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Goodbye Jesus

C.s. Lewis -- Memesmith


Llwellyn

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C.S. Lewis fobbed himself off as a Christian, but Christianity includes doctrines that C.S. Lewis refused to accept.  C.S. Lewis's religion was Platonism, and he was a Christian only so far as it didn't interfere with his Platonism.  C.S. Lewis was a committed Platonist, who wished to press Christianity into the service of a Platonic vision of salvation.  While the Pagan Platonists like Celsus and Porphyry attacked the Christian Castle from outside the walls, C.S. Lewis attacked the Christian Castle by rebuilding the structure.  

 

The area of Lewis's thought where this is most striking is in his perspective on practical reason.  C.S. Lewis, like Plato, thought that practical reason is also extra-human and is perception of the essential nature of right and wrong.  He believed that unconverted human ideas of Good and divine ideas of Good must match up for there to be any satisfactory experience:  "If His ideas of good are so very different from ours, what He calls Heaven might well be what we should call Hell, and vice-versa. Finally, if reality at its very root is so meaningless to us — or, putting it the other way round, if we are such total imbeciles — what is the point of trying to think either about God or about anything else?"  To C.S. Lewis, human good is divine good:  "When the relevant difference between the Divine ethics and your own appears to you, you will not, in fact, be in any doubt that the change demanded of you is in the direction you already call 'better.'"  C.S. Lewis believed that we can rely upon our perceptions:  "Our righteousness may be filthy and ragged, but Christianity gives us no ground for holding that our perceptions of right are in the same condition."  Notice, he didn't state that Christianity makes no assertion that human thought is futile, instead, he stated that Christianity is not a satisfactory ground for holding that assertion.  This is because Lewis understood that  "a theology which goes about to represent our practical reason as radically unsound is heading for disaster."

 

Lewis would never accept Christian doctrines that disagree with his unconverted common sense.  Lewis rejected all of the aspects of Christianity that Celsus and Porphyry scorned.  In Mere Christianity, Lewis states that he has no use for the penal substitutionary atonement.  In the Great Divorce, he illustrates that he has no use for the doctrine of a divine anathema for non-believers.  His opposition to Biblical Christianity was only thinly-veiled:  "If we once admit that what God means by 'goodness' is sheerly different from what we judge to be good, there is no difference left between pure religion and devil worship."  But a Christianity without divine anathemas, solved with the suffering of Jesus, is not biblical Christianity.  The Bible says "If anyone does not love the Lord—a curse be on him."  1 Corinthians 16:22.  Does Christianity assert that human thought is futile?  Yes, it does.  "The LORD knows the thoughts of man; he knows that they are futile." Psalm 94:11.  Does Christianity assert that what God means by "detestable" is what we mean by "valuable"?  Yes it does.  "What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight."  Luke 16:15.

 

C.S. Lewis spent his whole apologetic ministry sidestepping the facts, and reframing the doctrine.  Do you have any guesses why?

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Hmm interesting. Do you contend that Lewis was consciously a Platonist simply masquerading as a Christian, or do you think that he believed himself a Christian who just had a better understanding of proper Theology than most others? I'm inclined to say that latter, mainly because, to me, his writings do not read as those of someone who doesn't believe their own words.

 

I'm very happy to agree that Lewis liked his Christianity A la carte. I don't think that he was particularly alone in this, however. It seems to me that many Christians pick and choose which parts of the doctrine they will follow, and which they will push aside. There are also a variety of different doctrines to choose from. This was evidently of some concern to Lewis, as he wrote the following:

 

"I think we must admit that the discussion of these disputed points has no tendency at all to bring an outsider into the Christian fold. So long as we write and talk about them we are much more likely to deter him from entering any Christian communion than to draw him into our own. Our divisions should never be discussed except in the presence of those who have already come to believe that there is one God and that Jesus Christ is His only Son." (From the preface of Mere Christianity).

 

It seems, then, that Lewis was an advocate of sweeping the rough edges of Christianity under the proverbial rug, rather than actually dealing with them. This doesn't seem to me to be indicative of a high level of intellectual honesty. So perhaps you're right, and he was really a Platonist.

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Platonic thought had a huge influence on Christianity, which I prefer to call Christianities.  Lewis was an Anglican heavily influenced by the writings of George McDonald, a Christian Universalist.  There are many biblical and many non-biblical Christianities, and many have irreconcilable differences.  The bible does not present one clear message, and it was never necessary in order for Christianities to exist.  Eastern Orthodoxy has never included a doctrine of substitutionary atonement.  Many Christianities make allowances for the salvation of unbelievers.

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I think it was in the last Narnia book, they get to heaven, and the professor exclaims, "It's all in Plato."

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I think it was in the last Narnia book, they get to heaven, and the professor exclaims, "It's all in Plato."

 

Yes.  "further up and further in"

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I think it was in the last Narnia book, they get to heaven, and the professor exclaims, "It's all in Plato."

 

Hmm. That's really something.

 

I haven't read Narnia since I was a believer. I've been meaning to re-read it for some time. Despite the overt theological overtones, it remains one of the most significant foundational works of modern fantasy.

 

I've just now pulled The Last Battle off my bookshelf to verify this quotation. Here it is, in context:

 

"When Aslan said you could never go back to Narnia, he meant the Narnia you were thinking of. But that was not the real Narnia. That had a beginning and an end. It was only a shadow or a copy of the real Narnia which has always been here and always will be here: just as our own world, England and all, is only a shadow or copy of something in Aslan's real world. You need not mourn over Narnia, Lucy. All of the old Narnia that mattered, all the dear creatures, have been drawn into the real Narnia through the Door. And of course it is different; as different as a real thing is from a shadow, or as waking life is from a dream."

 

His voice stirred everyone like a trumpet as he spoke these words: but when he added under his breath, "It's all in Plato, all in Plato, bless me, what do they teach them at these schools?" the older ones laughed. It was so exactly like the sort of thing they had heard him say long ago in that other world where his beard was grey instead of golden.

 

(C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle)

 

...that's not even subtle.

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This is the order of C.S. Lewis's commitments:  (1) His own logic as self-sufficient moral consciousness, (2) Platonism, and (3) Christianity as True Myth.  The Bible is nowhere to be found.  I'm not going to say that C.S. Lewis was an out-and-out liar, but he made sure to be cagey in everything he said, and to be careful about how explicitly he expressed his true feelings.  He wasn't going to be thrown out on his ear like George MacDonald.  Is Platonic Christianity a form of Christianity?  Yes, I suppose so -- we see it in the Greek Orthodox Church.  But by that measure so is Pragmatic Christianity of Barrack Obama (red herring), and Atheistic Christianity of Bishop John Shelby Spong.  No doubt Christianity welds itself to every other human thought in order to survive and reproduce.  But the only form of Christianity that has any distinctiveness is Berean Christianity.  Berean Christianity rejects unconverted human logic, and Pagan Platonism.   They do so on the basis of the Bible which tells us that  "If anyone should think to himself, 'I will do well enough if I follow the dictates of my heart,' Yahweh will not pardon him. His wrath shall burn against him. And all the curses written in the book will come upon him."  Deuteronomy 29:18-20.  

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This is the order of C.S. Lewis's commitments:  (1) His own logic as self-sufficient moral consciousness, (2) Platonism, and (3) Christianity as True Myth.  The Bible is nowhere to be found.

 

And yet, the veracity of the gospel accounts of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus is essential to his famous trilemma (Lord, Lunatic or Liar). I think that parts or the Bible were considered by Lewis, but only as they suited his purposes.

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The Bible is nowhere to be found because for him it was not an authority establishing the distinctives of Abrahamic Religion.  He states this in his discussion of Divine Goodness and on the explanation of the work of Christ:  "Any theories we build up as to how Christ's death did all this are, in my view, quite secondary: mere plans or diagrams to be left alone if they do not help us, and, even if they do help us, not to be confused with the thing itself."  "The ultimate question is whether the doctrine of the goodness of God or that of the inerrancy of Scriptures is to prevail when they conflict. I think the doctrine of the goodness of God is the more certain of the two. Indeed, only that doctrine renders this worship of Him obligatory or even permissible."  He doesn't use the phrase if they conflict, but when they conflict.

 

I don't disagree that he believed in the Trinity, but he was untroubled with Trinitarianism, which works on us in an identical way to Hesiod's polytheistic pantheon.  For C.S. Lewis, Christianity could serve as a functional Platonic myth, which potentiality elevates humans into ethereal realms, or at least holds them back from disintegrating into non-being.  Lewis says:  "the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened."  Of course, he was too smart to be oblivious to the fact that where the point of myth is to "work on us" in appropriate ways, the difference if the myth be true or false is most certainly not "tremendous."  

 

The question is:  what is the seat of authority for what we will believe?  For the Berean Christian, the answer is the Bible.  For C.S. Lewis, the answer is his own logic:  “We must believe in the validity of rational thought, and we must not believe in anything inconsistent with its validity.”  C.S. Lewis thought that rational thought would lead us to Platonism:  "The good is uncreated; it never could have been otherwise; it has in it no shadow of contingency; it lies, as Plato said, on the other side of existence. It is the Rita of the Hindus by which the gods themselves are divine, the Tao of the Chinese from which all realities proceed. . . .  God is not merely good, but goodness; goodness is not merely divine, but God."  When C.S. Lewis talks about "Pure Religion," this is what he is referring to.

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I used to like C.S. Lewis, don't anymore. But who the fuck are these Berean fuckers? Where's my revolver?

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You folks have analyzed Lewis much deeper than have. I read his books many years ago. But I was always perplexed by the fact that he virtually never quoted or made references to the bible. The OP seems to explain why. It also seemed to me that with respect to problem areas of Xtianity he explained  them with a creative solution, regardless of what the bible said. Lewis simply wrote ways he thought made  Xtianity look good, but without disclosing that these ideas of his did not come from the bible.  He did not justify his slant on the faith by biblical "proof". He simply used his creative talent to "improve" Xtianity. I don't know of any apologists who called him on it. I suppose that's because they didn't care if his explanations were consistent with the bible. They knew most of the flock wouldn't know whether it was consistent or not. The apologists were satisfied that his writing kept the gullible Xtians within the fold. Further, I never noticed that Lewis criticized or explained the obviously stupid things the bible said. He merely ignored them. I think he was an intellectual snob.   Rip

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Loved Narnia books

Love his space trilogy

Love Til We Have Faces

I dont like his Christian writings. Never did even back then.

I don't get why all his work is in religious section of the bookstores

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I don't know of any apologists who called him on it.

 

Rip -- Actually, Cornelius Van Til recognized that C.S. Lewis adopted a non-Christian mentality.  C.S. Lewis said about God:  "f good is to be defined as what God commands, then the goodness of God Himself is emptied of meaning and the commands of an omnipotent fiend would have the same claim on us as those of the 'righteous Lord.'"  "If He is not (in our sense) ‘good’ we shall obey, if at all, only through fear — and should be equally ready to obey an omnipotent Fiend."  Unlike John Piper who endlessy praises C.S. Lewis in unqualified terms, Van Til wasn't afraid to explicitly describe what he recognized in a profitable popular attraction.  Van Til may be wrong about C.S. Lewis, and his thoughts are definitely not the "last word," but I personally think that this interpretation of C.S. Lewis will carry the day:
 
"It was Socrates the pagan philosopher who insisted that he wanted himself to be the ultimate judge of the nature of piety, and that he did not care what God said about it.  Lewis is quite right in stating the issue between Christianity and non-Christianity in the terms he uses. He is, however, quite mistaken when, as an evangelical Christian, he chooses the side of paganism against Christianity. . . . Lewis appears not to realize in taking the side of Socrates, the idea of the self-sufficient moral consciousness, he has virtually renounced the right to appeal to either the God or the Christ of Scripture for either help or light."
 
Cornelius Van Til, Christian Theistic Ethics.
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But who the fuck are these Berean fuckers?

Bereans - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Thanks. I hadn't realized they were a historic splinter group that splintered into further sub-groups.

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Rip -- Actually, Cornelius Van Til recognized that C.S. Lewis adopted a non-Christian mentality.  C.S. Lewis said about God:  "f good is to be defined as what God commands, then the goodness of God Himself is emptied of meaning and the commands of an omnipotent fiend would have the same claim on us as those of the 'righteous Lord.'"

Wow. Old van Til pretty much gives the game away here, doesn't he? I think Lewis is right that an omnipotent fiend whose servants called him "righteous" is pretty much indistinguishable from Yahweh, as far as I can see - no test available to judge which we're dealing with in any situation.
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I used to like C.S. Lewis, don't anymore. But who the fuck are these Berean fuckers? Where's my revolver?

 

I use the term "Berean Christian" from Acts 17:11 in the generic sense of simply "Biblical Christian."  "The Bereans were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day."  Acts 17:11.  A Berean Christian reads the following verses and changes his mind based on its content, something that C.S. Lewis refused to do:  "I am the LORD, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things."  Isaiah 45:6-7.  "Jesus said:  For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind."  John 9:39.  
 
The term "Berean Christian" is an attempt to find a phrase to describe a kind of Christianity which actually accepts the kernel of cognitive content described in the Bible that can't be found in any other worldviews (e.g. Atheism, Platonism, Nihilism, Pragmatism, Islam etc.).  I don't disagree with True Freedom that the Bible does not present one clear message, and Christianities would exist without the Bible.  However, there are concepts stated in the Bible that can't be found anywhere else, and certainly cannot be found in the unconverted conscience of a human, for example in C.S. Lewis's imagination.  Berean Theology represents our practical reason as radically unsound.
 
A Christian who searches the Scriptures, finds, and believes those idiosyncratic teachings is a "Berean Christian" in my formulation.  This is a way of making our discussions of Christianity clear.  If we are going to say that Christianity is a unique way of thinking, and is a way of thinking that attends to divine revelation in Christ and the Bible, then those doctrinal singularities should be plucked out of the Biblical Text and presented clearly in order to understand how Christianity may be different from any other human thought.  I agree with TrueFreedom that there are "many non-biblical Christianities" -- which may very well include Islam, Buddhism, Platonism, Judaism, Marxism, Atheism, etc.  But without making clarifying distinctions, the consequence is that there is simply no way to talk about Christianity at all.  Hence, my use of the phrase Berean Christian.
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I use the term "Berean Christian" from Acts 17:11 in the generic sense of simply "Biblical Christian."  "The Bereans were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day."  Acts 17:11.

I can appreciate the need to differentiate between the different flavors of Christianity. The simple fact is that when someone says "I'm a Christian", this almost raises more questions than it answers. I think that defining what they do and do not believe is more their problem than mine, however.

 

Also, it seems to me that if we are to speak of searching the scriptures, we are entitled to ask which scriptures we are speaking of. Unfortunately this is another thing that the different sects don't seem to quite agree on. Admittedly, most mainstream Christian denominations more or less agree on a canonical Bible, but such was not always the case. Thus I think we are perfectly entitled to ask "which Bible?".

 

I'm not sure about your assertion that there are concepts in the Bible which are not mirrored elsewhere (although admittedly, I have no expertise in this area). What specifically are you referring to?

 

In some of my past writings, I have defined a Christian as one who believes that Jesus Christ was and is the Son of God, that he died on a cross to pay the penalty for the sins of humankind, and that he rose from the dead as described in the New Testament. The problem with this definition is that not everyone who claims the label "Christian" believes this, and most who do believe this also believe a great number of other superfluous things. So I'm not sure that this is the best definition, but it is start at least. Moreover, that the Christians can't seem to agree on what they do and do not believe speaks volumes to me about the worth and potency of their worldview.

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Llwellen: Van Til is not familiar to me. I'll have to look him up. Do you know off hand where those quotes of C S Lewis in your post #14 came from? I was just wondering if they might have come from his writings  before he became a Xtian, It's unlikely, because I doubt you would have missed that, as thorough as you are. It just seems so inconsistent with his books that I read, like Mere Christianity, Screwtape Letters, etc. His approval of Socrates on morality seems so clearly in conflict with Xtianity which he approved in his books. The difference is so obvious. Rip

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Do you know off hand where those quotes of C S Lewis in your post #14 came from? 

 

The first quote is from the book The Problem of Pain, and its chapter "Divine Goodness."  The second quote is from the essay "The Poison of Subjectivism," which was published in the collection Christian Reflections.  I have always known C.S. Lewis to be consistent across his fiction and nonfiction works -- he pretty much is saying the same thing in all of his books, whether it is expressed in narrative or essay.  The idea is that Aslan is "not safe, but he is good," as the Badgers put it;  the application of God's wrath is the same as the application of his love.  "When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death."  Stuff straight out of George MacDonald.  C.S. Lewis denied the possibility that there could be a disjunction between what seems good to the human and what seems good to the Christian God.  But the Bible says that serving Yahweh will seem evil to the atheist like me.  "If it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve."  Joshua 24:15.

 

roflbot (7)

 

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I'm not sure about your assertion that there are concepts in the Bible which are not mirrored elsewhere (although admittedly, I have no expertise in this area). What specifically are you referring to?

 

I would have said that Berean Christianity is a unique method rather than a unique concept -- a method of imprudence rather than a scientific method:  "If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise" 1 Co 3:18.  "Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes."  Matthew 11:25;  Luke 10:21.  "His communication is with the simple."  Proverbs 3:32.  But this is a method which is also followed by Islam --  resulting in a different cognitive content, which is similar but does not include the Trinity.  I think the unique thing about Berean Christianity is the idea of the "Wrath of the Lamb" as an absolute truth -- that the final word, will include Jesus anathematizing people without Jesus:  "They called to the mountains and the rocks, 'Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb!'  For the great day of their wrath has come."  Revelation 6:16-17.  This is a concept which rolls together the what can be unique about Christian theology and God-Man relations.  What do you think, is this an idiosyncratic kernel of Christianity?  Is there a better way to distill its essence?
 
picture8.jpg
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Fascinating topic. Thanks for bringing this up!

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What do you think, is this an idiosyncratic kernel of Christianity?  Is there a better way to distill its essence?

I think that's a very interesting point. The notion of God as both sacrificial Lamb and wrathful Lion seems to be somewhat unique. I also think that the notion of the Trinity is important. But I think you're right, the idea of self-sacrifice on the part of God is somewhat central, as is the concept of God's wrath. After all, it was to assuage his own wrath that God felt the need to offer himself to himself. We must be grateful to him for this. We must love him, and we must also fear him. He is good, but not at all safe. But I'm not sure if that is truly the essence of Christianity. As I have said before, there are so many different versions that I scarcely know what the one who claims to be a Christian is actually saying.

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 there are so many different versions that I scarcely know what the one who claims to be a Christian is actually saying.

 

When C.S. Lewis says that God is "Not safe but good," he doesn't mean what John Calvin means, but what Plato means.  John Calvin means that the Trinity will curse non-believers and bless believers, with the final analysis that Good is what God says is good:  "Not that God is subject to law, except in so far as He Himself is law.  For such is the consent and agreement between his power and His righteousness, that nothing proceeds from Him that is not considered, legitimate, and regular."  John Calvin, Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, X.13.  Plato means that the Gods will make humans just, no matter what hell this might be for a human, with the final analysis that even the Gods must conform their nature to reason:  "Justice punishes us, and makes us more just, and is the medicine of our vice."  "[T]he unjust or doer of unjust actions is miserable in any case,--more miserable, however, if he be not punished and does not meet with retribution, and less miserable if he be punished and meets with retribution at the hands of gods and men."  Gorgias.
 
As I think more about it, I think the only distinctive of Christianity is simply the identification of Jesus as God.  The divinity of Christ is the only thing that Christianity doesn't have in common with at least one other religion.  Muslims also believe in divine anathemas for non-believers, so that is struck off the list.  But perhaps even the doctrine of the divinity of Christ isn't even unique, as Hindus also believe in the divinity of Christ.  I'm not sure C.S. Lewis is correct in describing anything unique about Christianity when he says the following:  "we, favoured beyond the wisest pagans, know what lies beyond existence, what admits no contingency, what lends divinity to all else, what is the ground of all existence, is not simply a law but also a begetting love, a love begotten, and the love which, being these two, is also imminent in all those who are caught up to share the unity of their self-caused life."  ...sounds like pretty conventional paganism.  Christianity just resolves into everything else.
 
Here is an image of Jesus cursing the fig tree.  I'm not sure this is particularly persuasive,  but it's probably about as good as any representation of what's going on around here:
 
fig-tree.jpg
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Christianity just resolves into everything else.

 

This is a really important point. It seems to me to imply that unless it can be shown explicitly that Jesus is in fact God, Christianity fails to do anything of use that other religions haven't already covered. In other words, the Christian absolutely needs to demonstrate that Jesus is God, otherwise they've got nothing unique. And, of course, there has never been a convincing argument that Jesus is God. So we are quite justified in telling all Christian apologists to piss off, and only come back when they have something more convincing.

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