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C. S. Lewis's Christian Apologetics C. S. Lewis’s Christian Apologetics Value Inquiry Book Series Founding Editor Robert Ginsberg Executive Editor Leonidas Donskis VOLUME 286 Philosophy and Religion Edited by Kenneth A. Bryson The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/par C. S. Lewis’s Christian Apologetics Pro and Con Edited by Gregory Bassham LEIDEN | BOSTON Cover illustration: Morguefile. Library of Congress Control Number: 2015943879 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 0929-8436 isbn 978-90-04-30125-2 (paperback) isbn 978-90-04-30165-8 (e-book) Copyright 2015 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Philosophy and Religion (PAR) Kenneth A. Bryson Editor Other Titles in PAR Alana M. Vincent. Jewish Thought, Utopia, and Revolution. 2014. VIBS 274 David C. Bellusci. Amor Dei in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. 2013. VIBS 265 Jim Kanaris, Editor. Polyphonic Thinking and the Divine. 2013. VIBS 257 William Sweet and Hendrik Hart. Responses to the Enlightenment: An Exchange on Foundations, Faith, and Community. 2012. VIBS 241 Avi Sagi. Tradition vs Traditionalism: Contemporary Perspectives in Jewish Thought. Translated from Hebrew by Batya Stein. 2008. VIBS 197 Brendan Sweetman. The Vision of Gabriel Marcel: Epistemology, Human Person, the Transcendent. 2008. VIBS 193 Constantin V. Ponomareff and Kenneth A. Bryson. The Curve of the Sacred. 2006. VIBS 178 Deane-Peter Baker and Patrick Maxwell. Editors. Explorations in Contemporary Continental Philosophy of Religion. 2003. VIBS 143 Rem B. Edwards. What Caused the Big Bang? 2001. VIBS 115 Editorial Board of PAR Rod Nicholls (webmaster) Harriet E. Barber Deane-Peter Baker Stephen Clark Alana M. Vincent Gwen Griffith-Dickson G. Elijah Dann Jim Kanaris Russ Dumke William Sweet Carl Kalwaitis Pawel Kawalec Ruby Ramji Esther McIntosh Gregory MacLeod Ludwig Nagl To Alvin Plantinga, wisest and best of my official teachers CONTENTS EDITORIAL FOREWORD xii KENNETH A. BRYSON PREFACE xv INTRODUCTION: OXFORD'S BONNY APOLOGIST 1 GREGORY BASSHAM Part One: THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIRE ONE Pro: A Defense of C. S. Lewis’s Argument from Desire 27 PETER S. WILLIAMS TWO Con: Quenching the Argument from Desire 45 GREGORY BASSHAM THREE Reply to Gregory Bassham 57 PETER S. WILLIAMS FOUR Reply to Peter Williams 69 GREGORY BASSHAM Part Two: THE ARGUMENT FROM REASON FIVE Pro: The Argument from Reason Defended 75 VICTOR REPPERT SIX Con: Naturalism Undefeated 91 DAVID KYLE JOHNSON SEVEN Reply to David Kyle Johnson 105 VICTOR REPPERT EIGHT Reply to Victor Reppert 113 DAVID KYLE JOHNSON x Contents Part Three: THE MORAL ARGUMENT NINE Pro: The Moral Argument is Convincing 121 DAVID BAGGETT TEN Con: A Critique of the Moral Argument 141 ERIK J. WIELENBERG ELEVEN: Reply to Erik Wielenberg 153 DAVID BAGGETT TWELVE Reply to David Baggett 163 ERIK J. WIELENBERG Part Four: THE TRILEMMA ARGUMENT THIRTEEN Pro: A Defense of C. S. Lewis’s “Trilemma” 171 DONALD S. WILLIAMS FOURTEEN Con: Lewis’s Trilemma: Case Not Proven 191 ADAM BARKMAN FIFTEEN Reply to Adam Barkman 201 DONALD S. WILLIAMS SIXTEEN Reply to Donald Williams 205 ADAM BARKMAN Part Five: THE PROBLEM OF EVIL SEVENTEEN Pro: The Problem of Pain Defended 211 PHILIP TALLON EIGHTEEN Con: C. S. Lewis on Evil: At Best a Likely Story 227 DAVID L. O’HARA NINETEEN Reply to David L. O’Hara 237 PHILIP TALLON Contents xi TWENTY Reply to Philip Tallon 243 DAVID L. O’HARA WORKS CITED 249 THE CONTRIBUTORS 267 INDEX 269 EDITORIAL FOREWORD The work of C. S. Lewis is challenging because it contains several layers of complexity. The problem of the suffering of innocent victims is a case in point. Lewis’s approach to the problem of evil faces one of the central problems of Theodicy: how can we reconcile the existence of an unlimitedly powerful and perfectly good God with the suffering of innocent victims? At first brush, Lewis’s explanation in The Problem of Pain sounds overly simplistic. Human suffering is the result of the fall from God’s grace; no need for a forced choice between divine attributes. Once we decided to rely on self- will rather than on God’s will “we fell under the control of ordinary biochemical laws and suffered whatever the inter-workings of those laws might bring about in the way of pain, senility and death” (77). But Lewis raises the argument to a deeper level when he wonders why we presume to know how God thinks. We cannot be sure why God permits evil. We are familiar with the ways we cause suffering by disempowering the environment and other persons, but this behavior is at odds with God’s grace and forgiveness of sin. In my opinion, the deepest layer of Lewis’s apologetics surfaces in his humble recognition of the consequence of not knowing the ways of the divine mind. This is clearest in A Grief Observed as he attempts to make sense of the suffering and death of his wife. Why would a good and loving God permit this? We cannot presume to identify our experience of pain with the role God provides for pain in the lives of animals and humans. In final analysis, Lewis’s grief enables him to identify with Job’s mystical experience as Job presses God to explain the suffering of the innocent (himself). Lewis’s passionate reflection on the loss of his dear wife brings him to the same place; an existential place in subjectivity where he moves beyond intellectualization to recognize his own insignificance and necessary dependence on the Almighty. I am delighted to welcome Gregory Bassham’s volume on Lewis’s Christian Apologetics to the Philosophy and Religion family of scholarly books. This book is a great catch, not only for Rodopi-Brill, but for lovers of C. S. Lewis worldwide. Kenneth A. Bryson Editor PAR special series Value Inquiry Book Series PREFACE C. S. Lewis is unquestionably the most influential Christian apologist over the past century. It is therefore surprising that—with a few notable exceptions— his arguments for Christian belief have received so little sustained scholarly attention. This book seeks to fill that gap. Here five leading defenders of Lewis’s apologetics go head-to-head with five acute critics in a pro/con debate format that permits in-depth discussion of the relevant issues. Our aim has been to produce a book that examines Lewis’s main arguments for Christianity with depth and rigor but is also accessible to general readers. The result, we hope, is a book that gives readers a clearer understanding of Lewis’s arguments and permits them to draw their own informed conclusions about whether those arguments are properly convincing. In editing this book, I have accumulated many debts. I am grateful to Dave Baggett, Erik Wielenberg, and Adam Barkman for advice on how to structure the book; to the contributors for their patience, professionalism, and grace under fire (friendly and otherwise); to my colleague Bernard Prusak for judicious feedback on various parts of the manuscript; to Robert Arp and Ken Bryson for much helpful advice on formatting issues; and to my wife, Mia, for her love, support, and generous spirit over a long period as this volume took shape. The book is dedicated to Alvin Plantinga, with whom I had the great good fortune to study in graduate school. Al was more than just an extraordinary scholar and a gifted teacher; he was a delightful companion, a fountain of whimsical good humor, and a model of how the Christian intellectual life should be lived. No one has contributed more to the remarkable flowering of philosophy of religion and Christian philosophy over the past half-century than Al has. My debt to him, both personal and professional, is great. Gregory Bassham King’s College INTRODUCTION: OXFORD’S BONNY APOLOGIST Gregory Bassham C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) is the world’s best-known and most-admired Christian apologist. More than fifty years after his death, his books continue to sell in the millions, and countless readers around the globe have been influenced and inspired by his writings. In a 2004 Christianity Today survey, Lewis’s Mere Christianity (1952) was named the best religious book of the twentieth century. Yet, curiously, Lewis is not generally considered a major figure by academic theologians (MacSwain & Ward, 2010, pp. 1-2). There are very few books that discuss his religious writings with the scholarly depth and rigor they deserve (but cf. Purtill, 2004; Beversluis, 2007; Williams, 2013; Baggett, Habermas, and Walls, 2008). This book attempts to do just that. Lewis himself was not a professional theologian or philosopher, but a highly regarded professor of English at Oxford and Cambridge, specializing in medieval and Renaissance literature. After being an atheist for many years, Lewis converted to Christianity in his early thirties. Over a period of approximately two decades, Lewis published a series of widely-read works of Christian apologetics, including The Pilgrim’s Regress (1933), The Problem of Pain (1940), The Abolition of Man (1943), Miracles (1947), and Mere Christianity (1952).
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