I've found your personality and aplomb to be superior to that of Lewis's when dealing with opposing views from both non-Christians & Christians. (I wonder whether Lewis would have ever read Leaving the Fold and contacted its author and then sent him/me emails inviting critiques of philosophical arguments you were using in your classes, as you did when we first met. Chesterton might have done so, as he was even friends with an atheistic anti-Catholic like H.G. Wells--whom Chesterton even hoped to see in heaven one day--but I'm unsure whether Lewis would have done so. The way Lewis in his letters sneers at Eliot, and also Logan Pearsal Smith, and the way Lewis caricatures materialists and atheists, never rose to as high a level of comraderie and comedy as Chesterton did in his books, such as in "Shaw" in which Chesterton mentioned that the infidel George Bernard Shaw would have been a great saint had he lived in a different day and age.)
In fact your personality is such that I wonder sometimes why you still cling as tightly as you do to so much of Lewis. It does not appear to me that Lewis understood materialism/physicalism, nor the objections to spiritualism/supernaturalism, nor even all of the points in favor of a Calvinistic interpretation of at least parts of the Bible, parts of the Bible that Lewis may have despised, though no one pressed him on the matter.
Nor was Lewis bothered in the least by the known existence of first century palestinian religious kooks, quacks and rabid enthusiasts, including those living in intertestamental times who began naming the angels and demons and playing up eternal punishments and the role of the dark side, and the "election" of only some, and a final earthly battle in fact (centering on Jerusalem), and heavenly saviors, all before Jesus was born.
Neither does Lewis mention what is commonplace knowledge among scholars today namely that the worship of the Roman Emperor Augustus spread very quickly, with words like "savior," "son of god" and "gospel" being used in reference to the divine emperor Augustus and his mission on earth, before Jesus was even born. Augustus was even in the image of god according to the ways in which he was depicted. And Augustus's body supposedly vanished after hid death and a voice from heaven cried out that he was not there, according to stories that spread after his death. So Christianity in the Roman world had to compete with divine-human cult figures, including the Emperor who lived when Jesus was born, and whose life and the language spoken about him, may certainly have influenced that way the Gospels were authored and their chosen terms and depictions of Jesus.
4 comments:
I believe Lewis called those "howlers".
Think of it as somewhat like an Honorary Doctorate!
Vic,
I've found your personality and aplomb to be superior to that of Lewis's when dealing with opposing views from both non-Christians & Christians. (I wonder whether Lewis would have ever read Leaving the Fold and contacted its author and then sent him/me emails inviting critiques of philosophical arguments you were using in your classes, as you did when we first met. Chesterton might have done so, as he was even friends with an atheistic anti-Catholic like H.G. Wells--whom Chesterton even hoped to see in heaven one day--but I'm unsure whether Lewis would have done so. The way Lewis in his letters sneers at Eliot, and also Logan Pearsal Smith, and the way Lewis caricatures materialists and atheists, never rose to as high a level of comraderie and comedy as Chesterton did in his books, such as in "Shaw" in which Chesterton mentioned that the infidel George Bernard Shaw would have been a great saint had he lived in a different day and age.)
In fact your personality is such that I wonder sometimes why you still cling as tightly as you do to so much of Lewis. It does not appear to me that Lewis understood materialism/physicalism, nor the objections to spiritualism/supernaturalism, nor even all of the points in favor of a Calvinistic interpretation of at least parts of the Bible, parts of the Bible that Lewis may have despised, though no one pressed him on the matter.
Nor was Lewis bothered in the least by the known existence of first century palestinian religious kooks, quacks and rabid enthusiasts, including those living in intertestamental times who began naming the angels and demons and playing up eternal punishments and the role of the dark side, and the "election" of only some, and a final earthly battle in fact (centering on Jerusalem), and heavenly saviors, all before Jesus was born.
Neither does Lewis mention what is commonplace knowledge among scholars today namely that the worship of the Roman Emperor Augustus spread very quickly, with words like "savior," "son of god" and "gospel" being used in reference to the divine emperor Augustus and his mission on earth, before Jesus was even born. Augustus was even in the image of god according to the ways in which he was depicted. And Augustus's body supposedly vanished after hid death and a voice from heaven cried out that he was not there, according to stories that spread after his death. So Christianity in the Roman world had to compete with divine-human cult figures, including the Emperor who lived when Jesus was born, and whose life and the language spoken about him, may certainly have influenced that way the Gospels were authored and their chosen terms and depictions of Jesus.
Yes! That dastardly Lewis would probably *dare* to question and explicitly point out the flaws in the "arguments" of today's pretend-atheists.
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