Evidence for God from Science

Interesting article! The atheists need to "save CS Lewis" so they can enjoy his works. Lol.


Surprised by Jack
C.S. Lewis critics bump into the back of the wardrobe | Janie B. Cheaney

Nearly every Christian with a liking toward fantasy has their favorite Narnia book, Narnia scene, or Narnia character. But so do many non-Christians. C.S. Lewis' classic children's books are a milestone of literary consciousness for young readers of every background and persuasion: for some, a passport through the wardrobe into the real, living Kingdom of Christ. For others, a painful journey from delight to dismay.

That was the experience of Laura Miller, columnist for Salon.com and regular contributor to The New York Times. In her early teens, Miller was stunned to realize that the stories that enchanted her childhood were really thinly veiled allegories for Christianity—i.e., dreary, guilt-mongering stuff pandered by the Catholic church she was forced to attend. Appalled, she thrust Narnia aside and moved on with her growth and eventual emancipation.

Only much later was she able to reread the series and discern the many influences that had appealed first to the author, then to his disillusioned reader: "treasures collected from Dante, from Spencer, from Malory, from Austen, from old romances and ballads and fairy tales and pagan epics." Her relief was so great she wrote The Magician's Book, recently published by Little, Brown, about her journey from Narnia and back again.

If the subject isn't relevant to general readers, it struck a chord with reviewers. One such is Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked (which casts the green-hued villainess of Oz as the good guy). In his review, Maguire shares his own voyage from Narnia: not a sudden shock but a growing awareness of the "bullying in Lewis' tales," the "classism, racism, sexism, and its depiction of a godhead whose mercy extends only to those pure enough to deserve it (known in some circles as the Problem of Susan, after the Pevensie sister who is expelled from Narnia for her interest in 'nylons and lipstick and invitations' . . .)."

Gregory Maguire also moved on, even while looking back with affection. Another reviewer, Elizabeth Ward in The Washington Post, rejoices that "Miller largely succeeds in rescuing the Narnia series from the narrow Christian box into which it has been crammed." The unconsciously ironic title of Ward's review, "Saving C.S. Lewis," betrays a certain cluelessness.

For Lewis traveled his own spiritual odyssey, with striking similarities to Laura Miller's. Like her, he found the church of his childhood to be stultifying and stale, while his imagination was fired by fantasy and myth. In his spiritual autobiography, Surprised by Joy, he charts his progress through skepticism, atheism, and materialism in search of the fleeting moments of transcendence he'd experienced as a boy. Literature urged him on, and he gradually came to perceive that the writers who most influenced him had some belief in God. "Perhaps (Oh joy!) there was, after all, 'something else', and (Oh reassurance!) it had nothing to do with Christian Theology." A vain hope: When two Christians—G.K. Chesterton and George MacDonald—turned out to be his favorite authors, he could not fool himself much longer. Returning to the church and the word, he found them glowing with the light that had first appeared to lead him away.

"n your light do we first see light" (Psalm 36:9). Once we understand Christ all things point to Him. But if we don't understand, we pluck those "other treasures" (such as literature, nature, relationships) from their source and allow them to wither. God's mercy is not for those "pure enough to deserve it" (mercy is never that!) but humble enough to desire it—and Him. Susan Pevensie's real "problem" was not lipstick and invitations but separating those things from the One who gave them.

Lewis himself wouldn't mind readers such as Laura Miller delighting in his stories, even while rejecting the "Christian" in them; he didn't set out to write theology. But his imagination had been thoroughly baptized, and Christ was the only hero who could emerge. If light dawns on the reader, she is doubly blessed.

If you have a question or comment for Janie Cheaney, send it to jcheaney@worldmag.com.

Copyright © 2009 WORLD Magazine
February 14, 2009, Vol. 24, No. 3

Wow, how pathetic of them to try to ram into Lewis's work a theme or ideas that were not of the authors, a trick that most literary critics are swift to avoid. Most literary analysis strives to appreciate the background of the author and the worldview, although most show hidden biases. But to be this ridiculously blatant!!

Good link, CSLL!

And they see through the glass darkly.

LOve this sermon!! CS Lewis is just wonderful

I really need to curl up in my comfy chair and start rereading all of his Narnia books, sermons, and sc-fi

I just finished reading The Narnian by Alan Jacobs and am preparing a review on it. Good book.

I found these thoughts on science of CS Lewis' in The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature, by CS Lewis, pages 14-17 (Cambridge University Press 1964). I was quite surprised to find them in that book (Lewis writes them as part of his providing the “backcloth” of thought of the Medieval writers)! Since these paragraphs of his are food for thought regarding the site's subject matter, I thought others might get something from them. I'd like to reproduce what someone else summarized of Lewis' thoughts on science and scientism after this post as well. The paragraphs below are direct quotes—I didn't use quotation marks since there are a number of quotes within the paragraphs already (and I highlighted one section myself). Enjoy.

The business of the natural philosopher is to construct theories which will “save appearances”. Most of us first meet this expression in Paradise Lost (VIII, 82), and most of us perhaps originally misunderstood it. . . . A scientific theory must “save” or “preserve” the appearances, the phenomena, it deals with, in the sense of getting them all in, doing justice to them. Thus, for example, your phenomena are luminous points in the night sky which exhibit such and such movements in relation to one another and in relation to an observer at a particular point, or various chosen points, on the surface of the Earth. Your astronomical theory will be a supposal such that, if were true, the apparent motions from the point or points of observation would be those you have actually observed. The theory will then have “got in” or “saved” the appearances.

But if we demanded no more than that from a theory, science would be impossible, for a lively inventive faculty could devise a good many different supposals which would equally save the phenomena. We have therefore had to supplement the canon of saving the phenomena by another canon—first, perhaps, formulated with full clarity by Occam. According to this second canon we must accept (provisionally) not any theory which saves the phenomena but that theory which does so with the fewest possible assumptions. Thus the two theories (a) that the bad bits in Shakespeare were all put in by adapters, and (b) that Shakespeare wrote them when he was not at his best, will equally “save” the appearances. But we already know that there was such a person as Shakespeare and that writers are not always at their best. If scholarship hopes ever to achieve the steady progress of the sciences, we must therefore (provisionally) accept the second theory. If we can explain the bad bits without the assumption of an adapter, we must.

In every age it will be apparent to accurate thinkers that scientific theories, being arrived at in the way I have described, are never statements of fact. That stars appear to move in such and such ways, or that sub stances behaved thus and thus in the laboratory—these are statements of fact. The astronomical or chemical theory can never be more than provisional. It will have to be abandoned if a more ingenious person thinks of a supposal which would “save” the observed phenomena with still fewer assumptions, or if we discover new phenomena which it cannot save at all.

This would, I believe, be recognized by all thoughtful scientists today. It was recognized by Newton if, as I am told, he wrote not “the attraction varies inversely as the square of the distance”, but “all happens as if” it so varied. It was certainly recognized in the Middle Ages. “In astronomy”, says Aquinas, “an account is given of eccentrics and epicycles on the ground that if their assumption is made (hac positione facta) the sensible appearances as regards celestial motions can be saved. But this is not a strict proof (sufficienter probans) since for all we know (forte) they could also be saved by some different assumption. The real reason why Copernicus raised no ripple and Galileo raised a storm, may well be that whereas the one offered a new supposal about celestial motions, the other insisted on treating this supposal as fact. If so, the real revolution consisted not in a new theory of the heavens but in “a new theory of the nature of theory”.

On the highest level, then, the [medieval] Model [of the universe] was recognized as provisional. What we should like to know is how far down the intellectual scale this cautious view extended. In our age I think it would be fair to say that the ease with which a scientific theory assumes the dignity and rigidity of fact varies inversely with the individual's scientific education. In discussion with wholly uneducated audiences I have sometimes found matter which real scientists would regard as highly speculative more firmly believed than many things within our real knowledge; the popular imago of the Cave Man ranked as hard fact, and the life of Caesar or Napoleon as doubtful rumour. We must not, however, hastily assume that the situation was quite the same in the Middle Ages. The mass media which have in our time created a popular scientism, a caricature of the true science, did not then exist. The ignorant were more aware of their ignorance then than now. . . .

As I said in my last post, here's some additional info on Lewis' thoughts on science. Quoted from Mere Theology: A Guide to the Thought of C.S. Lewis by Will Vaus, pp 66-69. I didn't include the numerous references, except for in a couple of places.


The Bible and Modern Science

So far we have seen that Lewis sees no final conflict between the Bible and true science. In fact, Lewis believes that modern science in some cases supports the biblical view of nature. For instance, Lewis notes how the physics of his time demonstrated that nature is not everlasting. The universe had a beginning and will have an end. Lewis quotes Professor Whittaker, who said in the Riddell Lectures of 1942, “It was never possible to oppose seriously the dogma of Creation except by maintaining that the world existed from all eternity in more or less its present state.” And, Lewis concludes: this fundamental ground for materialism has now been withdrawn. In the same article [“God in the Dock”], Lewis goes on to note how the process of entropy supports the Christian view of things rather than the creative evolutionary view. Elsewhere Lewis writes that creative evolution, as imagined by Shaw and Bergson, is too convenient a theory.

However, Lewis contends, we must be cautious of building our case for Creation on any current scientific theory, for those theories change as quickly as the shifting sands. The mystery of origins ultimately lies outside the discovery of science.

Science or Scientism?

Lewis has been criticized as being anti-science, but this is unfounded. Lewis has no quarrel with true science, though he does have a number of reservations regarding what he calls scientism. . . . By scientism Lewis meant “a certain outlook on the world which is casually connected with the popularization of the sciences, though it is much less common among real scientists than among their readers” [W. Hooper, p 608, CS Lewis Companion and Guide]. . . .

Lewis understood that some would perceive The Abolition of Man as an attack on science. However, Lewis maintained that by defending objective value he was also defending the value of knowledge upon which true science is based. In the same book Lewis notes a similarity between magic and applied science, both of which are interested in subduing reality to the wishes of human beings rather than conforming the soul to reality. In this pursuit magic and science are prepared to do “disgusting and impious“ things such as digging up and mutilating the dead. Lewis held out some hope, however, for a “regenerate science” that would explain reality without explaining away, a science that would study the It without losing sight of what Martin Buber called the I-Thou relation. [This seems to have only gotten worse, however . . . ]

Evolution, Evolutionism and the Next Step

As we have already seen, Lewis believed that certain parts of evolutionary theory might be correct, and in the strictly scientific theory of evolution he saw no conflict with the Bible. However, Lewis strongly held that evolutionism, the belief that life on Earth is getting better and better, is a myth. And by myth, in this instance, he means a picture of reality that results from imagination. Lewis considers this myth to be a wonderful story, but not one that is true to reality. He points out that an illegitimate transition is often made from the Darwinian theory in biology to the modern myth of evolutionism, developmentalism or progress in general. Lewis documents how the myth arose earlier than Darwin's theory, in advance of all evidence. He notes two great works that embody an idea of a universe where the “higher” always supersedes the “lower.” One is Keats's poem Hyperion, and the other is Wagner's Ring cycle. Both works of art, Lewis emphasizes, are earlier than the Origin of Species. The idea that the myth is a result of Darwin's biology is unhistorical. On the contrary, Lewis contends, the attraction of Darwin's theory of evolution was that it gave to a preexisting myth of evolutionism the scientific reassurances it required.

Perhaps one reason why Lewis does not have any religious difficulty with accepting the biological concept of evolution is because he believes that creation is taking place at every moment, not just at one point millions of years ago. The reason Lewis views creation in this way is because of his understanding of God being outside of time. He explains that there is no question of God, at one point in time, adapting the material history of the universe to free acts that human beings perform at a later point. To God, all the physical events and all the human acts of time are present in an eternal Now. The liberation of finite wills and the creation of the whole material history of the universe is, to God, a single act. God did not create the universe long ago; rather, he creates the universe every minute.

Along with this idea, Lewis has no problem accepting the idea that humanity is in the process of evolution, though he would prefer to say that humanity is in the process of being created, since the latter terminology implies a personal God who is involved in the whole process.

Lewis takes this idea of humanity being in the process of evolution and uses it in a unique way: to suggest that the next step in human evolution has already happened, and the next step is that of people, who are merely creatures of God, becoming the children of God.

You know I read the fist post here (haven't got to read the last two yet) and it just never ceases to amaze me what atheists will do. They will more than willingly take something of ours they like and try to find aspects of it that are not Christian, then turn around and accuse us of doing just that! Really? Do they have to do that?

I also wanted to note that I really enjoyed your other post as well (haven't read them both yet) but the first long one I want to address. I like how Lewis made the point that many scientists now a days turn theory into "fact". That is sad, and unfortunately is happening today. In the schools children are taught that evolution is a fact, as well as the big bang (the form without God) and that Christianity is an old out dated myth. So it is rampant among the scientific community to take things like theory that are mostly based on assumption and call them fact.

I also liked how Lewis kept on saying that the theory with the least amount of assumptions is the most likely (Occam's Razor anyone?). I think that it is a doubly good way to say it though, that they assume, and that they are not sticking with the ideas with the least assumptions to begin with. Scientists probably don't think that it is wrong to just go off assumptions so strongly, yet they love to point out when we do, lol double standard! You know what they say about assuming though.

Okay I got to be off to work so more about my thoughts later, and maybe after some coffee I will be able to think better too!