C.S. Lewis and Fundamentalists

[Steve Hayes]

...

The founder, Bob Jones himself, was only barely convinced that
C.S. Lewis was on the up-and-up. He once said, with evident
surprise, "That man smokes and drinks, but I do believe he is a
Christian!"

I'm told that a lot of American fundamentalists like C.S. Lewis on the
basis of some of his writings, the ones about women obeying men ---
but they ignore that he wrote that particular stuff while he was
single, as well as that he drank, smoked, & prayed for the dead.

It's easy to find on-line articles by American fundamentalists who think
that though Lewis may have believed he was a Christian, he was a
pernicious heretic and quite possibly under the influence of the Devil.
How representative those articles are of the fundamentalist population
I don't know.

Probably not very representative, but I suspect that Fundamentalists are a lot
less representative of Protestantism, even in the US, than many people seem to
think. Those who regard Lewis as a heretic seem to be mainly of the
ultra-Calvinist persuasion.

See here, for example:

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/church/6-heretics-should-be-banned-evangelicalism

[Jerry Friedman]

Post by Steve Hayes

...

The founder, Bob Jones himself, was only barely convinced that
C.S. Lewis was on the up-and-up. He once said, with evident
surprise, "That man smokes and drinks, but I do believe he is a
Christian!"

I'm told that a lot of American fundamentalists like C.S. Lewis on the
basis of some of his writings, the ones about women obeying men ---
but they ignore that he wrote that particular stuff while he was
single, as well as that he drank, smoked, & prayed for the dead.

It's easy to find on-line articles by American fundamentalists who think
that though Lewis may have believed he was a Christian, he was a
pernicious heretic and quite possibly under the influence of the Devil.
How representative those articles are of the fundamentalist population
I don't know.

Probably not very representative, but I suspect that Fundamentalists are a lot
less representative of Protestantism, even in the US, than many people seem to
think.

I'm not sure why you're saying that. The topic was specifically
fundamentalists.

Post by Steve Hayes
Those who regard Lewis as a heretic seem to be mainly of the
ultra-Calvinist persuasion.
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/church/6-heretics-should-be-banned-evangelicalism

You did see that the article ends with a plea for tolerance, right? I
don't see where the article connects anti-Lewis beliefs to Calvinism,
and when I've read articles calling Lewis a heretic, I haven't noticed
any Calvinism--though I might miss some hints.

[Steve Hayes]

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Steve Hayes

...

The founder, Bob Jones himself, was only barely convinced that
C.S. Lewis was on the up-and-up. He once said, with evident
surprise, "That man smokes and drinks, but I do believe he is a
Christian!"

I'm told that a lot of American fundamentalists like C.S. Lewis on the
basis of some of his writings, the ones about women obeying men ---
but they ignore that he wrote that particular stuff while he was
single, as well as that he drank, smoked, & prayed for the dead.

It's easy to find on-line articles by American fundamentalists who think
that though Lewis may have believed he was a Christian, he was a
pernicious heretic and quite possibly under the influence of the Devil.
How representative those articles are of the fundamentalist population
I don't know.

Probably not very representative, but I suspect that Fundamentalists are a lot
less representative of Protestantism, even in the US, than many people seem to
think.

I'm not sure why you're saying that. The topic was specifically
fundamentalists.

Post by Steve Hayes
Those who regard Lewis as a heretic seem to be mainly of the
ultra-Calvinist persuasion.
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/church/6-heretics-should-be-banned-evangelicalism

You did see that the article ends with a plea for tolerance, right? I
don't see where the article connects anti-Lewis beliefs to Calvinism,
and when I've read articles calling Lewis a heretic, I haven't noticed
any Calvinism--though I might miss some hints.

Yes, the writer is Evangelical, and is writing against Fundamentalist polemics
that are often aimed at appealing to Evangelicals. The penal substitution view
of the atonement that Lewis was accused of rejecting is basically a Calvinist
one, and accepted by most Fundamentalists. I think that they would argue that
it is one of the Fundamentals.

[Catherine Jefferson]

Post by Steve Hayes
Yes, the writer is Evangelical, and is writing against Fundamentalist polemics
that are often aimed at appealing to Evangelicals. The penal substitution view
of the atonement that Lewis was accused of rejecting is basically a Calvinist
one, and accepted by most Fundamentalists. I think that they would argue that
it is one of the Fundamentals.

Steve, "Calvinism" in America has largely wandered from the Calvinism
that Calvin taught. Your Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa is
likely much closer to the original Calvinism than our Presbyterian or
Congregationalist churches are. In American "fundamentalist" was also
used to mean reliably old-fashioned Calvinist in theology, before WWII.
It doesn't now. An extreme example -- in the US my old Protestant
church, the Restorationist "churches of Christ", is usually considered
"fundamentalist" despite believing and teaching that humans must of
their own free will accept salvation to be saved!

Likewise, "evangelical" in America doesn't usually mean "Lutheran" or
some church derived from Martin Luther. It means a Protestant whose
theology is basically conservative, who believes the Bible to be
inspired by God (whatever that means to him or her), and whose morality
would not shock somebody born before the 1960s.

In other words, you are using words that do not mean to all of your
readers what they mean to you. ;)

To help the discussion, here are the "Five Points" taught by Calvin --
the ones called T.U.L.I.P. to help people remember them (Steve knows
these; I'm posting them for those who do not):

* Total Depravity. Means that all parts of human nature are under the
power of sin. One consequence is that no human effort (but that of
Christ, who was also God) can have any power whatsoever in bringing
about the salvation of any human.

* Unconditional Election. Means that God chose those who will be saved
from the outset, and nothing can change His list.

* Limited Atonement. Means that God saves only those whom He chose;
Christ did not atone for the sin of the unsaved.

* Irresistible Grace. Means that if God chooses to save someone, they
are not able to decline/not be saved.

* Perseverance of the Saints. Means that if God saves someone, they
cannot fall. ("Once saved, always saved").

What this adds up to, in my view, is not so much a denial that human
free will exists as an assertion that it plays no part in salvation.
There is a great deal more to Calvinism than a denial of free will in
salvation, of course. In the US, however, the question of free will has
been the linchpin test: a Protestant who is not of the Anglican
tradition is considered Evangelical (non-Calvinist) if he or she
believes that God offers salvation to all people and humans must
choose/accept salvation, and Reformed (Calvinist) if he or she believes
that God offers salvation only to some people, who have no choice in the
matter.

Lewis did not fit into either the Calvinist or Arminian camps, of
course, any more than other Anglicans, (Roman) Catholics, or
(Eastern/Greek/Russian) Orthodox Christians do. I find that relatively
few Evangelicals (American use of the term) fit into either camp these
days either, and I'm married to one.


Under His mercy,

[Steve Hayes]

On Fri, 13 Feb 2015 08:45:18 -0800, Catherine Jefferson

Post by Catherine Jefferson

Post by Steve Hayes
Yes, the writer is Evangelical, and is writing against Fundamentalist polemics
that are often aimed at appealing to Evangelicals. The penal substitution view
of the atonement that Lewis was accused of rejecting is basically a Calvinist
one, and accepted by most Fundamentalists. I think that they would argue that
it is one of the Fundamentals.

Steve, "Calvinism" in America has largely wandered from the Calvinism
that Calvin taught. Your Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa is
likely much closer to the original Calvinism than our Presbyterian or
Congregationalist churches are. In American "fundamentalist" was also
used to mean reliably old-fashioned Calvinist in theology, before WWII.
It doesn't now. An extreme example -- in the US my old Protestant
church, the Restorationist "churches of Christ", is usually considered
"fundamentalist" despite believing and teaching that humans must of
their own free will accept salvation to be saved!
Likewise, "evangelical" in America doesn't usually mean "Lutheran" or
some church derived from Martin Luther. It means a Protestant whose
theology is basically conservative, who believes the Bible to be
inspired by God (whatever that means to him or her), and whose morality
would not shock somebody born before the 1960s.

"Evangelical" has many meanings in English, yes. Among Anglicans, for example,
it tends to mean someone who is "Low Church" rather than "High Church", but in
that sense it is also derived from the Methodist revival of the 18th century.
The Anglican evangelicals were those who, like the Methodists, responded to
Wesley's preaching, but did not form a separate denomination. There were some
Calvinistic Methodists as well, but the Wesleyans were Arminian, and the main
characteristic of "Evangelicals" in this sense is the importance of a personal
spiritual experience leading to commitment to Christ as Lord and Saviour.

Many years later, this experience tended to get reduced to a formula --
"making a decision for Christ", being "born again", "accepting Jesus Christ as
your personal saviour" and a few others. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox
Churches (and the Anglican Church in its official formulas, like the 39
Articles, which few Anglicans take seriously any more) teach baptismal
regeneration -- that one is "born again" in baptism. The Evangelical
understanding has been caricatured as "decisional regeneration" -- that one is
"born again" by "making a decision for Christ". Calvinists tend to use this
caricature, because for them one is "born again" by divine election, and not
by any decision one makes.

In the USA (and elsewhere) the lines have sometimes become blurred, but the
TULIP Calvinists would reject the notion of decisional regeneration.

The Fundamentalists were basically from the Reformed (ie Calvinist) tradition,
and though their main gripe was with liberal/modernist theology, they also
often quarrelled with Evangelicals too.

The Fundamentals of the Fundamentalists are generally summarised as:

1. The inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture
2. The deity of Jesus Christ
3. The virgin birth of Christ
4. The substitutionary, atoning work of Christ on the cross
5. The physical resurrection and the personal bodily return of Christ to the
earth.

Most Evangelicals would have little quarrel with that summary, though some
might cavil at the more detailed version -- in No 1, for example, "plenary
inspiration" and "verbal inerrancy", and in No 4. "vicarious substitution".

For a good Evangelical take on Fundamentalism, see:

http://www.wheaton.edu/ISAE/Defining-Evangelicalism/Fundamentalism

But for the purpose of this discussion, the Bob Jones University definitely
falls into the Fundamentalist camp, and while most Evangelicals approve of
C.S. Lewis (even though he wasn't an Evangelical even in the Anglican sense),
many Fundamentalists disapprove of him.

Wheaton College (an Evangelical institution) houses an archive of materials on
C.S. Lewis.

Not only do many Fundamentalists disapprove of C.S. Lewis, but he disapproved
of Fundamentalism, so the feeling is mutual.

Lewis once wrote:

“I have been suspected of being what is called a Fundamentalist. That is
because I never regard any narrative as unhistorical simply on the ground that
it includes the miraculous. Some people find the miraculous so hard to believe
that they cannot imagine any reason for my acceptance of it other than a prior
belief that every sentence of the Old Testament has historical or scientific
truth. But this I do not hold, any more than St. Jerome did when he said that
Moses described Creation “after the manner of a popular poet” (as we should
say, mythically) or than Calvin did when he doubted whether the story of Job
were history or fiction. The real reason why I can accept as historical a
story in which a miracle occurs is that I have never found any philosophical
grounds for the universal negative proposition that miracles do not happen.”
(Lewis: Reflections on the Psalms).

Now Fundamentalism was a reaction against certain tendencies in German
Protestantism, and especially biblical studies (the so-called "higher
criticism"), in which there was a kind of a priori assumption that if any text
contained anything considered "miraculous" it was ipso facto not historically
true.

Lewis clearly rejects this assumption, which gives him common ground with the
Fundamentalists.

But the Fundamentalists, in reacting against "higher criticism", substituted
their own a priori assumption: that if anything was in the "Bible" (as defined
by the Fundamentalists) it was ipso facto historically true. And Lewis
rejected this too.

Post by Catherine Jefferson
There is a great deal more to Calvinism than a denial of free will in
salvation, of course. In the US, however, the question of free will has
been the linchpin test: a Protestant who is not of the Anglican
tradition is considered Evangelical (non-Calvinist) if he or she
believes that God offers salvation to all people and humans must
choose/accept salvation, and Reformed (Calvinist) if he or she believes
that God offers salvation only to some people, who have no choice in the
matter.
Lewis did not fit into either the Calvinist or Arminian camps, of
course, any more than other Anglicans, (Roman) Catholics, or
(Eastern/Greek/Russian) Orthodox Christians do. I find that relatively
few Evangelicals (American use of the term) fit into either camp these
days either, and I'm married to one.

Yes indeed. I think that is a good summary, but I don't think it quite
explains the antipathy of some Fundamentalists to C.S. Lewis, which is what
Jerry was talking about.

[Jerry Friedman]

Post by Steve Hayes
On Fri, 13 Feb 2015 08:45:18 -0800, Catherine Jefferson

Post by Catherine Jefferson

Post by Steve Hayes
Yes, the writer is Evangelical, and is writing against Fundamentalist polemics
that are often aimed at appealing to Evangelicals. The penal substitution view
of the atonement that Lewis was accused of rejecting is basically a Calvinist
one, and accepted by most Fundamentalists. I think that they would argue that
it is one of the Fundamentals.

Steve, "Calvinism" in America has largely wandered from the Calvinism
that Calvin taught. Your Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa is
likely much closer to the original Calvinism than our Presbyterian or
Congregationalist churches are. In American "fundamentalist" was also
used to mean reliably old-fashioned Calvinist in theology, before WWII.
It doesn't now. An extreme example -- in the US my old Protestant
church, the Restorationist "churches of Christ", is usually considered
"fundamentalist" despite believing and teaching that humans must of
their own free will accept salvation to be saved!
Likewise, "evangelical" in America doesn't usually mean "Lutheran" or
some church derived from Martin Luther. It means a Protestant whose
theology is basically conservative, who believes the Bible to be
inspired by God (whatever that means to him or her), and whose morality
would not shock somebody born before the 1960s.

"Evangelical" has many meanings in English, yes. Among Anglicans, for example,
it tends to mean someone who is "Low Church" rather than "High Church", but in
that sense it is also derived from the Methodist revival of the 18th century.
The Anglican evangelicals were those who, like the Methodists, responded to
Wesley's preaching, but did not form a separate denomination. There were some
Calvinistic Methodists as well, but the Wesleyans were Arminian, and the main
characteristic of "Evangelicals" in this sense is the importance of a personal
spiritual experience leading to commitment to Christ as Lord and Saviour.
Many years later, this experience tended to get reduced to a formula --
"making a decision for Christ", being "born again", "accepting Jesus Christ as
your personal saviour" and a few others. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox
Churches (and the Anglican Church in its official formulas, like the 39
Articles, which few Anglicans take seriously any more) teach baptismal
regeneration -- that one is "born again" in baptism. The Evangelical
understanding has been caricatured as "decisional regeneration" -- that one is
"born again" by "making a decision for Christ". Calvinists tend to use this
caricature, because for them one is "born again" by divine election, and not
by any decision one makes.
In the USA (and elsewhere) the lines have sometimes become blurred, but the
TULIP Calvinists would reject the notion of decisional regeneration.
The Fundamentalists were basically from the Reformed (ie Calvinist) tradition,
and though their main gripe was with liberal/modernist theology, they also
often quarrelled with Evangelicals too.
1. The inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture
2. The deity of Jesus Christ
3. The virgin birth of Christ
4. The substitutionary, atoning work of Christ on the cross
5. The physical resurrection and the personal bodily return of Christ to the
earth.
Most Evangelicals would have little quarrel with that summary, though some
might cavil at the more detailed version -- in No 1, for example, "plenary
inspiration" and "verbal inerrancy", and in No 4. "vicarious substitution".
http://www.wheaton.edu/ISAE/Defining-Evangelicalism/Fundamentalism
But for the purpose of this discussion, the Bob Jones University definitely
falls into the Fundamentalist camp, and while most Evangelicals approve of
C.S. Lewis (even though he wasn't an Evangelical even in the Anglican sense),
many Fundamentalists disapprove of him.
Wheaton College (an Evangelical institution) houses an archive of materials on
C.S. Lewis.
Not only do many Fundamentalists disapprove of C.S. Lewis, but he disapproved
of Fundamentalism, so the feeling is mutual.
“I have been suspected of being what is called a Fundamentalist. That is
because I never regard any narrative as unhistorical simply on the ground that
it includes the miraculous. Some people find the miraculous so hard to believe
that they cannot imagine any reason for my acceptance of it other than a prior
belief that every sentence of the Old Testament has historical or scientific
truth. But this I do not hold, any more than St. Jerome did when he said that
Moses described Creation “after the manner of a popular poet” (as we should
say, mythically) or than Calvin did when he doubted whether the story of Job
were history or fiction. The real reason why I can accept as historical a
story in which a miracle occurs is that I have never found any philosophical
grounds for the universal negative proposition that miracles do not happen.”
(Lewis: Reflections on the Psalms).
Now Fundamentalism was a reaction against certain tendencies in German
Protestantism, and especially biblical studies (the so-called "higher
criticism"), in which there was a kind of a priori assumption that if any text
contained anything considered "miraculous" it was ipso facto not historically
true.
Lewis clearly rejects this assumption, which gives him common ground with the
Fundamentalists.
But the Fundamentalists, in reacting against "higher criticism", substituted
their own a priori assumption: that if anything was in the "Bible" (as defined
by the Fundamentalists) it was ipso facto historically true. And Lewis
rejected this too.

Post by Catherine Jefferson
There is a great deal more to Calvinism than a denial of free will in
salvation, of course. In the US, however, the question of free will has
been the linchpin test: a Protestant who is not of the Anglican
tradition is considered Evangelical (non-Calvinist) if he or she
believes that God offers salvation to all people and humans must
choose/accept salvation, and Reformed (Calvinist) if he or she believes
that God offers salvation only to some people, who have no choice in the
matter.

I've talked about religion with a few Christian Biblical literalists,
and am closely related to one, but none of them mentioned that Calvinist
belief.

Post by Steve Hayes

Post by Catherine Jefferson
Lewis did not fit into either the Calvinist or Arminian camps, of
course, any more than other Anglicans, (Roman) Catholics, or
(Eastern/Greek/Russian) Orthodox Christians do. I find that relatively
few Evangelicals (American use of the term) fit into either camp these
days either, and I'm married to one.

That's probably why no one has tried to convince me of predestination.

Post by Steve Hayes
Yes indeed. I think that is a good summary, but I don't think it quite
explains the antipathy of some Fundamentalists to C.S. Lewis, which is what
Jerry was talking about.

As you know, they explain it with that atonement thing. Also they say
that in /The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe/, Peter, Susan, and Lucy
show no sign of either Christianity or sin. And in /The Last Battle/,
Aslan says that he rewards those who do good deeds in the name of Tash,
apparently the Devil. To a fundamentalist, nothing could be more
heretical, afaict.

[Catherine Jefferson]

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Steve Hayes
Yes indeed. I think that is a good summary, but I don't think it quite
explains the antipathy of some Fundamentalists to C.S. Lewis, which is
what erry was talking about.

BTW, my news server doesn't keep posts around for long. I came on this
thread after Jerry's posts had all expired. (I don't use Google Groups.)

Post by Jerry Friedman
As you know, they explain it with that atonement thing. Also they say
that in /The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe/, Peter, Susan, and Lucy
show no sign of either Christianity or sin. And in /The Last Battle/,
Aslan says that he rewards those who do good deeds in the name of Tash,
apparently the Devil. To a fundamentalist, nothing could be more
heretical, afaict.

Probably true, if you mean an actual fundamentalist and not the group
that I was taught to call "fundamentalist" as a kid.

I have run into conservative Restorationists who disapproved of C. S.
Lewis, though. They would have agreed with the fundamentalists about
"The Last Battle", but in general the reasons they gave for disliking
Lewis amounted to his being too liberal for them. I think that they
meant that he was unwilling to judge others as harshly as they thought
God had taught in the Scriptures.

A college roommate, who was at least as out of place at our liberal arts
college as I was, gave me her copy of Lewis's "Til We Have Faces". She
had been told that it was a great Christian book, read it, and was
completely put off when she found no mention of Christ in it but a pagan
myth.

I read it and was bowled over. Of all the books Lewis wrote, it is in
my view the best.

[Wayne Brown]

Post by Catherine Jefferson
I have run into conservative Restorationists who disapproved of C. S.
Lewis, though. They would have agreed with the fundamentalists about
"The Last Battle", but in general the reasons they gave for disliking
Lewis amounted to his being too liberal for them. I think that they
meant that he was unwilling to judge others as harshly as they thought
God had taught in the Scriptures.

I'm one of those you call "conservative Restorationists" (though from
the independent Christian Churches side of the aisle rather than the
non-instrumental Churches of Christ camp) and I've been an admirer
of C.S. Lewis since my late teens/early twenties in the early-to-mid
1970s. Much of my personal theology has been shaped (or at least heavily
influenced) by Lewis, especially his "Abolition of Man," "Problem of Pain"
and "Mere Christianity." My Restorationist friends tend to admire his
work also, though perhaps not quite to the extent I do.

Post by Catherine Jefferson
A college roommate, who was at least as out of place at our liberal arts
college as I was, gave me her copy of Lewis's "Til We Have Faces". She
had been told that it was a great Christian book, read it, and was
completely put off when she found no mention of Christ in it but a pagan
myth.
I read it and was bowled over. Of all the books Lewis wrote, it is in
my view the best.

I read "Till We have Faces" around 1974 and wasn't too impressed,
largely because I wasn't really ready to appreciate it. After Bible
college and grad school (working on an MA in Classics) I was far more
familiar with the Classical world and had more knowledge of the Bible and
Western philosophical traditions. I also had a much clearer idea of what
I believe and why I believe it, and came to value "Till We Have Faces"
much more highly than on my first reading.

[Catherine Jefferson]

On 2/16/2015 5:55 PM, Wayne Brown wrote:> In alt.books.cs-lewis

Post by Wayne Brown

Post by Catherine Jefferson
I have run into conservative Restorationists who disapproved of C. S.
Lewis, though. They would have agreed with the fundamentalists about
"The Last Battle", but in general the reasons they gave for disliking
Lewis amounted to his being too liberal for them. I think that they
meant that he was unwilling to judge others as harshly as they thought
God had taught in the Scriptures.

I'm one of those you call "conservative Restorationists" (though from
the independent Christian Churches side of the aisle rather than the
non-instrumental Churches of Christ camp) and I've been an admirer
of C.S. Lewis since my late teens/early twenties in the early-to-mid
1970s. Much of my personal theology has been shaped (or at least heavily
influenced) by Lewis, especially his "Abolition of Man," "Problem of Pain"
and "Mere Christianity." My Restorationist friends tend to admire his
work also, though perhaps not quite to the extent I do.

<chuckle> No, you're a restorationist from my POV, definitely, but not
what I meant by a "conservative restorationist", which was somebody in
the non-institutional churches of Christ. For those who are unfamiliar
with the Restorationist churches, these are people many of whom who
doubt whether church buildings are legitimate because they didn't exist
in the First century, reject paying preachers as unBiblical because St.
Paul worked as a tentmaker to support himself, and argue incessantly
about a number of other small issues. Their mindsets tend to be
sufficiently rigid that these few thousand people (in total) are split
up into more than a dozen quarreling camps. (BTW, Wayne knows this
story at least as well as I do; I added it so that the rest of you could
understand what I was talking about.)

They'd consider you wildly liberal, Wayne, to the point of not
Christian. Me, they'd be quite certain about.

Most of the people I knew during my time in the churches of Christ
(mainstream) were like you. To the extent that they knew about C. S.
Lewis, they loved his work. Those who had been to Bible college or
studied theology tended to know it better and loved it more, not
surprisingly.

Post by Wayne Brown
I read "Till We have Faces" around 1974 and wasn't too impressed,
largely because I wasn't really ready to appreciate it. After Bible
college and grad school (working on an MA in Classics) I was far more
familiar with the Classical world and had more knowledge of the Bible and
Western philosophical traditions. I also had a much clearer idea of what
I believe and why I believe it, and came to value "Till We Have Faces"
much more highly than on my first reading.

I read "Til We have Faces" during my freshman year at Reed College, a
small liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon (US). All freshmen at
Reed take a core humanities class during their freshman year. I was
reading Homer, then Hesiod, then Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and
Aristophanes, simultaneously with TWHF. Fortunately my roommate's
edition of Lewis's book had a decent introduction, so I knew that it was
based on the Greek myth of Psyche and could go find the original.

The thing is, my roommate was also a freshman, taking that same class.
She wasn't stupid; nobody there was stupid. But she didn't see the
connections, and she certainly didn't feel them. She wasn't Calvinist;
her upbringing was in a Pentecostal Holiness church. Her mindset when
it came to theology was similarly rigid, though: a pagan myth was to her
a pagan myth and had nothing to do with Christianity and nothing to
teach Christians. This mindset was familiar to me from my time in the
churches of Christ: the more conservative members of that church thought
in very much this same way.

Lewis was quite conservative in his theology and views, but not rigid.
He could see connections between pagan myths and Christian beliefs. He
could write a brilliant and thoroughly Christian story based on a pagan
myth. I won't go further because I don't want to spoil the book for
anybody who is blessed enough not to read it and who can therefore read
it now for the first time.

Lent is fast approaching, though. I think I might re-read it now. :)


Under His mercy,

[Wayne Brown]

Post by Catherine Jefferson
On 2/16/2015 5:55 PM, Wayne Brown wrote:> In alt.books.cs-lewis

Post by Wayne Brown

Post by Catherine Jefferson
I have run into conservative Restorationists who disapproved of C. S.
Lewis, though. They would have agreed with the fundamentalists about
"The Last Battle", but in general the reasons they gave for disliking
Lewis amounted to his being too liberal for them. I think that they
meant that he was unwilling to judge others as harshly as they thought
God had taught in the Scriptures.

I'm one of those you call "conservative Restorationists" (though from
the independent Christian Churches side of the aisle rather than the
non-instrumental Churches of Christ camp) and I've been an admirer
of C.S. Lewis since my late teens/early twenties in the early-to-mid
1970s. Much of my personal theology has been shaped (or at least heavily
influenced) by Lewis, especially his "Abolition of Man," "Problem of Pain"
and "Mere Christianity." My Restorationist friends tend to admire his
work also, though perhaps not quite to the extent I do.

<chuckle> No, you're a restorationist from my POV, definitely, but not
what I meant by a "conservative restorationist", which was somebody in
the non-institutional churches of Christ. For those who are unfamiliar
with the Restorationist churches, these are people many of whom who
doubt whether church buildings are legitimate because they didn't exist
in the First century, reject paying preachers as unBiblical because St.
Paul worked as a tentmaker to support himself, and argue incessantly
about a number of other small issues. Their mindsets tend to be
sufficiently rigid that these few thousand people (in total) are split
up into more than a dozen quarreling camps. (BTW, Wayne knows this
story at least as well as I do; I added it so that the rest of you could
understand what I was talking about.)
They'd consider you wildly liberal, Wayne, to the point of not
Christian. Me, they'd be quite certain about.

One of the characteristics of churches that grew out of the Restoration
Movement is that they can vary widely from one congregation to another,
not so much on central New Testament doctrines as in what they consider
essential and what is a matter of opinion. I have a good friend who grew
up in the Church of Christ. When he decided to move to the Christian
Church his family disowned him and consider him to have abandoned
his faith. I had another friend in my teens who was from a Charismatic
background and who went to college at Lipscomb. She had no problems with
some students but many questioned whether she really was a Christian.
Yet I know of a non-instrumental Church of Christ whose members reached
out to their Christian Church brethren to the point of holding joint
services with them on several occasions. And when I was attending a
small Christian Church-sponsored Bible college (Mid-South Christian
College, located at the time just outside Senatobia, Mississippi but
now in Memphis, Tennessee) one of my classmates regularly attended a
non-instrumental church down the road where she was made to feel welcome.

Post by Catherine Jefferson
Most of the people I knew during my time in the churches of Christ
(mainstream) were like you. To the extent that they knew about C. S.
Lewis, they loved his work. Those who had been to Bible college or
studied theology tended to know it better and loved it more, not
surprisingly.

Post by Wayne Brown
I read "Till We have Faces" around 1974 and wasn't too impressed,
largely because I wasn't really ready to appreciate it. After Bible
college and grad school (working on an MA in Classics) I was far more
familiar with the Classical world and had more knowledge of the Bible and
Western philosophical traditions. I also had a much clearer idea of what
I believe and why I believe it, and came to value "Till We Have Faces"
much more highly than on my first reading.

I read "Til We have Faces" during my freshman year at Reed College, a
small liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon (US). All freshmen at
Reed take a core humanities class during their freshman year. I was
reading Homer, then Hesiod, then Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and
Aristophanes, simultaneously with TWHF. Fortunately my roommate's
edition of Lewis's book had a decent introduction, so I knew that it was
based on the Greek myth of Psyche and could go find the original.
The thing is, my roommate was also a freshman, taking that same class.
She wasn't stupid; nobody there was stupid. But she didn't see the
connections, and she certainly didn't feel them. She wasn't Calvinist;
her upbringing was in a Pentecostal Holiness church. Her mindset when
it came to theology was similarly rigid, though: a pagan myth was to her
a pagan myth and had nothing to do with Christianity and nothing to
teach Christians. This mindset was familiar to me from my time in the
churches of Christ: the more conservative members of that church thought
in very much this same way.

My college roommate (who was from a Christian Church background) also
was put off by the mythic connections in Lewis's writing (and even more
so with Tolkien) and I was unable to get him to see past that and enjoy
their fictional work, though he did have some appreciation for Lewis's
non-fiction. He didn't think it was necessarily wrong for me to enjoy it,
but he did think I was wasting time that could be more profitably spent
on reading more important things. I especially remember him asking why I
was wasting my time with "A Preface to Paradise Lost" since he had read
"Paradise Lost" itself in high school and saw no value in it, let alone
in a scholarly analysis of it. In spite of our difference of opinion
on things like this we were close friends.

Post by Catherine Jefferson
Lewis was quite conservative in his theology and views, but not rigid.
He could see connections between pagan myths and Christian beliefs. He
could write a brilliant and thoroughly Christian story based on a pagan
myth. I won't go further because I don't want to spoil the book for
anybody who is blessed enough not to read it and who can therefore read
it now for the first time.

I appreciate Lewis's view of pagan myths as what he called "good dreams,"
containing flashes of eternal truth that were glimpsed through God's
revelation of things about himself in his creation (which is itself a
Biblical concept).

Post by Catherine Jefferson
Lent is fast approaching, though. I think I might re-read it now. :)
Under His mercy,

[Catherine Jefferson]

[Removed alt.usage.english; this thread has left that subject and isn't
going back.]

Post by Wayne Brown

Post by Catherine Jefferson
They'd consider you wildly liberal, Wayne, to the point of not
Christian. Me, they'd be quite certain about.

One of the characteristics of churches that grew out of the Restoration
Movement is that they can vary widely from one congregation to another,
not so much on central New Testament doctrines as in what they consider
essential and what is a matter of opinion. I have a good friend who grew
up in the Church of Christ. When he decided to move to the Christian
Church his family disowned him and consider him to have abandoned
his faith. I had another friend in my teens who was from a Charismatic
background and who went to college at Lipscomb. She had no problems with
some students but many questioned whether she really was a Christian.
Yet I know of a non-instrumental Church of Christ whose members reached
out to their Christian Church brethren to the point of holding joint
services with them on several occasions. And when I was attending a
small Christian Church-sponsored Bible college (Mid-South Christian
College, located at the time just outside Senatobia, Mississippi but
now in Memphis, Tennessee) one of my classmates regularly attended a
non-instrumental church down the road where she was made to feel welcome.

True. Two of my oldest friends are people I knew from my time in the
Churches of Christ; I've known them for more than three decades. I
don't think that the Restoration movement is much different from many
other traditions, though, when it comes to their varied willingness to
tolerate or accept differences in theological views. I've known
Calvinists who behaved like the roommate Steve mentioned, and Calvinists
who consider me a sister in Christ. Ditto Catholics.

Post by Wayne Brown
My college roommate (who was from a Christian Church background) also
was put off by the mythic connections in Lewis's writing (and even more
so with Tolkien) and I was unable to get him to see past that and enjoy
their fictional work, though he did have some appreciation for Lewis's
non-fiction. He didn't think it was necessarily wrong for me to enjoy it,
but he did think I was wasting time that could be more profitably spent
on reading more important things. I especially remember him asking why I
was wasting my time with "A Preface to Paradise Lost" since he had read
"Paradise Lost" itself in high school and saw no value in it, let alone
in a scholarly analysis of it. In spite of our difference of opinion
on things like this we were close friends.

I've known a LOT of engineers who thought this way. If something was
not of obvious immediate utilitarian value, they discounted it. That
attitude can be annoying. ;) I've known of Christians who *really* have
a problem with fantasy and mythology, starting with some of the Church
Fathers who dismissed poetry and stories as "lies". I think that some
people lack a category in their brain for fiction or myth at all -- if
something is not immediately, obviously true in every detail in this
world, it must be a lie.

Post by Wayne Brown

Post by Catherine Jefferson
Lewis was quite conservative in his theology and views, but not rigid.
He could see connections between pagan myths and Christian beliefs. He
could write a brilliant and thoroughly Christian story based on a pagan
myth. I won't go further because I don't want to spoil the book for
anybody who is blessed enough not to read it and who can therefore read
it now for the first time.

I appreciate Lewis's view of pagan myths as what he called "good dreams,"
containing flashes of eternal truth that were glimpsed through God's
revelation of things about himself in his creation (which is itself a
Biblical concept).

I pretty much agree with Lewis' view on this subject, and use his words.
Have you ever thought that a great many fine storytellers in the past
few decades got caught because they confused "factual" with "true"? I'm
thinking of those who told fiction as factual truth and were caught and
branded liars, when they might have told fiction as fiction done quite
well. (Brian Williams, anyone?)

[Steve Hayes]

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Steve Hayes
Yes indeed. I think that is a good summary, but I don't think it quite
explains the antipathy of some Fundamentalists to C.S. Lewis, which is what
Jerry was talking about.

As you know, they explain it with that atonement thing. Also they say
that in /The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe/, Peter, Susan, and Lucy
show no sign of either Christianity or sin. And in /The Last Battle/,
Aslan says that he rewards those who do good deeds in the name of Tash,
apparently the Devil. To a fundamentalist, nothing could be more
heretical, afaict.

I once saw a film produced by Fundamentalists, I think, or it may have been
Evangelicals with Fundamentalist tendencies. It was called "The burning hell".

It showed the gospel story of the Rich Man and Lazarus, and included some of
the disciples of Jesus going to Lazarus and telling him he must accept Jesus
as his personal saviour, which he did. And they said the same thing to the
Rich Man, and he didn't.

So, though they say the Bible is inspired and inerrant, they still have to
correct the errors of omission of the preaching of the 20th-century American
Protestant Gospel to the Rich Man and Lazarus, without which the latter could
not have gone to heaven. It is that kind of thinking that leads to the sort of
thing you mention, about Peter et al in Narnia showing no sign of Christianity
or sin.

It also shows the essential modernity of Fundamentalism (in spite of their
origins being anti-modernist) -- the reduction of everything to a set of
principles which must then be applied with a kind of maniacal consistency.

[Catherine Jefferson]

On 2/13/2015 8:16 PM, Steve Hayes wrote:> On Fri, 13 Feb 2015 08:45:18
-0800, Catherine Jefferson

Post by Steve Hayes
"Evangelical" has many meanings in English, yes. Among Anglicans, for example,
it tends to mean someone who is "Low Church" rather than "High

Church", but in

Post by Steve Hayes
that sense it is also derived from the Methodist revival of the 18th century.
The Anglican evangelicals were those who, like the Methodists,

responded to

Post by Steve Hayes
Wesley's preaching, but did not form a separate denomination. There were some
Calvinistic Methodists as well, but the Wesleyans were Arminian, and the main
characteristic of "Evangelicals" in this sense is the importance of a personal
spiritual experience leading to commitment to Christ as Lord and Saviour.

So I gathered, after I got curious in my 20s and read some material on
the Wesleys and Methodism. There's plenty that I don't agree with in
their theologies, but I think I would have liked them very much. I also
figured out that the Anglican tradition and all of its children really
was something separate from the Evangelical (Lutheran) tradition and
*its* children, despite some cross-pollination.

Post by Steve Hayes
Many years later, this experience tended to get reduced to a formula --
"making a decision for Christ", being "born again", "accepting Jesus Christ as
your personal saviour" and a few others. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox
Churches (and the Anglican Church in its official formulas, like the 39
Articles, which few Anglicans take seriously any more) teach baptismal
regeneration -- that one is "born again" in baptism. The Evangelical
understanding has been caricatured as "decisional regeneration" -- that one is
"born again" by "making a decision for Christ". Calvinists tend to use this
caricature, because for them one is "born again" by divine election, and not
by any decision one makes.

<chuckle>

Post by Steve Hayes
In the USA (and elsewhere) the lines have sometimes become blurred, but the
TULIP Calvinists would reject the notion of decisional regeneration.

<nod>

Post by Steve Hayes
The Fundamentalists were basically from the Reformed (ie Calvinist) tradition,
and though their main gripe was with liberal/modernist theology, they also
often quarrelled with Evangelicals too.

<snip, but read>

Lot of good stuff....

Fundamentalism as we use the term in America developed out of the
Baptist and Presbyterian churches. The Presbyterians are direct
descendants of Calvinism. The Baptists are more mixed, but the majority
hold at least some degree of traditional Calvinist beliefs, and the more
conservative among them definitely believe in "Election" in the
Calvinist sense. Here's a link to a Wikipedia article on the series of
documents that is generally viewed as the "starting point" for the
Fundamentalist movement as we use the term in America:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fundamentals

Post by Steve Hayes
But for the purpose of this discussion, the Bob Jones University definitely
falls into the Fundamentalist camp, and while most Evangelicals approve of
C.S. Lewis (even though he wasn't an Evangelical even in the Anglican sense),
many Fundamentalists disapprove of him.

Yep. :)

Post by Steve Hayes
were history or fiction. The real reason why I can accept as historical a
story in which a miracle occurs is that I have never found any

philosophical

Post by Steve Hayes
grounds for the universal negative proposition that miracles do not happen.”
(Lewis: Reflections on the Psalms).

Lewis and David Hume had =fundamental= philosophical differences. ;)

Post by Steve Hayes
But the Fundamentalists, in reacting against "higher criticism", substituted
their own a priori assumption: that if anything was in the "Bible" (as defined
by the Fundamentalists) it was ipso facto historically true. And Lewis
rejected this too.

He did. So did Sts. Augustine and Jerome, for that matter. :)

Post by Steve Hayes
Yes indeed. I think that is a good summary, but I don't think it quite
explains the antipathy of some Fundamentalists to C.S. Lewis, which is what
Jerry was talking about.

I missed Jerry's post. The mailserver I use expires this group rather
quickly.

[Peter Moylan]

Post by Catherine Jefferson
To help the discussion, here are the "Five Points" taught by Calvin --
the ones called T.U.L.I.P. to help people remember them (Steve knows
* Total Depravity. Means that all parts of human nature are under the
power of sin. One consequence is that no human effort (but that of
Christ, who was also God) can have any power whatsoever in bringing
about the salvation of any human.
* Unconditional Election. Means that God chose those who will be saved
from the outset, and nothing can change His list.
* Limited Atonement. Means that God saves only those whom He chose;
Christ did not atone for the sin of the unsaved.
* Irresistible Grace. Means that if God chooses to save someone, they
are not able to decline/not be saved.
* Perseverance of the Saints. Means that if God saves someone, they
cannot fall. ("Once saved, always saved").
What this adds up to, in my view, is not so much a denial that human
free will exists as an assertion that it plays no part in salvation.

I never knew that. So basically the Calvinists believe that one's
religious beliefs are of no importance, and an atheist is just as likely
to be saved as a believer.

[Catherine Jefferson]

Post by Peter Moylan

Post by Catherine Jefferson
What this adds up to, in my view, is not so much a denial that human

Post by Catherine Jefferson
free will exists as an assertion that it plays no part in salvation.

I never knew that. So basically the Calvinists believe that one's
religious beliefs are of no importance, and an atheist is just as likely
to be saved as a believer.

I suspect that, if you asked a Calvinist, the atheist's atheism is a
pretty good sign that he or she is NOT one of the elect. <wry grin> But
if you really want to know, I would ask a Calvinist. Which I am not.

[Wayne Brown]

Post by Steve Hayes

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Steve Hayes

...

The founder, Bob Jones himself, was only barely convinced that
C.S. Lewis was on the up-and-up. He once said, with evident
surprise, "That man smokes and drinks, but I do believe he is a
Christian!"

I'm told that a lot of American fundamentalists like C.S. Lewis on the
basis of some of his writings, the ones about women obeying men ---
but they ignore that he wrote that particular stuff while he was
single, as well as that he drank, smoked, & prayed for the dead.

It's easy to find on-line articles by American fundamentalists who think
that though Lewis may have believed he was a Christian, he was a
pernicious heretic and quite possibly under the influence of the Devil.
How representative those articles are of the fundamentalist population
I don't know.

Probably not very representative, but I suspect that Fundamentalists are a lot
less representative of Protestantism, even in the US, than many people seem to
think.

I'm not sure why you're saying that. The topic was specifically
fundamentalists.

Post by Steve Hayes
Those who regard Lewis as a heretic seem to be mainly of the
ultra-Calvinist persuasion.
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/church/6-heretics-should-be-banned-evangelicalism

You did see that the article ends with a plea for tolerance, right? I
don't see where the article connects anti-Lewis beliefs to Calvinism,
and when I've read articles calling Lewis a heretic, I haven't noticed
any Calvinism--though I might miss some hints.

Yes, the writer is Evangelical, and is writing against Fundamentalist polemics
that are often aimed at appealing to Evangelicals. The penal substitution view
of the atonement that Lewis was accused of rejecting is basically a Calvinist
one, and accepted by most Fundamentalists. I think that they would argue that
it is one of the Fundamentals.

If Lewis were here I think he would say (and did say, as I recall)
that the Atonement itself is a lot more important than all our theories
of how it works. I don't remember him explicitly rejecting the penal
substitution view but instead considered it one of several ways of taking
something beyond human understanding and expressing it in terms that
we can at least partially understand. He himself preferred the idea of
Christ "footing the bill" and paying a debt on our behalf that we could
not pay (which is just as much a Scriptural image as penal substitution)
but he also said each person should take whichever Biblical "formula"
best helps him understand the Atonement and above all not argue with
other people because they choose a different "formula."

[Steve Hayes]

Post by Wayne Brown

Post by Steve Hayes

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Steve Hayes

...

The founder, Bob Jones himself, was only barely convinced that
C.S. Lewis was on the up-and-up. He once said, with evident
surprise, "That man smokes and drinks, but I do believe he is a
Christian!"

I'm told that a lot of American fundamentalists like C.S. Lewis on the
basis of some of his writings, the ones about women obeying men ---
but they ignore that he wrote that particular stuff while he was
single, as well as that he drank, smoked, & prayed for the dead.

It's easy to find on-line articles by American fundamentalists who think
that though Lewis may have believed he was a Christian, he was a
pernicious heretic and quite possibly under the influence of the Devil.
How representative those articles are of the fundamentalist population
I don't know.

Probably not very representative, but I suspect that Fundamentalists are a lot
less representative of Protestantism, even in the US, than many people seem to
think.

I'm not sure why you're saying that. The topic was specifically
fundamentalists.

Post by Steve Hayes
Those who regard Lewis as a heretic seem to be mainly of the
ultra-Calvinist persuasion.
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/church/6-heretics-should-be-banned-evangelicalism

You did see that the article ends with a plea for tolerance, right? I
don't see where the article connects anti-Lewis beliefs to Calvinism,
and when I've read articles calling Lewis a heretic, I haven't noticed
any Calvinism--though I might miss some hints.

Yes, the writer is Evangelical, and is writing against Fundamentalist polemics
that are often aimed at appealing to Evangelicals. The penal substitution view
of the atonement that Lewis was accused of rejecting is basically a Calvinist
one, and accepted by most Fundamentalists. I think that they would argue that
it is one of the Fundamentals.

If Lewis were here I think he would say (and did say, as I recall)
that the Atonement itself is a lot more important than all our theories
of how it works. I don't remember him explicitly rejecting the penal
substitution view but instead considered it one of several ways of taking
something beyond human understanding and expressing it in terms that
we can at least partially understand. He himself preferred the idea of
Christ "footing the bill" and paying a debt on our behalf that we could
not pay (which is just as much a Scriptural image as penal substitution)
but he also said each person should take whichever Biblical "formula"
best helps him understand the Atonement and above all not argue with
other people because they choose a different "formula."

Indeed, but I think most Fundamentalists would say that there is no atonement
without penal substitution, and that in saying otherwise C.S. Lewis was a
heretic.

[Adam Funk]

Post by Steve Hayes

Post by Wayne Brown

Post by Steve Hayes
Yes, the writer is Evangelical, and is writing against Fundamentalist polemics
that are often aimed at appealing to Evangelicals. The penal substitution view
of the atonement that Lewis was accused of rejecting is basically a Calvinist
one, and accepted by most Fundamentalists. I think that they would argue that
it is one of the Fundamentals.

If Lewis were here I think he would say (and did say, as I recall)
that the Atonement itself is a lot more important than all our theories
of how it works.

+1. I don't see why churches need to get hung up on choosing &
enforcing (in a manner of speaking) very specific models of the
Atonement (or a lot of other theological points).

Post by Steve Hayes

Post by Wayne Brown
I don't remember him explicitly rejecting the penal
substitution view but instead considered it one of several ways of taking
something beyond human understanding and expressing it in terms that
we can at least partially understand. He himself preferred the idea of
Christ "footing the bill" and paying a debt on our behalf that we could
not pay (which is just as much a Scriptural image as penal substitution)
but he also said each person should take whichever Biblical "formula"
best helps him understand the Atonement and above all not argue with
other people because they choose a different "formula."

Indeed, but I think most Fundamentalists would say that there is no atonement
without penal substitution, and that in saying otherwise C.S. Lewis was a
heretic.

Is there a specific Orthodox model of the Atonement, or does what I
think of as the "less is more" approach to theology apply?

[Steve Hayes]

Post by Adam Funk

Post by Steve Hayes

Post by Wayne Brown

Post by Steve Hayes
Yes, the writer is Evangelical, and is writing against Fundamentalist polemics
that are often aimed at appealing to Evangelicals. The penal substitution view
of the atonement that Lewis was accused of rejecting is basically a Calvinist
one, and accepted by most Fundamentalists. I think that they would argue that
it is one of the Fundamentals.

If Lewis were here I think he would say (and did say, as I recall)
that the Atonement itself is a lot more important than all our theories
of how it works.

+1. I don't see why churches need to get hung up on choosing &
enforcing (in a manner of speaking) very specific models of the
Atonement (or a lot of other theological points).

Post by Steve Hayes

Post by Wayne Brown
I don't remember him explicitly rejecting the penal
substitution view but instead considered it one of several ways of taking
something beyond human understanding and expressing it in terms that
we can at least partially understand. He himself preferred the idea of
Christ "footing the bill" and paying a debt on our behalf that we could
not pay (which is just as much a Scriptural image as penal substitution)
but he also said each person should take whichever Biblical "formula"
best helps him understand the Atonement and above all not argue with
other people because they choose a different "formula."

Indeed, but I think most Fundamentalists would say that there is no atonement
without penal substitution, and that in saying otherwise C.S. Lewis was a
heretic.

Is there a specific Orthodox model of the Atonement, or does what I
think of as the "less is more" approach to theology apply?

Rather that clutter up this thread with theological details that
aren't really germane to the topic, let me refer you to a blog post I
wrote a few years ago:

https://khanya.wordpress.com/2008/06/30/salvation-and-atonement/

If you'd like to discuss it further, perhaps we'd better agree on
another newsgroup where it would be more on topic.
alt.christnet.theology might be suitable, and it would make a change
from the URs (unrespected regulars - the spammers and trolls).

[Adam Funk]

Post by Steve Hayes

Post by Adam Funk

Post by Steve Hayes
Indeed, but I think most Fundamentalists would say that there is no atonement
without penal substitution, and that in saying otherwise C.S. Lewis was a
heretic.

Is there a specific Orthodox model of the Atonement, or does what I
think of as the "less is more" approach to theology apply?

Rather that clutter up this thread with theological details that
aren't really germane to the topic, let me refer you to a blog post I
https://khanya.wordpress.com/2008/06/30/salvation-and-atonement/

Interesting, thanks.

[Jerry Friedman]

...

Post by Steve Hayes

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Steve Hayes
Those who regard Lewis as a heretic seem to be mainly of the
ultra-Calvinist persuasion.
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/church/6-heretics-should-be-banned-evangelicalism

You did see that the article ends with a plea for tolerance, right? I
don't see where the article connects anti-Lewis beliefs to Calvinism,
and when I've read articles calling Lewis a heretic, I haven't noticed
any Calvinism--though I might miss some hints.

Yes, the writer is Evangelical, and is writing against Fundamentalist polemics
that are often aimed at appealing to Evangelicals. The penal substitution view
of the atonement that Lewis was accused of rejecting is basically a Calvinist
one,

I didn't know that.

Post by Steve Hayes
and accepted by most Fundamentalists. I think that they would argue that
it is one of the Fundamentals.

Okay, but to say about the same thing as Catherine Jefferson from
another angle, the reason the fundamentalists accept it has little or
nothing to do with Calvin. They just have the same literal reading that
he had. It doesn't mean that they agree with Calvin on any other
points, such as predestination, as I understand it. So I wouldn't call
them "ultra-Calvinist".

[Steve Hayes]

Post by Jerry Friedman
...

Post by Steve Hayes

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Steve Hayes
Those who regard Lewis as a heretic seem to be mainly of the
ultra-Calvinist persuasion.
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/church/6-heretics-should-be-banned-evangelicalism

You did see that the article ends with a plea for tolerance, right? I
don't see where the article connects anti-Lewis beliefs to Calvinism,
and when I've read articles calling Lewis a heretic, I haven't noticed
any Calvinism--though I might miss some hints.

Yes, the writer is Evangelical, and is writing against Fundamentalist polemics
that are often aimed at appealing to Evangelicals. The penal substitution view
of the atonement that Lewis was accused of rejecting is basically a Calvinist
one,

I didn't know that.

Post by Steve Hayes
and accepted by most Fundamentalists. I think that they would argue that
it is one of the Fundamentals.

Okay, but to say about the same thing as Catherine Jefferson from
another angle, the reason the fundamentalists accept it has little or
nothing to do with Calvin. They just have the same literal reading that
he had. It doesn't mean that they agree with Calvin on any other
points, such as predestination, as I understand it. So I wouldn't call
them "ultra-Calvinist".

No, I wouldn't call Fundamentalists ultra-Calvinist either. I think that some
ultra-Calvinists would doubt whether Calvin was a true Calvinist.

I was once at a conference where my roommate was an ultra-Calvinist, and he
carefully interrogated me on each of the five points of TULIP in turn. By the
time he reached the fourth one he had decided I was a damned and damnable
heretic, and asked the conference organisers to move him to another room. I
didn't mind, it gave me a room to myself where I could read as late as I
liked.

For the Evangelical take on Lewis et al, I include an old message which may
yet be of interest to some, even though well out of date. It does show,
however, that Evangelical perceptions of Lewis are very different from
Fundamentalist ones:

From: ***@david.wheaton.edu (Marion E. Wade Center)
Subject: Announcing SEVEN: AN ANGLO-AMERICAN LITERARY REVIEW (LONG)
Date: 24 Jun 94 08:41:16 GMT

SEVEN: AN ANGLO-AMERICAN LITERARY REVIEW
George MacDonald/G.K. Chesterton/C.S. Lewis/J.R.R. Tolkien
Charles Williams/Dorothy L. Sayers/Owen Barfield

Published by the Marion E. Wade Center, Wheaton College

The Marion E. Wade Center of Wheaton College, Illinois, houses a major
research collection of writings by and about seven British authors. These
writers are well known for their impact on contemporary literature and
Christian thought. Together they produced over four hundred books
including novels, drama, poetry, fantasy, books for children and Christian
treatises.

In 1980, the Wade Center began to publish an annual journal on its authors
titled SEVEN: An Anglo-American Literary Review. Intended for both the
general and specialized reader, SEVEN was originally established out of
the need for discussion and balanced assessment of the seven Wade Center
authors. SEVEN addresses a variety of aspects relating to these authors
including literary, historical, philosophical and religious subjects. The
original founding editors of SEVEN were Dr. Barbara Reynolds of
Cambridge, England, Dr. Clyde S. Kilby, founder of the Wade Center, and Dr.
Beatrice Batson, at that time Chair of the Wheaton College English
Department.

The publication date for Volume 11 is Fall 1994. This volume features a
special section on SHADOWLANDS, including responses by Douglas Gresham
(Joy Davidman Lewis's son), Lyle Dorsett (biographer of Joy Davidman),
and many others who knew Joy and C.S. Lewis, as well as those who have
studied their writings. Cost per issue in the United States is $12.50 plus
$2.00 postage and handling. In all other countries choose between: surface
post, 11 British pounds or U.S.$17.50; Airmail, 14 British pounds or
U.S.$22.50.

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Articles in Volumes 1-10 of SEVEN

Volume I
'If You Would But Write Novels, Mr. MacDonald' by Rolland Hein
In Search of the Essential Chesterton by Ian Boyd
Tolkien as Philologist by David Lyle Jeffrey
Charles Williams and his Arthurian Poetry by Alice Mary Hadfield
Like Aesop's Bat by Barbara Reynolds and Dorothy L. Sayers
C.S. Lewis's Dymer by George Sayer
The Concept of Revelation by Owen Barfield

Volume II
The Emperor Clothed and in his Right Mind? by Richard Webster
The Nature of Meaning by Owen Barfield
Scotch Dialect in Novels by George MacDonald by R. McGillis
The Everlasting Man: Chesterton's Answer to Wells by J. Sullivan
C.S. Lewis: Critic, Creator and Cult Figure by Chad Walsh
D.L. Sayers and the Other Type of Mystery by J.R. Elliott, Jr.
Types of Christian Drama by Dorothy L. Sayers
The Diagrammatised Glory of Williams's Taliessin by J. McClatchey

Volume III
What Happened to D.L. Sayers that Good Friday? by E.L. Mascall
The Emperor's Clothes Invisible? An Open Letter by Kathleen Nott
The Dogma in the Manger (1954) by Dorothy L. Sayers
Notes Towards a Reply (1982) by Kathleen Nott
Meaning and The Mind of the Maker by D.J. Taylor
George MacDonald and the World of Faery by Marion Lochhead
G.K. Chesterton and the Myth-Making Power by Leo A. Hetzler
The Literary Criticism of Charles Williams by Brian Horne
An Analysis of C.S. Lewis's Narnia Stories by Michael Murrin
Owen Barfield as Literary Man and Anthroposophist by Patrick Grant

Volume IV
A Note on Scientific and Theological Enterprises by A.R. Peacocke
What is Truth? An Open Letter to Kathleen Nott by D.J. Taylor
Lewis on the Desolation of Devalued Science by B.R. Reichenbach
George MacDonald and Dreams of the Other World by David Holbrook
The Symbolism of the Key in GKC's Work by Christiane d'Haussy
Chesterton and Tolkien: the Road to Middle-Earth by Thomas M. Egan
Charles Williams and Arthur Edward Waite by Elisabeth Brewer
William's Christmas Novel: The Greater Trumps by C. Huttar
The Epistemology of Lewis's Till We Have Faces by P.J. Schakel
Gaudy Night: an Investigation of Truth by Donald G. Marshall

Volume V
Tribute to John Sullivan K.S.G. by Aidan Mackey
The Psychology of the Self in Phantastes by M.K. Sutton
Importance of Double Vision for MacDonald Criticism by K. Triggs
Postscript: a Reply by David Holbrook
Williams and Thomas Cranmer at Canterbury by James G. Dixon
Tolkien's Platonic Fantasy by John Cox
The Detective Fiction of Dorothy L. Sayers by Philip L. Scowcroft
Jack the Giant-Killer by A.D. Nuttall
C.S. Lewis and T.D. Weldon by Martin Moynihan

Volume VI
Latin Letters of Lewis to Don Giovanni Calabria by M. Moynihan
The Defiant Lyricism of Owen Barfield by Thomas Kranidas
The Fiction of George MacDonald by David S. Robb
Dorothy L. Sayers: Critic of Detective Fiction by Ralph E. Hone
An Introduction to Williams's Incarnationalism by J.M. Andriote
The Silmarillion and the Rise of Evil by Thomas M. Egan
Review Article: "I Wrote it Just for Fun" by Barbara Reynolds

Volume VII
George MacDonald: A Portrait from His Letters by Rolland Hein
Smith's "Sympathy" and Chesterton's "Secret" by N. Waszek
The Allegory of Love in Retrospect by Margaret P. Hannay
Role of Metaphor and Symbol in the Fiction of Lewis by K. Filmer
Appeasing the Gods in Lewis's Till We Have Faces by P.W. Macky
Tolkien's Concept of Philology as Mythology by J.S. Ryan
D.L. Sayers and the Proper Work of the Playwright by G. Ralph
"Playwrights Are Not Evangelists"/"Writing a Local Play" by DLS
Scientism and the Flight from Reality by G. Price
Old Thunder: A Life of Hilaire Belloc by A. Mackey

Volume VIII
A Tribute to Clyde S. Kilby by Beatrice Batson
George MacDonald and Animal Magnetism by David S. Robb
Malaise at the Heart of The Flying Inn by John Coates
The Early Poetry of Charles Williams by Diane T. Edwards
Sauron as Gorgon and Basilisk by Gwyneth E. Hood
Fiction in A Grief Observed by George Musacchio
Dorothy L. Sayers and the Truth about Lucan by Brian G. Marsden

Williams as Natural and Preternatural by S. Medcalf

Volume IX
The Centenary Year of Charles Williams by Charles A. Huttar
Inklings in Germany by Christopher Dean
A Visit to Beatrice by Owen Barfield
Entering the Vision: A Novelist's View of Phantastes by S. Bruce
Chesterton's Parables for Social Reformers by D.J. Conlon
Specters of Eliot's City in the Novels of Williams by D.G. Kessee
Perceptions of Ancient Celtic Peoples of "England" by J.S. Ryan
Echoes in Age from the World of J.R.R. Tolkien by E.L. Edmonds
A Dorothy L. Sayers Crime Play Rediscovered by P.L. Scowcroft
C.S. Lewis on Rationalism: (Unpublished Notes) by P. Fetherston
"Knowledge" in Lewis's Post-Conversion Thought by S. Thorson
Profit and Loss in Modernizing George MacDonald by W.H. Burnside
Despatches from the Battlefield by John Coates

Volume X: Special Sayers Centenary Issue
Foreword by Dorothy L. Sayers
The Centenary Year by Christopher Dean
Dorothy L. Sayer: Her Novels Today by P.D. James
University Detective Fiction Then and Now by Thomas Michael Stein
One Aspect of the Development of Peter Wimsey by Ralph E. Hone
D.L. Sayers and Music: Musicienne Malgre Elle by W. Phemister
The Greatest Story, or from mystery to Mystery by John Thurmer
Dorothy L. Sayers and Dante's Beatrice by Ann Loades
Temptation at Canterbury by Manfred Siebald
--
The Marion E. Wade Center
Wheaton College
Wheaton, IL 60187
***@david.wheaton.edu

[Jerry Friedman]

Post by Steve Hayes

Post by Jerry Friedman
...

Post by Steve Hayes

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Steve Hayes
Those who regard Lewis as a heretic seem to be mainly of the
ultra-Calvinist persuasion.
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/church/6-heretics-should-be-banned-evangelicalism

You did see that the article ends with a plea for tolerance, right? I
don't see where the article connects anti-Lewis beliefs to Calvinism,
and when I've read articles calling Lewis a heretic, I haven't noticed
any Calvinism--though I might miss some hints.

Yes, the writer is Evangelical, and is writing against Fundamentalist polemics
that are often aimed at appealing to Evangelicals. The penal substitution view
of the atonement that Lewis was accused of rejecting is basically a Calvinist
one,

I didn't know that.

Post by Steve Hayes
and accepted by most Fundamentalists. I think that they would argue that
it is one of the Fundamentals.

Okay, but to say about the same thing as Catherine Jefferson from
another angle, the reason the fundamentalists accept it has little or
nothing to do with Calvin. They just have the same literal reading that
he had. It doesn't mean that they agree with Calvin on any other
points, such as predestination, as I understand it. So I wouldn't call
them "ultra-Calvinist".

No, I wouldn't call Fundamentalists ultra-Calvinist either.

All right, I conflated anti-Lewis and fundamentalist. But I think all
the Lewis-was-a-heretic articles I've read have been by fundamentalists,
and I don't recall a single mention of predestination, which makes me
doubt that the authors were ultra-Calvinists.

Post by Steve Hayes
I think that some
ultra-Calvinists would doubt whether Calvin was a true Calvinist.
I was once at a conference where my roommate was an ultra-Calvinist, and he
carefully interrogated me on each of the five points of TULIP in turn. By the
time he reached the fourth one he had decided I was a damned and damnable
heretic, and asked the conference organisers to move him to another room.

Charming.

"Do you believe we are totally depraved, with no merit of our own?"

"I believe I've had a long trip to get here and am not interested in
being questioned at the moment."

(Obviously you were willing to answer his questions, so I'm imagining
the kind of response he got other times.)

Post by Steve Hayes
I
didn't mind, it gave me a room to myself where I could read as late as I
liked.

He showed you!

Post by Steve Hayes
For the Evangelical take on Lewis et al, I include an old message which may
yet be of interest to some, even though well out of date. It does show,
however, that Evangelical perceptions of Lewis are very different from
Subject: Announcing SEVEN: AN ANGLO-AMERICAN LITERARY REVIEW (LONG)
Date: 24 Jun 94 08:41:16 GMT
SEVEN: AN ANGLO-AMERICAN LITERARY REVIEW
George MacDonald/G.K. Chesterton/C.S. Lewis/J.R.R. Tolkien
Charles Williams/Dorothy L. Sayers/Owen Barfield
Published by the Marion E. Wade Center, Wheaton College

[snip]

[Steve Hayes]

On Sun, 15 Feb 2015 09:45:09 -0700, Jerry Friedman

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Steve Hayes

Post by Jerry Friedman
...

Post by Steve Hayes

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Steve Hayes
Those who regard Lewis as a heretic seem to be mainly of the
ultra-Calvinist persuasion.
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/church/6-heretics-should-be-banned-evangelicalism

You did see that the article ends with a plea for tolerance, right? I
don't see where the article connects anti-Lewis beliefs to Calvinism,
and when I've read articles calling Lewis a heretic, I haven't noticed
any Calvinism--though I might miss some hints.

Yes, the writer is Evangelical, and is writing against Fundamentalist polemics
that are often aimed at appealing to Evangelicals. The penal substitution view
of the atonement that Lewis was accused of rejecting is basically a Calvinist
one,

I didn't know that.

Post by Steve Hayes
and accepted by most Fundamentalists. I think that they would argue that
it is one of the Fundamentals.

Okay, but to say about the same thing as Catherine Jefferson from
another angle, the reason the fundamentalists accept it has little or
nothing to do with Calvin. They just have the same literal reading that
he had. It doesn't mean that they agree with Calvin on any other
points, such as predestination, as I understand it. So I wouldn't call
them "ultra-Calvinist".

No, I wouldn't call Fundamentalists ultra-Calvinist either.

All right, I conflated anti-Lewis and fundamentalist. But I think all
the Lewis-was-a-heretic articles I've read have been by fundamentalists,
and I don't recall a single mention of predestination, which makes me
doubt that the authors were ultra-Calvinists.

I think most of the Christian anti-Lewis polemics I have read are
Fundamentalist too. But though not ultra-Calvinist, most
Fundamentalists are Calvinist to some extent. Predestination is not
the only Calvinist doctrine.

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Steve Hayes
I think that some
ultra-Calvinists would doubt whether Calvin was a true Calvinist.
I was once at a conference where my roommate was an ultra-Calvinist, and he
carefully interrogated me on each of the five points of TULIP in turn. By the
time he reached the fourth one he had decided I was a damned and damnable
heretic, and asked the conference organisers to move him to another room.

Charming.
"Do you believe we are totally depraved, with no merit of our own?"
"I believe I've had a long trip to get here and am not interested in
being questioned at the moment."
(Obviously you were willing to answer his questions, so I'm imagining
the kind of response he got other times.)

Much of his questioning was devoted to quite subtle distinctions (at
least they are to most people) about imputed and imparted
righteousness and things like that (if you didn't know, to TULIP
Calvenists, the former is OK, and the latter is heretical).

And I'm pretty sure he didn't approve of C.S. Lewis either.

For what it's worth, he belonged to a denomination called the Church
of England in South Africa, and it was quite a while ago. I believe
they've mellowed a bit since then, but they were the original
"religious right".

[Jerry Friedman]

Post by Steve Hayes
On Sun, 15 Feb 2015 09:45:09 -0700, Jerry Friedman

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Steve Hayes

Post by Jerry Friedman
...

Post by Steve Hayes

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Steve Hayes
Those who regard Lewis as a heretic seem to be mainly of the
ultra-Calvinist persuasion.
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/church/6-heretics-should-be-banned-evangelicalism

You did see that the article ends with a plea for tolerance, right? I
don't see where the article connects anti-Lewis beliefs to Calvinism,
and when I've read articles calling Lewis a heretic, I haven't noticed
any Calvinism--though I might miss some hints.

Yes, the writer is Evangelical, and is writing against Fundamentalist polemics
that are often aimed at appealing to Evangelicals. The penal substitution view
of the atonement that Lewis was accused of rejecting is basically a Calvinist
one,

I didn't know that.

Post by Steve Hayes
and accepted by most Fundamentalists. I think that they would argue that
it is one of the Fundamentals.

Okay, but to say about the same thing as Catherine Jefferson from
another angle, the reason the fundamentalists accept it has little or
nothing to do with Calvin. They just have the same literal reading that
he had. It doesn't mean that they agree with Calvin on any other
points, such as predestination, as I understand it. So I wouldn't call
them "ultra-Calvinist".

No, I wouldn't call Fundamentalists ultra-Calvinist either.

All right, I conflated anti-Lewis and fundamentalist. But I think all
the Lewis-was-a-heretic articles I've read have been by fundamentalists,
and I don't recall a single mention of predestination, which makes me
doubt that the authors were ultra-Calvinists.

I think most of the Christian anti-Lewis polemics I have read are
Fundamentalist too. But though not ultra-Calvinist,

Then we agree more than I thought.

Post by Steve Hayes
most
Fundamentalists are Calvinist to some extent. Predestination is not
the only Calvinist doctrine.

Okay, I'm sure I'm sure it isn't.

Post by Steve Hayes

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Steve Hayes
I think that some
ultra-Calvinists would doubt whether Calvin was a true Calvinist.
I was once at a conference where my roommate was an ultra-Calvinist, and he
carefully interrogated me on each of the five points of TULIP in turn. By the
time he reached the fourth one he had decided I was a damned and damnable
heretic, and asked the conference organisers to move him to another room.

Charming.
"Do you believe we are totally depraved, with no merit of our own?"
"I believe I've had a long trip to get here and am not interested in
being questioned at the moment."
(Obviously you were willing to answer his questions, so I'm imagining
the kind of response he got other times.)

Much of his questioning was devoted to quite subtle distinctions (at
least they are to most people) about imputed and imparted
righteousness and things like that (if you didn't know, to TULIP
Calvenists, the former is OK, and the latter is heretical).

I certainly didn't know.

Post by Steve Hayes
And I'm pretty sure he didn't approve of C.S. Lewis either.
For what it's worth, he belonged to a denomination called the Church
of England in South Africa,

A church called "Church of England..." was Calvinist?

Post by Steve Hayes
and it was quite a while ago. I believe
they've mellowed a bit since then, but they were the original
"religious right".

In South Africa, maybe.

[Catherine Jefferson]

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Steve Hayes
And I'm pretty sure he didn't approve of C.S. Lewis either.
For what it's worth, he belonged to a denomination called the Church
of England in South Africa,

A church called "Church of England..." was Calvinist?

Post by Steve Hayes
and it was quite a while ago. I believe
they've mellowed a bit since then, but they were the original
"religious right".

In South Africa, maybe.

I don't think that they existed outside of South Africa. :) Steve was
Anglican at some time in the dim past; he definitely knows what the
"Church of England" is outside of South Africa.

Those outside of Calvinist/Reformed churches tend to not understand how
complex a system Calvin created, and how many twists and turns it has
theologically. I've been bitten more than once when I thought I knew
what some bit of Calvinist dogma meant, only to be corrected
emphatically by friends and acquaintances who were Calvinist. My mind
can't easily wrap itself around determinism, be it the Calvinist variety
or that of classic Enlightenment era scientific rationalism.

C. S. Lewis was no determinist, fortunately. I missed the early part of
this thread. Are you a Lewis fan? What about his books do you like best?

[Jerry Friedman]

Post by Catherine Jefferson

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Steve Hayes
And I'm pretty sure he didn't approve of C.S. Lewis either.
For what it's worth, he belonged to a denomination called the Church
of England in South Africa,

A church called "Church of England..." was Calvinist?

Post by Steve Hayes
and it was quite a while ago. I believe
they've mellowed a bit since then, but they were the original
"religious right".

In South Africa, maybe.

I don't think that they existed outside of South Africa. :) Steve was
Anglican at some time in the dim past; he definitely knows what the
"Church of England" is outside of South Africa.

For sure. I was just surprised.

Post by Catherine Jefferson
Those outside of Calvinist/Reformed churches tend to not understand how
complex a system Calvin created, and how many twists and turns it has
theologically.

No doubt I don't.

Post by Catherine Jefferson
I've been bitten more than once when I thought I knew
what some bit of Calvinist dogma meant, only to be corrected
emphatically by friends and acquaintances who were Calvinist. My mind
can't easily wrap itself around determinism, be it the Calvinist variety
or that of classic Enlightenment era scientific rationalism.
C. S. Lewis was no determinist, fortunately. I missed the early part of
this thread. Are you a Lewis fan?

I've had many happy hours reading and rereading the Narnia books and the
Space Trilogy.

Post by Catherine Jefferson
What about his books do you like best?

The fantasy and the uncompromisingness, even though I disagree with a
lot of his views, starting with Christianity. And I like his writing.
Especially in his non-fiction, he writes so clearly that you can see
just where the fallacies are.

And you?

[Catherine Jefferson]

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Catherine Jefferson
C. S. Lewis was no determinist, fortunately. I missed the early part of
this thread. Are you a Lewis fan?

I've had many happy hours reading and rereading the Narnia books and the
Space Trilogy.

:) My grandfather bought a set of the Chronicles of Narnia for me and
my younger sister and brothers (four of us) for Christmas when I was
fifteen. I loved them. At the time, I had no idea who Lewis was or
that he was a famous Christian writer: I was raised non-religious and
was newly Christian.

It took me a bit longer to get into the Space trilogy, especially the
last book of it. I'd been reading science fiction (more than fantasy)
since I was eight and a school librarian had introduced me to Andre
Norton. A year later, another school librarian at a different school
shoved one of Ursula Le Guin's books in my hands. Lewis's Space Trilogy
was sold as SF, but it was too dated as SF for me at that time.

Later, when I figured out that reading it as fantasy worked beautifully,
I became a fan.

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Catherine Jefferson
What about his books do you like best?

The fantasy and the uncompromisingness, even though I disagree with a
lot of his views, starting with Christianity. And I like his writing.
Especially in his non-fiction, he writes so clearly that you can see
just where the fallacies are.

There are some, but not that many, I find. Just disagreements with
David Hume, for the most part.

Post by Jerry Friedman
And you?

Somebody at my church in high school (a restorationist Church of Christ)
pointed me to "Mere Christianity" after finding that I liked the Narnia
books. I was impressed, and started finding and reading his other
books. I was thoroughly hooked by the time I went off to college.

[Jerry Friedman]

[alt.usage.english removed, I hope]

Post by Catherine Jefferson

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Catherine Jefferson
C. S. Lewis was no determinist, fortunately. I missed the early part of
this thread. Are you a Lewis fan?

I've had many happy hours reading and rereading the Narnia books and the
Space Trilogy.

:) My grandfather bought a set of the Chronicles of Narnia for me and
my younger sister and brothers (four of us) for Christmas when I was
fifteen. I loved them. At the time, I had no idea who Lewis was or
that he was a famous Christian writer: I was raised non-religious and
was newly Christian.

I might add that I read the Narnia books when I was younger than that,
and I didn't know the Christian story of sin and Jesus' atonement. When
I learned it and put it together with TLTW&TW, I felt rather betrayed.
Nothing I couldn't get over, though.

Post by Catherine Jefferson
It took me a bit longer to get into the Space trilogy, especially the
last book of it. I'd been reading science fiction (more than fantasy)
since I was eight and a school librarian had introduced me to Andre
Norton. A year later, another school librarian at a different school
shoved one of Ursula Le Guin's books in my hands. Lewis's Space Trilogy
was sold as SF, but it was too dated as SF for me at that time.
Later, when I figured out that reading it as fantasy worked beautifully,
I became a fan.

Interesting. That kind of distinction in reading a book never mattered
to me.

Post by Catherine Jefferson

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Catherine Jefferson
What about his books do you like best?

The fantasy and the uncompromisingness, even though I disagree with a
lot of his views, starting with Christianity. And I like his writing.
Especially in his non-fiction, he writes so clearly that you can see
just where the fallacies are.

There are some, but not that many, I find. Just disagreements with
David Hume, for the most part.

...

One was that he said that if our reasoning ability came about from
natural processes such as evolution, rather than as a gift from God, we
had no reason to trust it.

But we'd expect reasoning ability that evolved to be reliable enough to
be useful for survival. Also, God might not have given us reliable
reasoning ability either. In fact, we know our intelligence isn't
perfect, and most Christians say there are things in Christianity that
we're incapable of understanding. So the argument is pointless; both
evolution and creation can explain why our reasoning ability is the way
it is, with evolution being the one that can give a better explanation
than "Because God happened to want it that way."

(I hope I'm stating his argument correctly. I can't find it in /Mere
Christianity/ at Google Books.)

Another is his criticism of some people's position that Jesus was a
great moral or spiritual teacher, but not God. Lewis says that some
passages can be understood only as coming from a divine being or a total
madman, "on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg". (/Mere
Christianity/, Book 2, Chapter 3.) Wayne Brown quoted some of these in
a.u.e. But as people are saying in a.u.e., there's no reason to believe
Jesus said all the things he's supposed to have said.

[Catherine Jefferson]

Post by Jerry Friedman
[alt.usage.english removed, I hope]

Looks like it stuck. I followed your example and removed it from my
reply to Wayne, as well. This thread has left the "English usage"
category and shows no signs of returning, so that's the right thing to do.

Post by Jerry Friedman
I might add that I read the Narnia books when I was younger than that,
and I didn't know the Christian story of sin and Jesus' atonement. When
I learned it and put it together with TLTW&TW, I felt rather betrayed.
Nothing I couldn't get over, though.

Another friend of mine reacted this way to those books as well. Tolkien
might have too; he really did NOT like allegory and I've long thought
that the reason was that he thought it contained a "gotcha" at its very
heart. I don't mind allegory. I usually can see it, and feel free to
accept or reject the allergorical "meaning" assigned to a work and just
enjoy the story if that's what I want to do. ;)

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Catherine Jefferson
It took me a bit longer to get into the Space trilogy, especially the
last book of it. I'd been reading science fiction (more than fantasy)
since I was eight and a school librarian had introduced me to Andre
Norton. A year later, another school librarian at a different school
shoved one of Ursula Le Guin's books in my hands. Lewis's Space Trilogy
was sold as SF, but it was too dated as SF for me at that time.
Later, when I figured out that reading it as fantasy worked beautifully,
I became a fan.

Interesting. That kind of distinction in reading a book never mattered
to me.

It wouldn't to me on another subject. I'm the odd humanities person who
loves science, though: to me, the stories that come out of the discovery
of the natural world are among the best stories of all. I *love* SF for
telling stories about the implications of science. When an SF story has
outdated or incorrect science, it tends to feel like fingernails on a
blackboard to me -- I keep wanting to rewrite the thing to fix the
flaws. :/

Fantasy is a different beast. As long as the implications of any given
system are developed intelligently and well, I don't care whether I
believe the underlying propositions or not. Take Perelandra. The
"science" of Perelandra is ridiculous; not only is Venus not as
described (at all), but more to the point, no such planet could exist in
light of our current knowledge of astronomy and biology. Read the same
book as fantasy, though, and it tells a wonderful story that develops
from a background that I can just accept as I would accept the Tarot for
Zelazny's Amber series.

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Catherine Jefferson
There are some, but not that many, I find. Just disagreements with
David Hume, for the most part.

...
One was that he said that if our reasoning ability came about from
natural processes such as evolution, rather than as a gift from God, we
had no reason to trust it.

I get what Lewis was driving at, but I would say it differently. As I
see it, if the universe does not have God behind it, there's no reason
to trust any part of it as "true" rather than simply as useful in the
current context. Reason itself would become just an expedient method of
understanding what lies around me, even if a good method that works well
in my life. I'd find the whole concept of an underlying truth
problematic without an intelligent creator.

Which is a frightening idea, now that I think of it. :/

Post by Jerry Friedman
But we'd expect reasoning ability that evolved to be reliable enough to
be useful for survival. Also, God might not have given us reliable
reasoning ability either. In fact, we know our intelligence isn't
perfect, and most Christians say there are things in Christianity that
we're incapable of understanding. So the argument is pointless; both
evolution and creation can explain why our reasoning ability is the way
it is, with evolution being the one that can give a better explanation
than "Because God happened to want it that way."

I'm not sure that I'd say evolution gives a better explanation simply
because evolution doesn't explain itself. At some point, Christian or
not, religious or not, you have to pick a starting place to reason from.
The old "first principles" conundrum.

Post by Jerry Friedman
(I hope I'm stating his argument correctly. I can't find it in /Mere
Christianity/ at Google Books.)

I think you are, but I'm not sure that Lewis makes this argument in Mere
Christianity. He does elsewhere, though.

Post by Jerry Friedman
Another is his criticism of some people's position that Jesus was a
great moral or spiritual teacher, but not God. Lewis says that some
passages can be understood only as coming from a divine being or a total
madman, "on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg". (/Mere
Christianity/, Book 2, Chapter 3.) Wayne Brown quoted some of these in
a.u.e. But as people are saying in a.u.e., there's no reason to believe
Jesus said all the things he's supposed to have said.

<nod> The other possibility that Lewis must have thought of but doesn't
ever discuss in detail is to treat the Gospel as myth. That doesn't
work for me, obviously, but I've known people who did. I had a college
professor who insisted that we lacked any proof that a person that meets
the general description of Jesus of Nazareth existed at all. <wry grin>

The thing is, for those who find the Gospel stories credible (and I do),
Lewis's argument makes sense. If Christ did say what He is reported as
having said and did what He is reported as having done, treating him as
yet another moral or spiritual leader ignores most of His life.

[Jerry Friedman]

Post by Catherine Jefferson

Post by Jerry Friedman
[alt.usage.english removed, I hope]

Looks like it stuck. I followed your example and removed it from my
reply to Wayne, as well. This thread has left the "English usage"
category and shows no signs of returning, so that's the right thing to do.

The thing about a.u.e. is that a thread can get back on topic at any
time. For instance, we could discuss whether "Looks like it stuck"
means "Looks like it's still in a.u.e." (as I first thought) or "Looks
like your attempt worked" (as I now realize). :-)

Post by Catherine Jefferson

Post by Jerry Friedman
I might add that I read the Narnia books when I was younger than that,
and I didn't know the Christian story of sin and Jesus' atonement. When
I learned it and put it together with TLTW&TW, I felt rather betrayed.
Nothing I couldn't get over, though.

Another friend of mine reacted this way to those books as well. Tolkien
might have too; he really did NOT like allegory and I've long thought
that the reason was that he thought it contained a "gotcha" at its very
heart. I don't mind allegory.

Me neither. The problem was that that exciting fantasy turned out to
be part of the great conspiracy to sucker me and everyone else into
Christianity. (This is what how you can feel when you're raised
Jewish.)

Post by Catherine Jefferson
I usually can see it, and feel free to
accept or reject the allergorical "meaning" assigned to a work and just
enjoy the story if that's what I want to do. ;)

I wasn't so good at that in elementary school, which is when I realized
that it was a Christian book.

Post by Catherine Jefferson

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Catherine Jefferson
It took me a bit longer to get into the Space trilogy, especially the
last book of it. I'd been reading science fiction (more than fantasy)
since I was eight and a school librarian had introduced me to Andre
Norton. A year later, another school librarian at a different school
shoved one of Ursula Le Guin's books in my hands. Lewis's Space Trilogy
was sold as SF, but it was too dated as SF for me at that time.
Later, when I figured out that reading it as fantasy worked beautifully,
I became a fan.

Interesting. That kind of distinction in reading a book never mattered
to me.

It wouldn't to me on another subject. I'm the odd humanities person who

We need more!

Post by Catherine Jefferson
to me, the stories that come out of the discovery
of the natural world are among the best stories of all. I *love* SF for
telling stories about the implications of science. When an SF story has
outdated or incorrect science, it tends to feel like fingernails on a
blackboard to me -- I keep wanting to rewrite the thing to fix the
flaws. :/

I don't mind dated science at all. There are probably certain kinds
of flaws that bother me and certain kinds that don't, but this isn't
the place for me to think out loud about that.

Post by Catherine Jefferson
Fantasy is a different beast. As long as the implications of any given
system are developed intelligently and well, I don't care whether I
believe the underlying propositions or not. Take Perelandra. The
"science" of Perelandra is ridiculous; not only is Venus not as
described (at all), but more to the point, no such planet could exist in
light of our current knowledge of astronomy and biology. Read the same
book as fantasy, though, and it tells a wonderful story that develops
from a background that I can just accept as I would accept the Tarot for
Zelazny's Amber series.

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Catherine Jefferson
There are some, but not that many, I find. Just disagreements with
David Hume, for the most part.

...
One was that he said that if our reasoning ability came about from
natural processes such as evolution, rather than as a gift from God, we
had no reason to trust it.

I get what Lewis was driving at, but I would say it differently. As I
see it, if the universe does not have God behind it, there's no reason
to trust any part of it as "true" rather than simply as useful in the
current context.

Pragmatism.

Post by Catherine Jefferson
Reason itself would become just an expedient method of
understanding what lies around me, even if a good method that works well
in my life. I'd find the whole concept of an underlying truth
problematic without an intelligent creator.

Okay, I don't see the problem.

Post by Catherine Jefferson
Which is a frightening idea, now that I think of it. :/

Post by Jerry Friedman
But we'd expect reasoning ability that evolved to be reliable enough to
be useful for survival. Also, God might not have given us reliable
reasoning ability either. In fact, we know our intelligence isn't
perfect, and most Christians say there are things in Christianity that
we're incapable of understanding. So the argument is pointless; both
evolution and creation can explain why our reasoning ability is the way
it is, with evolution being the one that can give a better explanation
than "Because God happened to want it that way."

I'm not sure that I'd say evolution gives a better explanation simply
because evolution doesn't explain itself. At some point, Christian or
not, religious or not, you have to pick a starting place to reason from.
The old "first principles" conundrum.

Evolution is nicely explained by prior principles. It's true, though,
that materialism eventually runs into a problem with questions such as
why the universe is the way it is and even why it exists--the latter
having been important to Lewis, as you know.

Post by Catherine Jefferson

Post by Jerry Friedman
(I hope I'm stating his argument correctly. I can't find it in /Mere
Christianity/ at Google Books.)

I think you are, but I'm not sure that Lewis makes this argument in Mere
Christianity. He does elsewhere, though.

That's good to hear.

Post by Catherine Jefferson

Post by Jerry Friedman
Another is his criticism of some people's position that Jesus was a
great moral or spiritual teacher, but not God. Lewis says that some
passages can be understood only as coming from a divine being or a total
madman, "on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg". (/Mere
Christianity/, Book 2, Chapter 3.) Wayne Brown quoted some of these in
a.u.e. But as people are saying in a.u.e., there's no reason to believe
Jesus said all the things he's supposed to have said.

<nod> The other possibility that Lewis must have thought of but doesn't
ever discuss in detail is to treat the Gospel as myth. That doesn't
work for me, obviously, but I've known people who did. I had a college
professor who insisted that we lacked any proof that a person that meets
the general description of Jesus of Nazareth existed at all. <wry grin>

Well, there's no proof, but it's much easier to believe that such a
preacher existed than that it was a hoax or whatever.

Post by Catherine Jefferson
The thing is, for those who find the Gospel stories credible (and I do),
Lewis's argument makes sense. If Christ did say what He is reported as
having said and did what He is reported as having done, treating him as
yet another moral or spiritual leader ignores most of His life.

But people who find the gospel stories credible aren't the people he's
trying to convince.

[Steve Hayes]

On Wed, 18 Feb 2015 08:39:57 -0700, Jerry Friedman

Post by Jerry Friedman
[alt.usage.english removed, I hope]

Post by Catherine Jefferson

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Catherine Jefferson
C. S. Lewis was no determinist, fortunately. I missed the early part of
this thread. Are you a Lewis fan?

I've had many happy hours reading and rereading the Narnia books and the
Space Trilogy.

:) My grandfather bought a set of the Chronicles of Narnia for me and
my younger sister and brothers (four of us) for Christmas when I was
fifteen. I loved them. At the time, I had no idea who Lewis was or
that he was a famous Christian writer: I was raised non-religious and
was newly Christian.

I might add that I read the Narnia books when I was younger than that,
and I didn't know the Christian story of sin and Jesus' atonement. When
I learned it and put it together with TLTW&TW, I felt rather betrayed.
Nothing I couldn't get over, though.

I only discovered them when I was 24.

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Catherine Jefferson
It took me a bit longer to get into the Space trilogy, especially the
last book of it. I'd been reading science fiction (more than fantasy)
since I was eight and a school librarian had introduced me to Andre
Norton. A year later, another school librarian at a different school
shoved one of Ursula Le Guin's books in my hands. Lewis's Space Trilogy
was sold as SF, but it was too dated as SF for me at that time.
Later, when I figured out that reading it as fantasy worked beautifully,
I became a fan.

Interesting. That kind of distinction in reading a book never mattered
to me.

The first book of his I read was "Beyond personality", when I was 18,
and I can't remember anything about it. Maybe I should look again.

The next month I read "Perelandra", and liked it better. I thought he
wrote better fiction than non-fiction. I followed that by "Out of the
silent planet", which I liked even more. I read it as SF. I didn't
know of fantasy as a separate category in those days. I've read it
several times since.

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Catherine Jefferson

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Catherine Jefferson
What about his books do you like best?

The fantasy and the uncompromisingness, even though I disagree with a
lot of his views, starting with Christianity. And I like his writing.
Especially in his non-fiction, he writes so clearly that you can see
just where the fallacies are.

There are some, but not that many, I find. Just disagreements with
David Hume, for the most part.

...
One was that he said that if our reasoning ability came about from
natural processes such as evolution, rather than as a gift from God, we
had no reason to trust it.

It depends on what you trust it for.

Post by Jerry Friedman
But we'd expect reasoning ability that evolved to be reliable enough to
be useful for survival. Also, God might not have given us reliable
reasoning ability either. In fact, we know our intelligence isn't
perfect, and most Christians say there are things in Christianity that
we're incapable of understanding. So the argument is pointless; both
evolution and creation can explain why our reasoning ability is the way
it is, with evolution being the one that can give a better explanation
than "Because God happened to want it that way."

Have you read this one:

Saul, John Ralston. 1992. Voltaire's bastards: the dictatorship
of reason in the West. New York: The Free Press.
ISBN: 0-02-927725-6
Dewey: 909.09821

[The Horny Goat]

On Wed, 18 Feb 2015 08:39:57 -0700, Jerry Friedman

Post by Jerry Friedman
(I hope I'm stating his argument correctly. I can't find it in /Mere
Christianity/ at Google Books.)
Another is his criticism of some people's position that Jesus was a
great moral or spiritual teacher, but not God. Lewis says that some
passages can be understood only as coming from a divine being or a total
madman, "on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg". (/Mere
Christianity/, Book 2, Chapter 3.) Wayne Brown quoted some of these in
a.u.e. But as people are saying in a.u.e., there's no reason to believe
Jesus said all the things he's supposed to have said.

I have read this discussion with great pleasure having read all the
books cited except Till We Have Faces and having being raised in a
Pentecostal milieu but gotten much more broad exposure at university
followed by quite a number of years as an Anglican which I have left
not so much because I don't love the liturgy but rather that I live in
one of the most liberal dioceses in the Anglican Communion and would
probably be a regular communicant if I didn't.

As a longtime science fiction fan I very much DIDN'T like Perelandra
which struck me as Lewis' attempt to right Orwellian style science
fiction and not as well done as the original. I thought that series
was well written but NOT good science fiction (and I have read a lot
of it in a lot of sub-genres). I would say the same about Margaret
Atwood's SF efforts.

That said, I very much DID like Narnia particularly The Last Battle
which was for me an epic of religious symbolism. Mere Christianity is
also one of my favorites as I think it's a masterpiece of Christian
apologetics.

I look forward to more of this discussion...

[Steve Hayes]

Post by The Horny Goat
As a longtime science fiction fan I very much DIDN'T like Perelandra
which struck me as Lewis' attempt to right Orwellian style science
fiction and not as well done as the original. I thought that series
was well written but NOT good science fiction (and I have read a lot
of it in a lot of sub-genres). I would say the same about Margaret
Atwood's SF efforts.

"Perelandra" was the first work of Lewis's fiction that I read, and I
wasn't very impressed with it. Almost immediately after that I read
"Out of the silent planet", which I liked much more, but it also
helped me to make more sense of "Perelandra" because it gave some of
the background of where Weston and Ransom were coming from.

I don't think "Perelandra" can be compared to Orwellian-style science
fiction at all.

Having said that, there is one comparison I would make, though. Some
people have, in this thread and elsewhere, mentioned "allegory" in
connection with Lewis's fiction, but I don't think that is accurate.
Orwell's "Animal Farm" is allegory, but none of Lewis's fiction is.

A better comparison might be with Swift's "Gulliver's travels", where
Swift set his stories in unknown lands. By the time Lewis wrote, the
geography of earth was much better known, and so he shifted the
setting to other planets. And it was perhaps from the Houyhnhnms that
Lewis got the concept of hnau.

I've read all three of Lewis's "Cosmic trilogy" several times, and
Perelandra is still the one I like least, but one of the best bits in
it is the way he conveys the idea of the banality of evil.

Bear in mind that "Perelandra" was first published in 1943, long
before Orwell, so it, and not Orwell, is the "original", if you are
making that comparison. It was also 20 years before Hannah Arendt's
book on "The banality of evil", and though Lewis did not use that
term, he did put across the concept pretty well.

[The Horny Goat]

On Sat, 21 Feb 2015 05:53:23 +0200, Steve Hayes

Post by Steve Hayes
Having said that, there is one comparison I would make, though. Some
people have, in this thread and elsewhere, mentioned "allegory" in
connection with Lewis's fiction, but I don't think that is accurate.
Orwell's "Animal Farm" is allegory, but none of Lewis's fiction is.

Animal was considerably less veiled than most of Lewis'
works.....CERTAINLY so for the Stalin-Trotsky portions!

Post by Steve Hayes
A better comparison might be with Swift's "Gulliver's travels", where
Swift set his stories in unknown lands. By the time Lewis wrote, the
geography of earth was much better known, and so he shifted the
setting to other planets. And it was perhaps from the Houyhnhnms that
Lewis got the concept of hnau.

That's a fair comparison and as you say, if an 'unknown land' was
desired space was a good choice. (Not the ONLY choice as works such as
Lost Horizon make plain)

Post by Steve Hayes
I've read all three of Lewis's "Cosmic trilogy" several times, and
Perelandra is still the one I like least, but one of the best bits in
it is the way he conveys the idea of the banality of evil.

Yes that is certainly true.

Post by Steve Hayes
Bear in mind that "Perelandra" was first published in 1943, long
before Orwell, so it, and not Orwell, is the "original", if you are
making that comparison. It was also 20 years before Hannah Arendt's
book on "The banality of evil", and though Lewis did not use that
term, he did put across the concept pretty well.

Yes he did and on reflection I read Arendt around the same time I read
the Perelandra series. Please note in passing that I did say I very
much liked The Last Battle.

[Jerry Friedman]

Post by Steve Hayes
On Wed, 18 Feb 2015 08:39:57 -0700, Jerry Friedman

Post by Jerry Friedman
(I hope I'm stating his argument correctly. I can't find it in /Mere
Christianity/ at Google Books.)
Another is his criticism of some people's position that Jesus was a
great moral or spiritual teacher, but not God. Lewis says that some
passages can be understood only as coming from a divine being or a total
madman, "on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg". (/Mere
Christianity/, Book 2, Chapter 3.) Wayne Brown quoted some of these in
a.u.e. But as people are saying in a.u.e., there's no reason to believe
Jesus said all the things he's supposed to have said.

I have read this discussion with great pleasure having read all the
books cited except Till We Have Faces and having being raised in a
Pentecostal milieu but gotten much more broad exposure at university
followed by quite a number of years as an Anglican which I have left
not so much because I don't love the liturgy but rather that I live in
one of the most liberal dioceses in the Anglican Communion and would
probably be a regular communicant if I didn't.
As a longtime science fiction fan I very much DIDN'T like Perelandra
which struck me as Lewis' attempt to right

Freudian slip?

Post by Steve Hayes
Orwellian style science
fiction and not as well done as the original.

Hm. I can see that about /That Hideous Strength/, but not /Perelandra/,
except that /Perelandra/ definitely has messages.

Post by Steve Hayes
I thought that series
was well written but NOT good science fiction (and I have read a lot
of it in a lot of sub-genres). I would say the same about Margaret
Atwood's SF efforts.

...

Which I like.

Post by Steve Hayes
I look forward to more of this discussion...

[Wayne Brown]

Post by Jerry Friedman
One was that he said that if our reasoning ability came about from
natural processes such as evolution, rather than as a gift from God, we
had no reason to trust it.
But we'd expect reasoning ability that evolved to be reliable enough to
be useful for survival. Also, God might not have given us reliable
reasoning ability either. In fact, we know our intelligence isn't
perfect, and most Christians say there are things in Christianity that
we're incapable of understanding. So the argument is pointless; both
evolution and creation can explain why our reasoning ability is the way
it is, with evolution being the one that can give a better explanation
than "Because God happened to want it that way."
(I hope I'm stating his argument correctly. I can't find it in /Mere
Christianity/ at Google Books.)

One part you didn't mention was his objection that using a logical
argument about evolution (or anything else) to prove that human reason
gives genuine insights into reality is not valid; he compares it to a
defendant testifying on his own behalf. For instance, consider this
argument:

Evolution favors traits which give a survival advantage.
The ability to reason accurately would give a survival advantage.
Therefore, evolution favors the ability to reason accurately.

But Lewis points out that to accept such an argument, you have to already
believe that logical arguments can establish truth, which is exactly
what you're trying to prove.

Essentially, Lewis is saying that reason cannot prove the truth of
anything, including its own existence, if it is not assumed from the
outset to be capable of providing a valid method of finding truth.
Theists believe reason is valid because it comes from the mind of God;
admittedly that's an assumption. Atheists believe reason is valid
because it is useful, but that itself is an argument using reason and so,
whether they recognize it or not, they also are making an assumption.

I'll have to check my copes of Lewis's books when I get home, but I
believe this particular argument may have come from "The Abolition of Man"
rather than from "Mere Christianity."

[Jerry Friedman]

Post by Wayne Brown

Post by Jerry Friedman
One was that he said that if our reasoning ability came about from
natural processes such as evolution, rather than as a gift from God, we
had no reason to trust it.
But we'd expect reasoning ability that evolved to be reliable enough to
be useful for survival. Also, God might not have given us reliable
reasoning ability either. In fact, we know our intelligence isn't
perfect, and most Christians say there are things in Christianity that
we're incapable of understanding. So the argument is pointless; both
evolution and creation can explain why our reasoning ability is the way
it is, with evolution being the one that can give a better explanation
than "Because God happened to want it that way."
(I hope I'm stating his argument correctly. I can't find it in /Mere
Christianity/ at Google Books.)

One part you didn't mention was his objection that using a logical
argument about evolution (or anything else) to prove that human reason
gives genuine insights into reality is not valid; he compares it to a
defendant testifying on his own behalf. For instance, consider this
Evolution favors traits which give a survival advantage.
The ability to reason accurately would give a survival advantage.
Therefore, evolution favors the ability to reason accurately.
But Lewis points out that to accept such an argument, you have to already
believe that logical arguments can establish truth, which is exactly
what you're trying to prove.
Essentially, Lewis is saying that reason cannot prove the truth of
anything, including its own existence, if it is not assumed from the
outset to be capable of providing a valid method of finding truth.
Theists believe reason is valid because it comes from the mind of God;
admittedly that's an assumption. Atheists believe reason is valid
because it is useful, but that itself is an argument using reason and so,
whether they recognize it or not, they also are making an assumption.

Well, sure. It's the same assumption for atheists as for (some)
theists. The way I remember it, Lewis seemed to think that his
argument was a good reason to believe in God, but I think all it does
is put belief and unbelief on the same footing. Which they are--if
you want to reason, you have to take the potential validity of reason
as an axiom. Lewis is quite right to point out that you can't derive
it by any reasoning.

Of course I could be remembering wrong.

Post by Wayne Brown
I'll have to check my copes of Lewis's books when I get home, but I
believe this particular argument may have come from "The Abolition of Man"
rather than from "Mere Christianity."

At this point I have no idea whether I've read extracts from that or
not.

[Michael J Davis]

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Wayne Brown

Post by Jerry Friedman
One was that he said that if our reasoning ability came about from
natural processes such as evolution, rather than as a gift from God, we
had no reason to trust it.
But we'd expect reasoning ability that evolved to be reliable enough to
be useful for survival. Also, God might not have given us reliable
reasoning ability either. In fact, we know our intelligence isn't
perfect, and most Christians say there are things in Christianity that
we're incapable of understanding. So the argument is pointless; both
evolution and creation can explain why our reasoning ability is the way
it is, with evolution being the one that can give a better explanation
than "Because God happened to want it that way."
(I hope I'm stating his argument correctly. I can't find it in /Mere
Christianity/ at Google Books.)

One part you didn't mention was his objection that using a logical
argument about evolution (or anything else) to prove that human reason
gives genuine insights into reality is not valid; he compares it to a
defendant testifying on his own behalf. For instance, consider this
Evolution favors traits which give a survival advantage.
The ability to reason accurately would give a survival advantage.
Therefore, evolution favors the ability to reason accurately.
But Lewis points out that to accept such an argument, you have to already
believe that logical arguments can establish truth, which is exactly
what you're trying to prove.
Essentially, Lewis is saying that reason cannot prove the truth of
anything, including its own existence, if it is not assumed from the
outset to be capable of providing a valid method of finding truth.
Theists believe reason is valid because it comes from the mind of God;
admittedly that's an assumption. Atheists believe reason is valid
because it is useful, but that itself is an argument using reason and so,
whether they recognize it or not, they also are making an assumption.

Well, sure. It's the same assumption for atheists as for (some)
theists. The way I remember it, Lewis seemed to think that his
argument was a good reason to believe in God, but I think all it does
is put belief and unbelief on the same footing. Which they are--if
you want to reason, you have to take the potential validity of reason
as an axiom. Lewis is quite right to point out that you can't derive
it by any reasoning.
Of course I could be remembering wrong.

Post by Wayne Brown
I'll have to check my copes of Lewis's books when I get home, but I
believe this particular argument may have come from "The Abolition of Man"
rather than from "Mere Christianity."

At this point I have no idea whether I've read extracts from that or
not.

Sorry I haven't anything to contribute to this discussion right now. but
this is just a signal from outer space - to let you know that you guys
are not on your own.

It would be nice to have this group active again!

Blessings

Mike

[Steve Hayes]

On Tue, 10 Mar 2015 16:27:28 +0000, Michael J Davis

Post by Michael J Davis

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Wayne Brown

Post by Jerry Friedman
One was that he said that if our reasoning ability came about from
natural processes such as evolution, rather than as a gift from God, we
had no reason to trust it.
But we'd expect reasoning ability that evolved to be reliable enough to
be useful for survival. Also, God might not have given us reliable
reasoning ability either. In fact, we know our intelligence isn't
perfect, and most Christians say there are things in Christianity that
we're incapable of understanding. So the argument is pointless; both
evolution and creation can explain why our reasoning ability is the way
it is, with evolution being the one that can give a better explanation
than "Because God happened to want it that way."
(I hope I'm stating his argument correctly. I can't find it in /Mere
Christianity/ at Google Books.)

One part you didn't mention was his objection that using a logical
argument about evolution (or anything else) to prove that human reason
gives genuine insights into reality is not valid; he compares it to a
defendant testifying on his own behalf. For instance, consider this
Evolution favors traits which give a survival advantage.
The ability to reason accurately would give a survival advantage.
Therefore, evolution favors the ability to reason accurately.
But Lewis points out that to accept such an argument, you have to already
believe that logical arguments can establish truth, which is exactly
what you're trying to prove.
Essentially, Lewis is saying that reason cannot prove the truth of
anything, including its own existence, if it is not assumed from the
outset to be capable of providing a valid method of finding truth.
Theists believe reason is valid because it comes from the mind of God;
admittedly that's an assumption. Atheists believe reason is valid
because it is useful, but that itself is an argument using reason and so,
whether they recognize it or not, they also are making an assumption.

Well, sure. It's the same assumption for atheists as for (some)
theists. The way I remember it, Lewis seemed to think that his
argument was a good reason to believe in God, but I think all it does
is put belief and unbelief on the same footing. Which they are--if
you want to reason, you have to take the potential validity of reason
as an axiom. Lewis is quite right to point out that you can't derive
it by any reasoning.
Of course I could be remembering wrong.

Post by Wayne Brown
I'll have to check my copes of Lewis's books when I get home, but I
believe this particular argument may have come from "The Abolition of Man"
rather than from "Mere Christianity."

At this point I have no idea whether I've read extracts from that or
not.

Sorry I haven't anything to contribute to this discussion right now. but
this is just a signal from outer space - to let you know that you guys
are not on your own.
It would be nice to have this group active again!

Most of those participating in the discussion are not actually reading
this ng. It was crossposted between several ngs, and thus a
conversation could take place.

[Wayne Brown]

Post by Steve Hayes
On Tue, 10 Mar 2015 16:27:28 +0000, Michael J Davis

Post by Michael J Davis

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Wayne Brown

Post by Jerry Friedman
One was that he said that if our reasoning ability came about from
natural processes such as evolution, rather than as a gift from God, we
had no reason to trust it.
But we'd expect reasoning ability that evolved to be reliable enough to
be useful for survival. Also, God might not have given us reliable
reasoning ability either. In fact, we know our intelligence isn't
perfect, and most Christians say there are things in Christianity that
we're incapable of understanding. So the argument is pointless; both
evolution and creation can explain why our reasoning ability is the way
it is, with evolution being the one that can give a better explanation
than "Because God happened to want it that way."
(I hope I'm stating his argument correctly. I can't find it in /Mere
Christianity/ at Google Books.)

One part you didn't mention was his objection that using a logical
argument about evolution (or anything else) to prove that human reason
gives genuine insights into reality is not valid; he compares it to a
defendant testifying on his own behalf. For instance, consider this
Evolution favors traits which give a survival advantage.
The ability to reason accurately would give a survival advantage.
Therefore, evolution favors the ability to reason accurately.
But Lewis points out that to accept such an argument, you have to already
believe that logical arguments can establish truth, which is exactly
what you're trying to prove.
Essentially, Lewis is saying that reason cannot prove the truth of
anything, including its own existence, if it is not assumed from the
outset to be capable of providing a valid method of finding truth.
Theists believe reason is valid because it comes from the mind of God;
admittedly that's an assumption. Atheists believe reason is valid
because it is useful, but that itself is an argument using reason and so,
whether they recognize it or not, they also are making an assumption.

Well, sure. It's the same assumption for atheists as for (some)
theists. The way I remember it, Lewis seemed to think that his
argument was a good reason to believe in God, but I think all it does
is put belief and unbelief on the same footing. Which they are--if
you want to reason, you have to take the potential validity of reason
as an axiom. Lewis is quite right to point out that you can't derive
it by any reasoning.
Of course I could be remembering wrong.

Post by Wayne Brown
I'll have to check my copes of Lewis's books when I get home, but I
believe this particular argument may have come from "The Abolition of Man"
rather than from "Mere Christianity."

At this point I have no idea whether I've read extracts from that or
not.

Sorry I haven't anything to contribute to this discussion right now. but
this is just a signal from outer space - to let you know that you guys
are not on your own.
It would be nice to have this group active again!

Most of those participating in the discussion are not actually reading
this ng. It was crossposted between several ngs, and thus a
conversation could take place.

I'm reading two of them: alt.usage.english and alt.books.cs-lewis

[Steve Hayes]

On Mon, 16 Feb 2015 08:40:07 -0700, Jerry Friedman

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Steve Hayes
On Sun, 15 Feb 2015 09:45:09 -0700, Jerry Friedman

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Steve Hayes

Post by Jerry Friedman
...

Post by Steve Hayes

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Steve Hayes
Those who regard Lewis as a heretic seem to be mainly of the
ultra-Calvinist persuasion.
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/church/6-heretics-should-be-banned-evangelicalism

You did see that the article ends with a plea for tolerance, right? I
don't see where the article connects anti-Lewis beliefs to Calvinism,
and when I've read articles calling Lewis a heretic, I haven't noticed
any Calvinism--though I might miss some hints.

Yes, the writer is Evangelical, and is writing against Fundamentalist polemics
that are often aimed at appealing to Evangelicals. The penal substitution view
of the atonement that Lewis was accused of rejecting is basically a Calvinist
one,

I didn't know that.

Post by Steve Hayes
and accepted by most Fundamentalists. I think that they would argue that
it is one of the Fundamentals.

Okay, but to say about the same thing as Catherine Jefferson from
another angle, the reason the fundamentalists accept it has little or
nothing to do with Calvin. They just have the same literal reading that
he had. It doesn't mean that they agree with Calvin on any other
points, such as predestination, as I understand it. So I wouldn't call
them "ultra-Calvinist".

No, I wouldn't call Fundamentalists ultra-Calvinist either.

All right, I conflated anti-Lewis and fundamentalist. But I think all
the Lewis-was-a-heretic articles I've read have been by fundamentalists,
and I don't recall a single mention of predestination, which makes me
doubt that the authors were ultra-Calvinists.

I think most of the Christian anti-Lewis polemics I have read are
Fundamentalist too. But though not ultra-Calvinist,

Then we agree more than I thought.

Post by Steve Hayes
most
Fundamentalists are Calvinist to some extent. Predestination is not
the only Calvinist doctrine.

Okay, I'm sure I'm sure it isn't.

Post by Steve Hayes

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Steve Hayes
I think that some
ultra-Calvinists would doubt whether Calvin was a true Calvinist.
I was once at a conference where my roommate was an ultra-Calvinist, and he
carefully interrogated me on each of the five points of TULIP in turn. By the
time he reached the fourth one he had decided I was a damned and damnable
heretic, and asked the conference organisers to move him to another room.

Charming.
"Do you believe we are totally depraved, with no merit of our own?"
"I believe I've had a long trip to get here and am not interested in
being questioned at the moment."
(Obviously you were willing to answer his questions, so I'm imagining
the kind of response he got other times.)

Much of his questioning was devoted to quite subtle distinctions (at
least they are to most people) about imputed and imparted
righteousness and things like that (if you didn't know, to TULIP
Calvenists, the former is OK, and the latter is heretical).

I certainly didn't know.

I wouldn't have expected you to.

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Steve Hayes
And I'm pretty sure he didn't approve of C.S. Lewis either.
For what it's worth, he belonged to a denomination called the Church
of England in South Africa,

A church called "Church of England..." was Calvinist?

It has a long a complicated history, and is probably not something you
really want to know.

The Wikipedia article tells more:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_England_in_South_Africa

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Steve Hayes
and it was quite a while ago. I believe
they've mellowed a bit since then, but they were the original
"religious right".

In South Africa, maybe.

Actually not even in South Africa. That honour perhaps belongsd to the
Nederduitsh Hervormde Kerk, which included in its constitution the
article that there should be no equality (between black and white) in
church or state.

They were theologically liberal, but politically conservative (very).

[Catherine Jefferson]

[alt.usage.english snipped; this has nothing to do with English usage]

Post by Steve Hayes
Actually not even in South Africa. That honour perhaps belongsd to the
Nederduitsh Hervormde Kerk, which included in its constitution the
article that there should be no equality (between black and white) in
church or state.
They were theologically liberal, but politically conservative (very).

Considering Galatians 3:28, they'd have to be VERY theologically liberal
-- to the point of believing that they were free to completely ignore
the teaching of the Apostles and the Fathers of the Church when they
disapproved of it -- to take a position like that. <wry grin> St. Paul
doesn't mention "black nor white" in his list, but if that distinction
had been a significant issue in the Roman Empire, I'm quite certain that
he would have:

27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on
Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave
nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one
in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are
Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.

Given the early history of Christianity, it's amazing how many parts of
it have accepted slavery and slaveholding within the Church. :/ Goes to
show just how easy people find it to ignore inconvenient teachings of
their religion when it interferes with their personal desires or comfort
levels.

[Steve Hayes]

On Wed, 18 Feb 2015 12:29:23 -0800, Catherine Jefferson

Post by Catherine Jefferson
[alt.usage.english snipped; this has nothing to do with English usage]

Post by Steve Hayes
Actually not even in South Africa. That honour perhaps belongsd to the
Nederduitsh Hervormde Kerk, which included in its constitution the
article that there should be no equality (between black and white) in
church or state.
They were theologically liberal, but politically conservative (very).

Considering Galatians 3:28, they'd have to be VERY theologically liberal
-- to the point of believing that they were free to completely ignore
the teaching of the Apostles and the Fathers of the Church when they
disapproved of it -- to take a position like that. <wry grin> St. Paul
doesn't mention "black nor white" in his list, but if that distinction
had been a significant issue in the Roman Empire, I'm quite certain that
27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on
Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave
nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one
in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are
Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.
Given the early history of Christianity, it's amazing how many parts of
it have accepted slavery and slaveholding within the Church. :/ Goes to
show just how easy people find it to ignore inconvenient teachings of
their religion when it interferes with their personal desires or comfort
levels.

Theological liberalism often goes hand in hand with political
conservatism and vice versa.

Theological liberalism is based on the idea that the church must adapt
to the world and current culture, ie the status quo.

As G.K. Chesterton put it, if the vision of heaven is always changing,
the vision of earth will always remain exactly the same.

[Catherine Jefferson]

Post by Steve Hayes
Theological liberalism is based on the idea that the church must adapt
to the world and current culture, ie the status quo.
As G.K. Chesterton put it, if the vision of heaven is always changing,
the vision of earth will always remain exactly the same.

Chesterton had a knack for stating essential issues in a very few words
that could not be ignored. He wasn't an inkling, but he influenced most
of them. C.S. Lewis loved his work.

Speaking of influences on Lewis and other Inklings, are you familiar
with William Morris's "The Well at the World's End"?

[Steve Hayes]

On Wed, 18 Feb 2015 19:40:22 -0800, Catherine Jefferson

Post by Catherine Jefferson

Post by Steve Hayes
Theological liberalism is based on the idea that the church must adapt
to the world and current culture, ie the status quo.
As G.K. Chesterton put it, if the vision of heaven is always changing,
the vision of earth will always remain exactly the same.

Chesterton had a knack for stating essential issues in a very few words
that could not be ignored. He wasn't an inkling, but he influenced most
of them. C.S. Lewis loved his work.
Speaking of influences on Lewis and other Inklings, are you familiar
with William Morris's "The Well at the World's End"?

Yes, I have read it, though I didn't think it compared very well with
stuff that the Inklings wrote.

[Wayne Brown]

Post by Catherine Jefferson

Post by Steve Hayes
Theological liberalism is based on the idea that the church must adapt
to the world and current culture, ie the status quo.
As G.K. Chesterton put it, if the vision of heaven is always changing,
the vision of earth will always remain exactly the same.

Chesterton had a knack for stating essential issues in a very few words
that could not be ignored. He wasn't an inkling, but he influenced most
of them. C.S. Lewis loved his work.
Speaking of influences on Lewis and other Inklings, are you familiar
with William Morris's "The Well at the World's End"?

I only became aware of "The Well at the World's End" fairly recently (in
the last decade or so) but I think very highly of it. Another book Lewis
cited as an influence on him was David Lindsay's "A Voyage to Arcturus"
which I discovered young (before discovering Lewis) and have read several
times over the years (though not in the last couple of decades).

[Don Phillipson]

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Steve Hayes
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/church/6-heretics-should-be-banned-evangelicalism

You did see that the article ends with a plea for tolerance, right? I
don't see where the article connects anti-Lewis beliefs to Calvinism, and
when I've read articles calling Lewis a heretic, I haven't noticed any
Calvinism--though I might miss some hints.

One element may have been Lewis's childhood in Belfast where
Calvinism influences all Protestant denominations, even the C of E.
(But Lewis abandoned his childhood religion in the First World
War, and only reconverted later after some years in Oxford.)

[Adam Funk]

Post by Don Phillipson

Post by Jerry Friedman

Post by Steve Hayes
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/church/6-heretics-should-be-banned-evangelicalism

You did see that the article ends with a plea for tolerance, right? I
don't see where the article connects anti-Lewis beliefs to Calvinism, and
when I've read articles calling Lewis a heretic, I haven't noticed any
Calvinism--though I might miss some hints.

One element may have been Lewis's childhood in Belfast where
Calvinism influences all Protestant denominations, even the C of E.

I'm surprised by that last bit: I know an Anglican priest originally
from Belfast, & he doesn't strike me as Calvinist.

Post by Don Phillipson
(But Lewis abandoned his childhood religion in the First World
War, and only reconverted later after some years in Oxford.)

"learning from the mistakes of the past" ;-)