Book Review – The Case for Christianity by CS Lewis
The Case for Christianity by CS Lewis
The Case for Christianity is a series of transcribed radio talks given by CS Lewis during WWII, and edited together with additional notes into book form. It is one of three books that ultimately made up his famous apologetic work Mere Christianity.
Reading the book reminded me of some mathematics seminars I used to attend. The speaker would spend great effort in setting up the initial steps of some elaborate proof, only to spend the last 3 minutes of his talk rushing through the rest to get to his conclusion. It is the classic cartoon of a math professor writing “Poof, a miracle occurs here” in the middle of his equation list. Lewis attempts to build the case for Jesus Christ on first principles. The argumentation style is that of a long chain of assumptions and arguments, with one continuously built on the other. The problem with this type of argument is that when any argument or assumption in the chain is shown wrong, or even questioned or doubted, everything else that follows is discredited. If the foundational argument fails, the whole structure collapses and we might as well not read the rest of the book.
Lewis begins his arguments, indeed the first half of the book, with the argument of our moral conscience. He claims that since we have a moral baseline, which seems to be a standard across humanity, that it must have been implanted into us upon creation. Since our moral conscience cannot conceive of the abstract notions of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ unless they exist, they must then exist outside of our selves. Has our moral base been implanted into us, or are we born with it? It is the classic sociological problem of ‘nature versus nurture’, which I am not well versed in. But even if we are born with a moral conscience, is it truly universal? Is right and correct in one culture equally abhorrent in another? Does this moral base exist in the same sense as a universal multiplication table, as Lewis claims? Is this truly evidence of a transcendent creator who implanted that base into every human? I don’t know the answers, but they are important questions to consider when reading Lewis’s line of reasoning. Lewis spends over half the book establishing this argument, so he needs to move quickly to get from here to the divinity of Jesus Christ.
Lewis then argues the subjectivity of good and bad. By defining these terms with the frame of reference of an observer standing outside of each, Lewis rejects the concept of Pantheism. Lewis uses a frequent tactic by assuming that humanity cannot conceive of an abstract concept if it did not exist. For instance, consider this quote:
If the universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning; just as if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes we should never know it was dark. Dark would be a word without meaning.
This type of argument permeates the book. He could have saved a lot of space by simply claiming that if God did not exist, we could not conceive of him, therefore God exists.
The ultimate conclusion to this book is the divinity and salvific nature of Jesus Christ. He concludes with the famous ‘Lord, Liar, Lunatic’ argument that is famous amongst Christian apologetic circles. In a nutshell, Lewis considers the claims of Jesus as God, which are mostly found in the Gospel of John. Then he argues that Jesus could not be just a great moral teacher without being God:
A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said wouldn’t be a great moral teacher. He’d either be a lunatic – on the level with the man who says he’s a poached egg – or else he’d be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God.
I first remember reading this argument in Josh McDowell’s Evidence that Demands a Verdict about 20 years ago where, if memory serves, he devotes an entire section to the above quote. I was astounded, even as a Christian, that I could refute it about 5 seconds after I read it. There are other options besides the three that Lewis has given. Because in order to accept this thesis, you have to accept that the Gospel of John is recording the whole, accurate, and unexaggerated words of Jesus claiming to be God lock, stock and barrel. And if you are that far, then you are probably a Christian anyway. In other words, this argument, like many of the apologetic arguments out there, will only work if you already believe.
In the end, The Case for Christianity is a long case of circular reasoning, and I was left disappointed. This is too bad, because Lewis is a clever writer, and I really enjoy his fiction. But it frankly amazes me that Lewis is held up in Christian circles as a great intellectual champion of the Faith. He was not as popular when I first read him in the mid-1970s as he is now. I think that perhaps his legend has grown 45 years after his death. But his apologetic work just does not hold much water for this reader.
March 27th, 2007 at 8:27 am
Regarding the “Lord, Liar, Lunatic” apologetic, yes, of course, there could well have been some conspiracy by those who recorded the words we now attribute to Jesus in the gospels. But, if so, aren’t they also subject to the same alternatives of lunacy or deception? And these early believers were mainly martyred as well, so why did they hold to the “Lord” option so strongly. I think Lewis’ discussion of this is valid; it is the consistent distinctive of Christianity since its earliest days to claim the divine nature of Jesus. That claim is either true, delusional (honest but mistaken), or deceptive (dishonest and mistaken) in its origin. Help me out, what other options are there?
March 27th, 2007 at 9:20 am
**Help me out, what other options are there? ** Lewis is approaching this as though everything in the Gospels literally happened, and is historically true. There’s another viewpoint that the Gospel of John was written from the viewpoint of how the later church saw him. For instance, saying ‘Jesus is Lord’ is refuting Caeser’s claim, and refuting the world’s claim that it has power. Roman Emperorers would also refer to themselves as divine or Sons of God. It wouldn’t be lunancy and it wouldn’t be deception — it would be the church saying, “Jesus is Lord, not Rome. Jesus is the light, not Rome or this world.”
The thing that can cause complications is use of ‘Logos.’ It’s a masculine noun, which is why the pronoun is often ‘he.’ An equally valid translation is ‘it.’ There are also books that show the correlation between the Jewish concept of wisdom/Sophia and Logos. The translation of ‘the Word was God’ can also mean ‘What God was, the Word was,’ because of the position of the definite article. There’s the fact that Hebrew has more than one word meaning ‘Lord.’ Adonai referred to God. Adoni/Adon referred to a human with an elevated status — Psalms 110 is an example of this. When Jesus says, “I and my Father are one,” when he is about to be stoned, he makes referrence to a Psalms where God says to the Judges, “Are ye not Gods?” (Paraphrase)
I’m finding that when starting to break down the Gospel of John, Jesus’s claims to being God aren’t so clear-cut.
So I don’t find Lewis’s argument that convincing, either. Heissailing is right — it’s written towards convincing those who already believe in the first place.
March 27th, 2007 at 11:27 am
Has anyone read the book “Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium”? I haven’t, but it was recommended to me and I am just saving up my money (it costs like $30). I would be interested to know opinions on that book.
If I am right, it investigates how Jesus could have been predicting the apocalypse to happen within his lifetime. I hear it is pretty convincing. But i have not read it.
March 27th, 2007 at 11:50 am
HeIsSailing,
I also don’t quite buy into the whole trilemma thing. Claims could be exaggerated or misinterpreted over time. His case does not cover all possibilities. Also, I think C.S. Lewis is better at convincing people who are already believers. For a class I took, I had to read the Screwtape Letters, and there was nothing in it that would make a skeptic’s head spin.
Marie, it’s funny you should mention that book today. Just this morning, I ordered it off Amazon.com. I don’t know how long it will take to arrive, but I’m looking forward to reading it. Also, it can be found on Amazon for around 15 dollars.
March 27th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
I still don’t see the other option for the trilemma. If it was changed by early adherents with either honest mistaken ideas or dishonest manipulative ideas to come to the same conclusion, it is still a trilemma. You’ve merely moved the words out of Jesus’ mouth into the mouth of later adherents. I don’t think you have a lot of basis to that idea, since why would they crucify a carpenter for saying weird parables? Even Josephus seems to have confirmed that Jesus claimed to be the Messiah. Perhaps it is a quadrilemma, but the fourth leg is weak.
March 27th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
** don’t think you have a lot of basis to that idea, since why would they crucify a carpenter for saying weird parables?** Well, there was the fact that he was a radical, that he was attacking the religious elite, that he threw out the money changers in the temple, that many people were starting to following him, for starters.
**Even Josephus seems to have confirmed that Jesus claimed to be the Messiah.** I think there are only two references to Jesus in Josephus’s writings, and one of them some scholars question, since the viewpoint goes against how he comes across in other writers.
The other options to the trilemma are that he was fictional, he may have been misquoted/misunderstood, he may have been mistaken, or had mild delusions without going into the ‘lunatic’ stage — all of these have been offered. The thing with saying that the words were moved to later adherents is that the trilemma doesn’t work, because Jesus didn’t say them. The trilemma would have to be re-created, since it’s how his followers came to see him.
**either honest mistaken ideas or dishonest manipulative ideas** This is also the same time frame where it was acceptable to write things and attach the name of famous people to them. So there’s a third option to this: it was honestly how Christians came to interact with Jesus in later times — which wouldn’t make it mistaken or manipulative. It would just be them saying, “Hey, here’s how we see Jesus, too.”
March 27th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
Ed sez:
“I still don’t see the other option for the trilemma. If it was changed by early adherents with either honest mistaken ideas or dishonest manipulative ideas to come to the same conclusion, it is still a trilemma. You’ve merely moved the words out of Jesus’ mouth into the mouth of later adherents.”
There are a lot of different options, the most obvious being the possibility that Jesus never claimed to be God. The argument from here asks why The Gospel writers, particularly John, would write that he did claim Godhood – were THEY lying? Well, most scholars today don’t think John, the Apostle of Jesus, wrote the Gospel – the Gospel is anonymous and the authorship was not attributed until.. I think about 180AD, so it is more based on tradition than a claim of the Apostle. In addition, the theology of John is much more developed and advanced then that of the synoptics, which leads most Scholars to assume a very late date of authorship. Most Conservative bible commentaries that I see say 90-100 AD as the date of authorship. That is 70 years after Jesus death, and a lot of time has passed for oral traditions to evolve, and claims to exagerate. 70 years ago was 1937. Think of the number of Urban myths in our own society that have evolved since that time, just the number of myths evolving from WWII would probably make a fun book!
But I still have no reason not to believe that the Gospel writers did not believe in the divinity of Jesus. But then again there were all kinds of Gospels floating around during this time, many with radically different and crazy beliefs then what is found in the canonical Gospels. I don’t think any of those contain any history, but that is not the point. SOMEBODY believed that stuff. There is no reason to believe that the authors of the heretical Gospels did not suffer the Roman persecution the same as other Christians – but there were obviously communities of people who believed the non-orthodox stuff!! Did THEY die at the hands of Nero for a lie? All the martyrs did not believe the same thing. A good book to check out from your library is Bart Ehrman’s ‘Lost Christianities’ where he discusses just how diverse Christian belief was back before the Canon was established. It is a real eye-opener.
Ed continues:
“I don’t think you have a lot of basis to that idea, since why would they crucify a carpenter for saying weird parables?”
I am surprised Jesus was not arrested and executed immediately after disrupting the Temple worship by overturning the moneychangers’ tables. There were probably Roman guards posted everywhere there for the annual event. Try causing a ruckus at your local church and see what happens. Think you won’t be arrested for disturbing the peace?
Ed, I think the bottom line is that there are many possibilties besides the 3 given by CS Lewis. Heather has the possibility that Jesus’s claims to be God may have various alternative meanings. Albert Schweitzer wrote years before CS Lewis that Jesus very well may have been somewhat deranged because he predicted the impending destruction of the world.
Try a thought experiment. Try the Lord Liar Lunatic argument on another popular, yet persecuted religious leader. Try Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon movement. Was he a Liar, a Lunatic, or a Prophet of God, as he most definitely claimed? I don’t know much about him, but I do know that he founded a religion with dubious beginnings. He had a cult of followers who were chased out of New York, then Illinios, and into Utah in a day and age when travel through the Western US was very difficult and dangerous. He and his followers I don’t think were martyred, but they were heavily persecuted over their set of convicting beliefs. Mormonism is now roughly 180 years old – and it is alive and thriving, and probably much healthier than Christianity was at 210AD.
So what about Joseph Smith? Was he a Liar? If so, he was contradicting his own ethical teachings and was persecuted for them. Was he a Lunatic? If so, why did all those people follow him, why did they allow themselves to be persecuted with him, and why do they still follow his teachings to this day? The only alternative then is he was a Prophet of God, just as he claimed, and we better follow his teachings. Does this argument wash with Joseph Smith? Probably – if you are a Mormon, but it sure sounds bogus to me. And my piont is that this is the identical argument made by Lewis, McDowell and others regarding Jesus – I just don’t buy it.
March 27th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Re: “The other options to the trilemma are that he was fictional, he may have been misquoted/misunderstood, he may have been mistaken, or had mild delusions without going into the ‘lunatic’ stage”. I guess my view is that the Liar has many shades of gray. Some people lie for shady reasons and some for noble ones. Fiction is a lie, after all. The shades of gray for Lunacy are also myriad, but they all go back to the concept of delusion, a false belief held to be true. People that are delusional have made a mistake. Somebody, Jesus, or the people that wrote about what he said, at some point were correct, deceptive, or deluded. I don’t see the other options, except perhaps for misunderstood, but any reading of the gospel accounts ought give little wiggle room for the claims of divinity being clear. The way I see your example of Joseph Smith (and I’ve read some on his biography) as more supportive of my view. The guy was lying, as his “translation” work shows. Now, was Mohammed lying or deluded? I can’t tell which, too much has been lost to history. It seems to me anything I’ve been led to believe is either true or false. If it is false, I was either deceived intentionally (lied to) or unintentionally (convinced to accept a delusion).
March 27th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
Ed,
You are right – there is also the possibility that we just misunderstand the Gospels! After all, these are mostly Jewish documents that were mostly interpreted by us Gentiles. Who knows how the original authors intended these things to be interpreted? If read correctly, The Gospel of John is loaded with Gnosticism. The Revelation has more astrology than a Jeanne Dixon column. These are fun to study, read and think about, but at this point, I don’t think there is any way to really know for sure!!
March 27th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
errata
I said, “If read correctly, The Gospel of John is loaded with Gnosticism. ”
I meant to say, “If read a certain way, The Gospel of John is loaded with Gnosticism.” I would never claim to know the correct way of reading The Gospel of John
March 27th, 2007 at 5:05 pm
“‘Lord, Liar, Lunatic’” (The Trilemma from CS Lewis)
To compare this to Joseph Smith was quite intriguing but there is one problem with that – Smith claims ‘prophet hood’ and not ‘God-ness’ (which are varying in their degree in claim). I call Lennon a prophet to his times all the time – although he never claimed this – I don’t see much problem in that – since his music can say a lot to someone and did in his time. If I start calling Lennon ‘God’ then we have some difficulties to deal with…first off, would be dis-crediting my character to find ‘delusion’.
I just watched a thing on Koresh the other night and some Branch Dividians hold him as ‘god’ as of right now – now I think I have to look into their claims quite scrupously (as an honest seeker myself) – and see if Koresh was ‘god’? What would we check to prove this is not true? This is where this idea has to go.
March 27th, 2007 at 5:25 pm
JumpingConclusions sez:
“Also, I think C.S. Lewis is better at convincing people who are already believers. For a class I took, I had to read the Screwtape Letters, and there was nothing in it that would make a skeptic’s head spin.”
To be fair, that was not really the intent of Screwtape Letters. That book was more of an edifying device for believers as a way of educating them of the tactics the deciever uses. Lewis can be very creative and clever at times, and Screwtape Letters is one of my favorites from him.
March 27th, 2007 at 5:30 pm
societyvs sez:
“To compare this to Joseph Smith was quite intriguing but there is one problem with that – Smith claims ‘prophet hood’ and not ‘God-ness’ ”
Yeah, I am sure I got some specifics wrong, but I hope you see my main arguement. Jesus, as far as being the founder of a religion followed by zealous belivers, is hardly unique (your reference to Koresh is another good example, even though he had followers numbering in the .. tens?).
March 27th, 2007 at 6:32 pm
The gospels were written in Greek, which has a substantial surviving library and knowledge-base, and their meaning is not open to much guesswork. Sure, there are some areas of ambiguity, but I don’t see the claim of Jesus’ divinity as being easily misunderstood. Especially when you add in the letters of Paul (some to c. 60 AD), which restate this claim. The way I see CS Lewis, his trilemma is not a perfect analogy, but it is a pretty good one. He probably ought to have mentioned the possibility of misunderstanding, but that is pretty far-fetched. It is not at all far-fetched that Jesus was trying to rally the Jews into a peaceful movement to overcome their hard lives under Roman occupation, and as he did so, he became convinced they needed to see him as the Messiah/God Incarnate, so he deceived them with the best of intentions. And Paul et al. may have continued the deception as he foresaw the futility of the incipient violent revolt against the Romans so tragically resulting in the destruction of Jerusalem and Judea in 70 AD, again with good intentions. Or, it is not far-fetched to think that Jesus was a victim of a grandiose delusion, whose attaction duped many people, many such examples, Koresh being one of them, litter history. So, CS Lewis’ trilemma is not so far off from the usual decision-making people go through as they evaluate the claims of the NT, although it is a rather overdramatic and simplified version.
March 28th, 2007 at 11:08 am
It appears that the Lord, liar, lunatic trio of choices was created to make the first description more palatable than the following two characterizations. After all, how could a major religion be founded by a con man or a nut job unless we are talking about Muhammad and Islam or perhaps Joseph Smith and Mormonism or Siddhartha Gautama and Buddhism or….
Is the Pope or the Dalai Lama lunatics or liars – or, who they claim to be? What about Christians (or other religious folks) who profess to have a pipeline to the Almighty, are they fakes or flakes or are their claims accurate?
Christian apologetics is ripe with manipulation of language to keep the believer in line. It’s a sad commentary on a belief system that has to be propped up by word games.
March 28th, 2007 at 11:27 am
As much as I respect and admire CS Lewis’ fiction, (the Chronicles of Narnia) I have no such respect for books that attempt to do the work of the Divine. Things of God cannot be explained in a book, or in words, really. The explaining must be done by the Holy Spirit to individuals who seek Him. That does not mean that any writings about God are bad or wrong. What I mean is that we can not expect a book to explain and prove what God has chosen to reveal another way. That’s like saying, “It’s ok, God, your book wasn’t quite clear enough, so I’ll write one that does a better job of explaining what You meant.” It’s ridiculous. God chooses to reveal Himself to us, individually, through the Holy Spirit. He cannot be measured or seen, but, like the wind, He is real and we can see the evidence of that as sure as we see the trees bending in the wind. And I believe He is the only One who can show us God’s message.
March 28th, 2007 at 11:30 am
I must add that the Holy Spirit is not limited in what He uses to reveal God to us. He may well use a book. Or a beautiful sunrise or any number of things. He is God; the way He reveals God to an individual is as unique as the individual.
March 28th, 2007 at 11:37 am
Hi Joeyanne,
Maybe this has been asked a lot already, but HOW do you know that? I sincerely want to know how you know that the sunrise is God revealing truth to you? How do you know when God reveals something? What makes you sure that you are right? Is it not just you thinking thoughts that dont contradict the Bible?
Thanks!
marie
March 28th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
“Is the Pope or the Dalai Lama lunatics or liars – or, who they claim to be? What about Christians (or other religious folks) who profess to have a pipeline to the Almighty, are they fakes or flakes or are their claims accurate?” (George)
I think they are worth questioning – I have a rough time giving any human in my current era some respect that a ‘god’ should have (actually I outright refuse to). As for the Christian question, I am one, and as for the pipeline to God – a good portion of that can internal thinking.
“Christian apologetics is ripe with manipulation of language to keep the believer in line. It’s a sad commentary on a belief system that has to be propped up by word games.” (George)
I agree in some senses about the word-play to keep people in line and to defend that status quo. I think some Christians are stepping over this line and finding out that reason and faith are not incompatible – actually when they are – then that faith needs to be seriously questioned for validity (or current meaning).
March 28th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
Marie: I like your question. And I don’t have a scientific answer, because it is a spiritual matter. But, for argument’s sake, let’s just say that all of the reasons I believe it is God could be thought to be only my imagination. If I had no other solid reasons to believe it is God speaking to my soul, I would still choose to believe it was God. What other hope is there? If the choices are: “It is God – He wants to communicate with me” or “It is all my imagination. There is no way of communicating with God. I should just live my life the best way I can and hope for the best at the end.” then, I choose to believe that God is communicating with me. If I am wrong, I have had the joy and hope of the imagined communication for my entire life. If I am right, then I HAVE had the joy and hope of the real communication with Him for my entire life, and an eternal life with Him after death. Either way, I win. Now, I will say that since I have chosen to believe it is God communicating with me, the communication is magnified. He is everywhere. He surprises me with humour. He gives me peace. He answers my prayers – not always, actually not often, the way I expect. But, in retrospect, always for the better. I can see a beautiful plan for my life unfolding. He uses things that could only be considered negative and makes them bring forth wonderful gifts for me. Yes, were I to share specific incidents with you, they could easily be explained as coincidences or my imagination. But I am sure. I am at peace. I have joy. And if by some strange design, I turned out to be wrong, I have lost nothing, only gained.
March 28th, 2007 at 11:19 pm
Hi Joeyanne
thanks for the answer–I like it. I can’t have that for myself but I like it for you. I just hope that in that, you dont (I dont presume you do) judge others based on these realizations you have, or try to use those realizations as black-and-white instructions (or fact). As you know, a lot of people see these realizations as instructions for the rest of us and hard-learned fact. To me that is very dangerous and irresponsible.
But thanks for your answer and I really am glad that you can find hope.
March 29th, 2007 at 4:00 am
Thank you, Marie. I agree with you. It is the side of “Christianity”, (but not only Christianity – all schools of thought), that I really dislike. Why do we, as humans, feel it so necessary to tell others what to think, instead of sharing what we have found in our journey? God doesn’t force Himself on anyone, why should we force Him on others? Yeah, you are so right. I pray that you find hope, too – hope that is real to you.
April 4th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
HS,
You are way too smart to still be a Christian. But I applaud your desire to search and reach your own conclusions instead of feeding from someone else’s journey.
Good luck in your search.
L