S1E8 – MC B2C1 – “The Rival Conceptions Of God”

With Book I of “Mere Christianity” complete, we now move on to Book II! Having concluded that the Moral Law points to God, C.S. Lewis now examines the “Rival Conceptions of God”.

S1E8: “The Rival Conceptions of God” (Download)

Show Notes

Chit-Chat

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Toast

• David and Matt drank the last Heinekens in the fridge.
• Feel free to tweet us beer recommendations @pintswithjack.

Discussion

01. “A Hint of Truth”

• Though this section of the book is entitled “What Christians Believe”, he begins with what they don’t believe.

I have been asked to tell you what Christians believe, and I am going to begin by telling you one thing that Christians do not need to believe. If you are a Christian you do not have to believe that all the other religions are simply wrong all through. If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Rival Conceptions of God

• Christians, Lewis explains, actually get a more liberal view of the world than atheists, though they are generally thought of as more conservative in nature

If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all those religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of the truth.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Rival Conceptions of God

• Matt referenced a passage from C.S. Lewis where he wrote that an atheist can’t be too careful about what he reads. David thought this was from “The Screwtape Letters“. While in Chapter 1 of that book Uncle Screwtape certainly talks about restricting a person’s reading, after further thought, David believes Matt was actually thinking of this line from “Surprised by Joy”:

A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading.

C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy

02. “Competing Faiths”

• But doesn’t the presence of many different religions discredit Christianity? In actuality, the numerous religions could be taken as additional evidence for God’s existence. If something is universally present, it should at least give us pause before dismissing it.
• The document Nostra Aetate from the Second Vatican Council speaks about the relationship between Catholicism and other world religions:

The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men…

Nostra Aetate, Paragraph 2

• Christianity can take the more liberal view, recognising elements of truth in other religions, whereas atheism must hold that they are all essentially wrong. Atheism makes the bold claim that the vast majority of people who have ever lived have been wrong on this fundamental question of reality.

03. “Truth Claims”

• Despite accepting that other faiths contain truth within them, Christianity does have many unique and universal truth claims.

Being a Christian does mean thinking that where Christianity differs fro other religions, Christianity is right and they are wrong. As in arithmetic – there is only one right answer to a sum, and all other answers are wrong; but some fo the wrong answers are much nearer being right than others.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Rival Conceptions of God

…Indeed, she [the Church] proclaims, and ever must proclaim Christ “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), in whom men may find the fullness of religious life, in whom God has reconciled all things to Himself.

Nostra Aetate, Paragraph 2

• Matt told the story about evangelization and the magician Penn Jillette. You can listen to the story in Penn’s own words in a video he recorded. In a talk David give on evangelization, he quoted Penn regarding Christians who don’t evangelize: 

How much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate someone to believe everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?

Penn Jillette

04. “Abrahamic Faiths vs Pantheism”

• Jack then subdivides the theists into the pantheists and the non-pantheists.
• Jack identifies Hindus and Georg Hagel, the Prussian idealistic philosopher.

There are two very different ideas on this subject … the first of these views – the one that thinks God beyond good and evil. – is called Pantheism. It was held by the great Prussian philosopher Hegel and, as far as I can understand them, by the Hindus.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Rival Conceptions of God

• Pantheists believe that God is beyond good and evil. They therefore can also hold to the idea that the universe basically is God. 

Pantheists usually believe that God, so to speak, animates the universe as you animate your body: that the universe almost is God, so that if it did not exist He would not exist either, and anything you find in the universe is a part of God.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Rival Conceptions of God

• In contrast, non-pantheists, recognising that much of the world has gone wrong, cannot identify it as “part of God”. Chief among the non-pantheists are the Jews, Christians and Muslims (which he identifies using the old-fashioned and rather politically-incorrect word, “Mohammedans”).

The other view is held by Jews, Mohammedans and Christians … The Christian idea is quite different. They think God invented and made the universe – like a man making a picture or composing a tune. A painter is not a picture, and he does not die if his picture is destroyed.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Rival Conceptions of God

I expect you see how this difference between Pantheists and Christians hangs together with the other one. If you do not take the distinction between good and bad very seriously, then it is easy to say that anything you find in this world is a part of God. But, of course, if you think some things really bad, and God really good, then you cannot talk like that. You must believe that God is separate from the world and that some of the things we see in it are contrary to his will.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Rival Conceptions of God

• Matt mentioned Gnosticism, which is the belief that while the spirit is good, the world of matter is intrinsically evil. We briefly discussed the idea that the purpose of Christianity is not simply to turn us into nice people, but to transform us. Jack will address this issue directly in Book IV.

05. “The Problem of Evil”

• David and Matt ended with a discussion of “The Problem of Evil”. Matt referred to Lewis’ book “The Problem of Pain” and says that the problem of evil presupposes God. David mentioned the book “Stealing from God” by Frank Turek, which explains that in order for atheists to criticise religion, particularly Christianity, they usually have to use moral notions given to them by the faith.
• Lewis ends with his former exemptions to Christianity.

My argument against god was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line …

… I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too- for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my private fancies. Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist-in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless – I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality – namely my idea of justice – was full of sense …

… Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole 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 without meaning.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Rival Conceptions of God

• In a discussion about God wanting our ultimate good, David referred to a story about the grandmother of Trent Horn’s wife, who fortuitously missed her opportunity to travel on The Titanic. After the show, David double-checked the details of this story and discovered that she didn’t miss the boat due to sickness, but because her mother wouldn’t give her permission to go. The point of the story, however, still stands. We are rarely in a good position to be able to see the good which can come out of suffering and be able to see the ripple effects through time.

Wrap Up

Concluding Thoughts

• The outline for this chapter is available here.

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