyond nature, I find myself tempted by unremitting naturalism.Nevertheless, Lewis’s argument that naturalism is self-defeating is powerful,and I cannot escape its force.
Oxford in the 1940s
Though it can be argued thatidealism still maintained a foothold at Oxford in the 1940s,[3]Lewis nevertheless felt compelled to engage in dialectics against naturalism.For Lewis the big crises with naturalism first emerged in 1929, when heconfessed adult faith in theism and then in 1931 when he looked specifically toChrist. No longer content simply to remain the rationalist—and thusmaterialist—he found that life had more to offer. In some ways, it could beargued that Lewis had a strong line of idealism running through hisphilosophical veins, at least in the sense described by his friend, the Oxfordphilosophical theologian, Austin Farrer:
Lewis wasraised in the tradition of an idealist philosophy which hoped to establish thereality of the mental subject independently of, or anyhow in priority to, thatof the bodily world.
Farrer does note that Lewis“moved some way from such positions,” primarily by concluding that idealism didnot sufficiently take in the personal presence of the absolute in theIncarnation. He indeed calls this shift a move from “idealism,” by which hemeans that there is a transcendent Mind or Spirit, to full encounter with God.This God would never be contained solely by the interactions of the naturalworld.[4]
Nonetheless,there was sufficient idealism in Lewis’s convictions to butt heads with themore materialist currents of his day. For example, in Oxford’s SocraticSociety—where Lewis presented the two pieces (or at least parts thereof) I amanalyzing—Lewis found he regularly had to impugn the arguments of LogicalPositivists, who asserted that statements about a transcendent reality were meaningless.This represents a linguistic and philosophical complement to naturalism. As hewrote to his student, Dom Bede Griffiths on April 22, 1954,
Don’timagine that the Logical Positivist Menace is over. To me it seems that theapologetic position has never in my life been worse than it is now. At theSocratic the enemy often wipe the floor with us. Quousque domine? [How long, O Lord?][5]
Lewis, who in many waysgloried in moving against the grain of the culture, readily argued for theirrationality of materialism. I use “irrationality” advisedly because Lewisargued that materialism did not allow for rationality and thus obviated truthas well. In materialism, things just are;they are neither true nor false. And I mean this literally—Lewis concluded that,if we take nature to be all that there is, there is no place for rationalthought. That is why naturalism defeats itself. It cuts off the very branch onwhich it sits.
AsI mentioned above, we live in an age, remarkable similar to C.S. Lewis’s… atleast in this regard. The intellectual culture of the 1940s, out of which thetwo prominent writings, first “Is Theology Poetry” and then Miracles: APreliminary Study, I will analyze emerged,promoted the concept that matter was all that mattered.[6]For this reason, these two pieces are still pertinent.
Certainlynot all scientists today or in the early decades of the twentieth century, wereof similar minds. Some, even within the naturalist and therefore atheisticcamp, saw the problems inherent in arguing that “the mind is what the braindoes.” The famous geneticist and evolutionary biologist, John Scott Haldanewrote this,
It seems tome immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if mymental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain Ihave no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be soundchemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have noreason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.[7]
It is noteworthy that Lewistakes up this citation directly in Miracles,probably to demonstrate that the self-defeating nature of unremittingnaturalism arose not just from a theological conviction, but from a logical oneas well.
Inow turn to Lewis’s specific encounters in the ‘40s with the naturalisticmindset of many scientists.
Two types of naturalism
Ultimately, Lewis was aprofessor of literature and therefore a specialist in the humanities and notthe sciences. Most of his arguments for faith in light of what he names “theScientific Outlook” take place in philosophy or the arts. Yet, this may be astrength because many arguments against Christian faith are presented byscientists as scientific, but are really philosophical in character.
Isthere more than one form of naturalism? If so, are all forms of naturalismself-defeating? We arrive at a nexus where confusion can arise. Sometimes lessscrupulous atheistic commentators may even use this misunderstanding as arhetorical shell game, treating all naturalism as coterminous and concludingthat God cannot exist in light of the advance of science. So I need to make adistinction. Science commits itself to methodological naturalism quite rightly. Science, at its core, commits to amethod in which scientists look for the interactions, interrelations, and thuscause and effect in the natural world. For example, when scientists ask thequestion, “What is the boiling point of water?” they keep testing,hypothesizing, testing, and hypothesizing, until they find the natural causesfor this effect. They conclude that, when water at sea level is heated to 100Celsius, it begins to boil. No god or spirit is needed for that specificphenomenon of nature (other than a Creator God who put together nature itself,by I will return to that theme below). The methods of scientists becomecomplicated in more elaborate theories—quantum theory comes to mind—but thebasic commitment to find solely natural causes remains. This is propermethodological naturalism.
Theissue is when this method of looking solely for natural causes elides into philosophicalnaturalism—that all that exists is nature.Just because science cannot test or number something does not mean it does notexist. It is here—not as a field of study, but as anunderstanding of the world or as a sense-of-life, where science oftenintersects—or even collides with—theology. Many evolutionists use the theory ofnatural selection and conclude that the natural world of cause-and-effect isnot guided, but evokes a mindless, “pitiless indifference,” to quote RichardDawkins in Journey Out of Eden.[8] He sets this view against the purposeful creation by thehand of God. But, as Albert Einstein once quipped about scientists’prediliction for numbering as an example of philosophical naturalism, “Everythingthat can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannotnecessarily be counted.”
And,though many scientists, and atheistic philosophers, casually linkmethodological naturalism with philosophical atheism, there is no sound reasonto do so. Here a distinction is helpful. There is a fundamental difference thestudy of God and the study of the natural world based. Simply there is primaryand secondary causation. God is the primarycause—God undergirds and establishes all being. As the great medievalphilosopher Thomas Aquinas taught, the nature of God as Creator is that beingitself continually flows from God. That fact defines primary causation. God isthe Cause that undergirds all other causes. Secondary causation is what humanbeings, and all other agents in the natural world, are given to do. Shakespearecreated Hamlet and Ophelia—that is the nature of authorship. They would notexist without him, but within the story they have real interaction. They existbecause Shakespeare, as it were, brought them into being. The analogy is notperfect because once the play is written, the real interactions between Hamletand Ophelia are fixed in a way that ours as real secondary agents is not.Nonetheless, the central analogical point lies here: if Shakespeare were tohave stopped writing Hamlet inthe midst of its creation, the entire story would have ceased. And so too withGod. God is the primary cause, but we are the real secondary causes. If Godwere to stop creating, we would no longer exist. At the same time, we can studythe real interactions among secondary in their own right without directreference to the first cause.
“Is Theology Poetry” on“the Scientific Outlook” and its contrast with science
I make these distinctions betweenprimary and secondary causation and between these two types of naturalismbecause they are consistent with Lewis’s own. So Iturn then to our first text at hand: “Is Theology Poetry?” really an oralpresentation to the Oxford Socratic Club—from 1945.[9] It is a fascinating lecture—as Lewis is wont to create—noton science per se, or even strictlyevolutionary science, but on the use of evolution to create a worldview, onethat challenges orthodox Christian accounts of the world. To repeat: Thisatheistic challenge confuses methodological naturalism (tbe basis of evolution)with philosophical naturalism. Or, as it appears in this essay, Lewisdistinguishes “science” (and “real science”) with “the Scientific Outlook.” Whenscientists grasp this distinction, no conflict between science and God needarise prematurely. Now there may be discoveries about creation and raisequestions about the Creator, but science by its nature does not have the powerand right to say that all that exists is what it studies. It is as if sculptorswere to assert that painting does not exist because they have never touchedpaint.
SoLewis held out great hope for science and faith. He held a positive assessmentof science. Worth considering is what he puts in the mouth of the devil,Screwtape, in the first letter of the Screwtape Letters, the imagined correspondence between a senior deviland a junior devil, Wormwood, on how to tempt a human soul.
Above all, do not attempt to use science (I mean, the realsciences) as a defense against Christianity. They will positively encourage himto think about realities he can't touch and see. There have been sad casesamong the modern physicists.[10]
Lewis’sargument here is that “real sciences” are philosophically anti-naturalistic, a point that finds agreement with the eminent physicistSir John Polkinghorne; quantum physics now raises up things that we cannot seeor touch. With the existence of quarks, no one can see them directly, but wehave to infer their existence because they make sense of material reality: “Well,quarks are, in some sense, unseen realities. Nobody has ever isolated a singlequark in the lab. So we believe in them not because we've, even withsophisticated instruments, so to speak, seen them, but because assuming thatthey're there makes sense of great swaths of physical experience.”[11]
Inanother brief essay, “Dogma and the Universe,” Lewis makes another connectionbetween modern physics and the defeat of “classical materialism,” that naturedepends on its existence on something else.
In one respect, as many Christians have noticed,contemporary science has recently come into life with Christian doctrine, andparted company with the classical forms of materialism. If anything emergesclearly from modern physics, it is that nature is not everlasting. The universehad a beginning, and will have an end.[12]
Inhis essay, Lewis takes up the question given to him: “Is theology poetry?”(This, of course, is also the title of the talk). He does not seem to enjoy thequestion as it stands before him, so he refines it to become whether theologyis merely poetry. He, first of all,argues that theology is not just poetry—it is not really artful enough, nor isit as good as the poetry of
The charge that Theology is mere poetry, if it means thatChristians believe it because they find it, antecedently to belief, the mostpoetically attractive of all world pictures, thus seems to me unplausible inthe extreme.[14]
Lewisthen analyzes the poetry of the Scientific Outlook presented by evolution (andespecially H. G. Wells) as a philosophy of progress that gradually andpainfully overcomes obstacles. What Lewis names the Scientific Outlookbegins with a humble of inanimate matter that gradually becomes life. Itgradually emerges as dinosaurs, who die out, replaced by Man, who is alsodestined to die. This great myth is finally “overwhelmed in ruin.”[15] It is a beautiful, tragic myth of Man fighting valiantlyagainst the odds, but ultimately losing.
Thereason Lewis rejected the “Scientific Outlook” lies in the self-defeatingnature of the two claims “we can think” and “nature is all there is.” Here wecome to the key theme of this chapter: the Scientific Outlook asserts the truthand reasonableness of its claims without thereby providing a place for reason.Or as he put it:
If minds are wholly dependent on brains, and brains onbiochemistry, and biochemistry (in the long run) on the meaningless flux of theatoms, I cannot understand how the thought of those minds should have any moresignificance than the sound of the wind in the trees.
TheScientific Outlook tries to fit in reason in an irrational—or maybe arational—world. Lewis concludes that this move is self-defeating.
Asan alternative, Lewis discovered in his own life (around his conversions in1929 and 1931) something he argues here: Belief in a Creator God who endowshumanity with reason makes entirely more sense. The divine Logos creates humanreason. The primary Cause ungirds all secondary causes. Lewis says that is whyhe does not believe in the “Scientific Outlook,” but instead believes inChristianity, which includes reason and science. As he closes the lecture, hewrites,
Christian theology can fit in science, art, morality, andthe sub-Christian religions. The scientific view [such as in H. G. Wells, and Iwould add, Pinker] cannot fit in any of these things, not even science itself.I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only becauseI see it, but because by it I see everything else.
Lewis believed that Christiantheology gave grounds for reason and thus reasoning about what is true.Therefore it makes sense of science. Put another way, if science bets itsexistence on naturalism, then it will ultimately undermine itself.
Hismore sustained argument can be found in the 1947 apologetic work, Miracles, a key chapter of which (chapter three) he revisedfor the 1960 edition, from which I will quote.
The argument in Miracles (1947, revised 1960)
Starting with Lewis’s argumentsagainst naturalism, I turn to his most sustained, discussed, and debatedpresentation, the opening chapters of Miracles, particularly the third chapter, “The Cardinal Difficulty with Naturalism.”As I mentioned above, Lewis defines naturalism simply as the belief that natureis all there is, and he also provides a more extensive definition in Miracles: Naturalism is “the doctrine that only Nature—thewhole interlocked system–exists. And if that were true, every thing and eventwould, if we knew enough, be explicable without remainder (no heeltaps) as a necessary product of thesystem.”[16]He continues the essence of the argument he presented in “Is Theology Poetry?”(and elsewhere)—that in order for reason to exist there must be somethinggreater or “above” (super in Latin) andthus there must be Supernature.
Lewispresents his argument against naturalism to kick away a support fordisbelieving in miracles. If there is nothing that supervenes over nature, thenmiracles are impossible. If there is, however, a Supernature, then it, or God,could act in ways contrary to the nexus of cause and effect in the naturalworld. That a central reason he argues against naturalism.
NowLewis’s argument against naturalism is reasonable simple. It starts with thepremise that
(1) Naturalism asserts that all that exists is part of thenatural, or material world, of cause and effect.
(2) Reason, being a part of all that is, must therefore be acomponent solely of the natural world.
(3) Yet, in order for reason to discover truth, it cannot besolely based on natural, or material, cause and effect.
(4) Therefore naturalists cannot fit reason into their system.
(5) Consequently, naturalism is false.
Asa result of the well-known debate with the eminent Oxford philosopher ElizabethAnscombe at the Socratic Club on February 2, 1948, Lewis conceded that Anscombehad pointed out flaws in his essential argument. He presented changes in the1960 revision to Miracles, noting a keydistinction between Cause-Effect and Ground-Consequent. She too, according tosubsequent reflection, felt that he had admitted problems, noting his “honestyand seriousness” as a philosopher. She did not, however, conclude he destroyed,as later commentators would assert. A. N. Wilson, who, in his 1990s biographyof Lewis, labored incessantly (and even cooked a few facts) to make Lewis lookunworthy of serious attention repeats a somewhat tired argument that Lewisretreated from apologetics (such as Miracles) to children’s literature (i.e., Narnia) after this encounter. (Below I will note howWilson’s mood changed significantly a few years ago.) He continues by assertingthat Lewis even patterned the evil White Witch of Narnia, Jadis, afterAnscombe. I find it difficult to take that sort of assertion seriously.[17]
I have presented the critical elements of hisrevised presentation, not to engage them directly (others have done soeffectively),[18]but to demonstrate more that Lewis more away from argument to story, fromjustification to signification. Or put another way, as Michael Ward does in PlanetNarnia, Lewis moved from Contemplation toEnjoyment. This is a key distinction that Lewis makes in Surprised byJoy, which he picked up from Alexander. Soin 1950, when he began the “Narniad” as it is called, he wanted to enjoy what reasoning implied (a first order experience),not contemplate reason, or thinkabout thinking (a second-order experience).[19]
Theapologetic force of this argument remains surprisingly relevant for today’santi-theistic—I have noted Pinker and Dawkins, but there are many others. Ihave found myself, as one committed to the glory of scientific insight alongwith my Christian faith, leaning on Lewis. He does not argue that one mustconclude that naturalism is self-defeating, only that that it is very likely tobe self-defeating. And I have not found a rejoinder, although many have beentried,[20]and the debate shows no signs of abating.[21]It is not exactly an argument for Christian faith, but as he concludes in “IsTheology Poetry?” he does offer that theism—specifically, the creation of theworld by a rational Creator—offers the best ground for human reason. For thisreason, Lewis brings together a rigorous reasoning alongside a robust faith in Godas Creator.
A final thought
Perhaps the best closer for this chapter comes from the penof A. N. Wilson, the brilliant, but cranky biographer of Lewis who remained,for decades, a committed, atheist. Just a few years ago, he changed his mind.In an April 2009 article in MailOnline, he wrote this,
Our bishops and theologians,frightened as they have been by the pounding of secularist guns, need that kindof bravery (like Sir Thomas More’s) more than ever. Sadly, they have all butaccepted that only stupid people actually believe in Christianity, and that thefew intelligent people left in the churches are there only for the music orbelieve it all in some symbolic or contorted way which, when examined, turnsout not to be belief after all. As a matter of fact, I am sure the opposite isthe case and that materialist atheism is not merely an arid creed, but totallyirrational. Materialist atheism says we are just a collection of chemicals. Ithas no answer whatsoever to the question of how we should be capable of love orheroism or poetry if we are simply animated pieces of meat.
That seems in the mode of C. S. Lewis himself. But Lewis didnot stop with simply impugning naturalism—a negative accomplishment—he alsopresented a positive argument for Jesus Christ. That is the subject of the nextchapter.
[1] Miracles, 5. Note: This,and in some of the following citations, are incomplete. That will certainly beremedied in a final draft of this paper.
[2] Atoms& Eden: Conversations on Religion & Science, edited by Steve Paulsen (Oxford, 2010), 239.
[3] “ThePhilosophical Journey of C.S. Lewis,” Stanford Online Encyclopedia.
[4] Surprisedby Joy: The Shape of My Early Life.
[5] TheCollected Letters of C. S. Lewis, 1950-1963: Narnia, Cambridge and Joy, VolumeIII, ed. Walter Hooper (San Francisco:HarperSanFrancisco, 2007), 462
[6] Perhaps notsurprisingly, as I picked up Orthodoxy,by Lewis’s great mentor, G. K. Chesterton, the latter contains an extendedsection on materialism
[7] PossibleWorlds and Other Essays.
[8] Dawkins, RiverOut of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life,132-33.
[9] Just to beclear: It was read on November 7, 1944 and published in The Socratic Digest in 1945.
[10] TheScrewtape Letters, Letter I.
[11] May 29,2008 National Public Radio interview with Krista Tippett. See http://being.publicradio.org/programs/quarks/transcript.shtml.
[12] “Dogma andthe Universe,” in God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics, edited by Walter Hooper (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,1970), 38-9.
[13] “Dogma andthe Universe,” 39.
[14] TheWeight of Glory, 78.
[15] TheWeight of Glory, 81.
[16] Miracles,12.
[17] C. S.Lewis: A Biography.
[18] Cf.Reppert’s book, C. S. Lewis’s Dangerous Idea.
[19] MichaelWard, Planet Narnia, 218-20.
[20] Beversluis,The Rational Religion of C. S. Lewis.
[21] Oneprominent example is Daniel Dennett.
