Lewis and Apologetics: A Rebuttal

This post is in response to this article, which critiques C.S. Lewis' approach to discussing faith and philosophy in Mere Christianity. At the outset, I'd like to say I know and like the author, and I feel comfortable responding to his article precisely because I believe he will accept and approve of a dialogue on the matter. I believe he would accept that this is in no way an attack on him, but only my own perceptions and opinions in reaction to his critique.

I intend to respond to the article in a generally mechanical way. I'll be working my way through the article, responding to specific points that I think deserve commentary. I'll then provide a summary of my thoughts at the end. First of all, the central premise:

This argument is so powerful because it claims that you have no philosophical basis for TALKING about anything without the Bible, because only the Bible gives you the ability to make distinctions,[...]

 This is indeed a powerful argument, based on a bold but vague claim. In order to be sure what the author is claiming, we need to recognize first that logic, like all mathematics, is founded upon a series of definitions. The definitions necessary for the logic to work are tautologically true within the system, regardless of whether any elements of that logic correspond to empirical reality, and they are distinct from the premises or assumptions of any particular logical argument within the system.

In a mathematical sense, an argument just provides a mapping from the assumptions provided to the conclusions drawn; the definitions of the logical system then determine whether this mapping is classified as valid (you did it right) or invalid (you didn't). Of course, none of this tells us whether the premises or conclusions are true, but logic never has or will demonstrate anything to be true or false. That's not what logic does.

So the claim the author wishes to argue for seems to be either that all arguments using the commonly accepted definitions of logic require the premise "the Bible is essentially reliable" in order to be valid, or that no logic exists or could exist that does not include as a definition "the Bible is essentially reliable." In order to interpret with charity, I will assume whichever is best supported by what follows to be the author's intended meaning.

The next couple of paragraphs outline a relatively common interpretation of the intellectual condition of the unregenerate human mind, culminating in this sentence:

So this is the kind of people we’re dealing with: people who try as hard as they can to run away from the truth.

At this stage I would have liked to have seen some reasoning for why we are so aggressively chasing down such damaged intellects; it feels a bit like the author sees himself as challenging paraplegics to a footrace. But that's just my rhetorical sensibilities rather than a critique of the content.

The author then goes on to say that Paul requires us to answer these errors / heresies with Scripture, citing 2 Tim 3:14-17. I find this curious, since the passage cited reminds Timothy to remain confident in the teachings of Scripture "because you know those from whom you learned it," and because of his life-long connection to Scripture. The author interprets this in the following way:

How do we decide whose philosophy is right? Paul tells Timothy to use Scripture to decide.

While I agree with this in essence, it's not strictly true. Paul tells Timothy to "continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of" in the face of heretical opposition. At least in the passage cited, he doesn't tell Timothy to decide or argue anything at all.

Similarly, the author cites 2 Cor 10:5 and 1 Pet 3:15 as reasons to use Scripture to destroy non-Christian thought in apologetics. This, despite the fact that the context of 2 Cor 10, which does include "We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, [...]" is speaking of waging war against sin within the visible church, among those who are confident that they are Christ's (verse 7). And 1 Peter 3 does say we should "make a defense," but a defense of what? "[...] to give an account for the hope that is in you." Peter calls us to tell why we trust in Christ, not why the person asking questions is wrong not to. It may be that Scripture strongly supports the aggressive apologetics the author is building toward, but these passages aren't talking about that. If Scripture is our test of what to believe, then at this point we have reason to be a bit skeptical.

The author then comes to the meat-and-potatoes of his complaint against C. S. Lewis:

The problem comes in when we try to co-operate with non-Christian assumptions in our arguments. [...] What Lewis is doing is silently, implicitly accepting the non-Christian’s definition of morality and trying to build his argument from there. What he should have done was to focus on and destroy the non-believer’s definition of morality before moving on in his argument.

If Lewis is letting non-Christians define the requirements of righteousness before God, then he has indeed abandoned too much. But given the Scriptural understanding that the requirements of God's law is written on the hearts of the ungodly (Romans 2:14-15), a fact which the author of the article has earlier appealed to, this seems a decidedly uncharitable interpretation without more evidence. Indeed, in his own defense I believe Lewis would appeal to this fact, given where he himself draws the line between reasonable and inconsistent worldviews in The Abolition of Man. And given Paul's own history of arguing for Christ by beginning with the Gentile's own vain believes (Acts 17:16-34), asserting that Lewis is obligated to destroy non-Christian's beliefs before moving on seems a peculiar conclusion to reach.

The author proceeds to point out precisely why failing to destroy the non-Christian's beliefs can cause trouble:

As Christians, we ALREADY accept the biblical definition of morality, and so Lewis’s argument will make perfect sense. However, a non-Christian will not accept this definition, even if he agrees with Lewis in a superficial way. [...]

If you accept the non-Christian definition of morality and try to move on from there, you can ONLY arrive at the Scriptural definition of morality by being INCONSISTENT. Why? Because Scripture defines morality as obedience to God, and if we start out with ANY other definition, we’re going to have to change our definition halfway through to make it consistent with Scripture.

I find this section puzzling. Surely the most honest and consistent way to develop this argument is to use Paul's method, which I see Lewis as employing regularly: point out the areas where the non-Christian superficially supports Christian views, then explain that Christianity aligns with this on the surface precisely because of how it defines morality, and finally point out if this definition of morality is true it imposes obligations on the non-Christian that cannot be ignored. The author seems to argue here that this must be done silently, and if the Christian is caught it would be inconvenient, so they may as well skip it. The author asserts that

The only consistent way to argue for Christianity is to present Scriptural definitions of morality and everything else to the unbeliever and explain why ONLY the Scriptural definition of morality is rational. Lewis doesn’t do this:[...]

Which, up to this point, the author hasn't either. For that matter, the author spends the next paragraph pointing out that if the non-Christian accepts Scripture as truth, the rest is easy; if they don't, the Christian argument is easily "refuted" (although I would prefer the term rejected).

At this point, the author actually starts to build the case for the claim made at the beginning:

If God created the world to glorify and reveal Him, then all philosophies that deny the Christian God are basically wrong and will contain internal contradictions.

Of course, this "if / then" clause is not, in itself, valid. While the first conclusion certainly follows from the "if" premise, being wrong and containing contradictions are fundamentally different things. For example, "If all fish are made of mud, and I am a fish, then I am made of mud" contains no contradictions, even though each premise and the conclusion are all false.

In fact, the unbeliever loses the ability to make ANY kind of DISTINCTION if his non-Christian worldview is true. Why is this the case? Because Paul argues that Scripture is the standard that we use to judge the truth and falsehood of EVERYTHING (2 Tim 3:14-17). If that’s true, judgments about the world have to be made through Scripture as our guide. And without Scripture, such judgments are IMPOSSIBLE.

Again, this can only be valid reasoning if the "we" Paul says uses Scripture as a standard refers to all human beings everywhere, which in the passage cited he plainly does not mean. For that matter, Paul doesn't even claim in this passage that Scripture is the standard for judging the truth and falsehood of everything. Rather, Paul tells us that Scripture is "useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." The Scripture does not tell us whether my socks contain artificial fibers; it guides God's people to live righteously. It seems that if anything, Scripture tells us that the author's claim about Scripture's ability to evaluate the author's claim is dubious at best.

The next paragraph cites the example of Hitler, which by the corollary of  Godwin's Law causes him to automatically lose the argument. But we'll let it pass this time.

What makes your definition of success so much better than mine? If you’re going to make these kinds of distinctions in a way that makes sense, you have to bring in Scripture. Without Scripture, everything is relative, and you can’t even TALK coherently about absolutes.

I realize I'm belaboring the point, but the author still hasn't demonstrated this. He repeatedly asserts it, and has reminded us that relativism and absolutes don't go together, but he has not yet even attempted to refute an alternative system of absolutes, much less shown that no coherent alternative can exist.

So the ONLY possible way to have a consistent philosophy is to accept Scripture as our standard for truth. And if we argue this way, we can help the non-believer see that he’s been suppressing the truth of Scripture for his whole life and that God is commanding Him to repent.

The author here makes a curious claim: apparently if we are logically consistent enough, someone who by nature suppresses the truth will be more likely to stop suppressing the truth and thereby recognize our logical consistency. Even setting aside the problem of confusing logical consistency with truthfulness, how telling the truth causes someone who ignores the truth listen to the truth escapes me. Perhaps this refers to the fact that the Holy Spirit uses the preaching of the Word to change hearts, but if that's the case the purpose of destroying false beliefs before actually sharing Scriptural ones again escapes me.

What follows are several examples meant to illustrate this point, including the idea that without Scripture a non-Christian can reject the cosmological argument for God by rejecting the following:

The argument is that everything which has a beginning also has a cause.

I think it is important here that no Scripture is cited. I know of no passage in Scripture that makes this claim. Rather, it is from common reasoning that this claim is made, so by the author's argument we ought not get too bent out of shape if non-Christians reject it. This suggests to me that the cosmological argument is rejected by the author's apologetics rather than by stubborn anti-Scripturalism.

To sum up, this is where I think Lewis is inconsistent: instead of presupposing Scripture, destroying unbelieving definitions of morality, and showing that Scripture is the only rational basis for philosophy, Lewis doesn’t even talk about the Scriptural definition of morality, implicitly accepting the non-Christian’s definition (which will certainly be unbiblical). He then makes a huge jump in reasoning, saying that our moral sense should lead us to accept Scripture, even though the unbeliever’s definition of morality contradicts Scripture. Unless Lewis is talking to people who are already Christians, he and the unbeliever agree about morality only in a superficial way.

As I hope I have made clear,  the above critique can only apply if the author can demonstrate, either in terms of necessary assumptions or necessary definitions, that "Scripture is the only rational basis for philosophy." The author does not even attempt to do this in any full sense, and in attempting to inductively support it with examples the author falls short. This doesn't prove that the author's claim is wrong, but it does take the energy out of calling Lewis inconsistent.

Lewis' apologetic approach seems to focus on (1) statements about his own experience in relation to God and Scripture, and (2) providing links between what his audience already knows or believes to be true and the validity of the claims of Christ in Scripture. While this might not sound like an effective way to tear down idols, it is actually the precise pattern we see in Peter's Pentecostal sermon to the Jews (Acts 2), Paul's Areopagite sermon to the Gentiles (Acts 17), and Paul's exhortation in 2 Timothy 3 to "continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it," looking to the power of Scripture for faith and righteousness.

In fact, I make no claim that Lewis is fully logically consistent. I in part focus on rhetoric in the above critique precisely because Paul's exhortations regarding the spread of the Gospel (for example in 1 Cor 9:21-23 and 1 Tim 4:15-16) focus a lot on how we present ourselves, without even once mentioning logic (and Paul could have; he knew his Aristotle, make no mistake). In this sense Lewis' apologetic, which emphasizes communicating well and delivers, seems to me far more Scriptural than the author's apologetic, which emphasizes logical argument and falls short.

Again, none of this is to say that the author of the article is in any sense illogical or writing in an un-Christian manner. I know and appreciate the author, and value his insight. On this particular effort, however, I believe some weaknesses in his thinking (which we all have) rise to the surface. I believe he would welcome help improving in these areas, and in so far as this article is able to do that, I hope it will be taken as it is intended. I always enjoy the intellectual workout the author gives me, and I look forward to continued interaction on this and many other subjects in the future.