Sarah replies, “You claim your conclusion “It’s a confused myth arising from men” several times.

Not true Sarah. he asks readers to ‘consider’ that notion one time, in this post.

Seems to me Sarah, that you are a great wordsmith, perhaps better than the great C.S.Lewis himself with your awesome put down here.

You’re likely right, in so far as this criticism of Lewis’ book won’t be your ‘cup of tea’. But, I think that you, implying that Deacon Duncan argue that Christianity is a myth, starting from scratch, (as if you cannot read his position through this entire blog), might persuade you to view it(his criticism) in a better light, is at least disingenuous of you, if not just another, shall we say ‘untruth’.

Merry Christmas, and a happy Festivus for the rest of us!

My original point has been lost in this, which was that your review (so far) was not that good as you were just assuming a conclusion and justifying what you read in light of that.

I disagree. My comments quite explicitly contrast Lewis’ superstitious explanation with a non-superstitious alternative. I begin with observations about the characteristics of sentient and instinctively social species, and how their conduct would be affected by an awareness of the consequences (including the social consequences) of their actions. If you wish to argue that intelligent beings would not normally be influenced by an awareness of the consequences of their actions, then you can dispute my claims on factual grounds. Or if you do not believe that such factors would give rise to the kind of social conventions that, in turn, produce the kinds of moral systems we see in real life, then by all means voice your objections.

In the meantime, I am contrasting the two alternatives, and showing how Lewis’ superstitious alternative (a) is entirely superfluous and (b) has a number of inherent problems and self-contradictions, not to mention serious problems with the real-world evidence, which prevent us (or should prevent us) from taking it seriously as an intellectually viable possibility. Lewis’ answer is mere superstition: taking an observed phenomenon and giving credit for it to some supernatural power or person, without offering us any kind of verifiable connection between the two, and without even suggesting what such a connection ought to look like were we to go looking for it. That’s flawed reasoning, irrespective of what my or anyone else’s bias might be.

My conclusion therefore, which I arrived at by comparing two conflicting alternatives in the light of real-world evidence, is that the non-superstitious alternative explains more than Lewis’ superstitious answer, is more consistent with the real-world evidence, lacks the internal inconsistencies that Lewis’ has, and is therefore much more likely to be true. If you wish to take issue with that conclusion, then you will have to address the specific points I raise, and not just make vague accusations.

This means we have two avenues by which we may evaluate the truth of what someone says, for in order to be genuine, real-world truth, a thing must be consistent both with itself and with the objective reality. That which contradicts itself is not truth, and that which is inconsistent with objective reality, whether or not it is self-consistent, is likewise false.

Contradictions in the Bible are sufficient to falsify the claim that the Bible is infallible truth. I do not conclude from this that everything the Bible says, or that Christians believe, must necessarily be false. That would be silly! But here the Gospel story begins to unravel, because if the Bible is not infallible, then those who claim scriptural inerrancy are likewise not infallible. And so on.

Once you realize that it is right and proper to evaluate the words of men (including the words of apostles) in the light of real-world evidence, it becomes fairly straightforward to show that, no matter how elaborate the reasonings and arguments of believers, the non-superstitious alternatives are more consistent with real-world truth. At that point it becomes fair to say, as a general principle, that Christianity is not The Truth. There may be things in the religion that are true (just as can be said for all religions), but you can’t take the religion’s word for it: you must evaluate each claim in the light of reality. And that ends up being more or less what I am trying to do with this series.

As evidence of the near-infinite plasticity of the written word, this is useful. My comment above replied to this taking “they are not telling the truth” to mean “they are lying”. You could alternatively have meant “the thing that they are saying is not true”, with no reference to them.

If that is the case then it still depends what you mean by “they are not telling the truth”. If they are saying “this is all true” and some of it is contradictory, then they are wrong in their assertion that it is “all” true. The truth of the rest of it is still unproven.
If someone were to assert “They contradict themselves, therefore we can assume that none of what they say is true”, that’s easily falsified: “The Earth is flat, the Earth is not flat”

If you wish to say “Christianity is self contradictory therefore it is not true” then you need the hidden proposition “True religions would not be mistaken ever”

That’s a great attitude! I agree with you, I always hope to meet a staunch opponent against whom to test my arguments. Nothing bores me more than ‘debating’ things for more than five minutes with people who already agree with me. Nice to meet you.

“My commentary on Lewis is naturally written from that perspective.”

Unfortunately this may mean that your critique is just not for me. I’m happy with an argument that makes or uses that conclusion, as long as it is evidenced, but if you’re starting from that conclusion and then analysing from there, that’s less useful to me.

“When someone contradicts themselves, and you conclude that they are therefore not telling the truth, how would one go about falsifying that conclusion?”

In this case you would need to falsify “Those who contradict themselves are always lying”, which is easily done. Mistakes happen, obviously. Then you would need to falsify “Those who contradict themselves in this manner are lying often enough that it is safe for me to assume that they are lying”. That would be harder, but entirely possible. If the test you choose does not falsify your opinion, and is a suitable test, then you can safely believe that they are lying. But if anyone else falsifies your conclusion with a different test you would need to re-examine it.

“Of course, my conclusions are falsifiable in that God could easily prove that Christianity was not a confused myth by the simple expedient of showing up to spend time with us in person, consistent with the great, humble, self-sacrificing love which He allegedly has for us.”

Yes, that would be one way of falsifying your conclusion, but only one of many.
I am not making a religious vs. atheist argument here, though, merely an evidential one.
The conclusion “The inconsistencies of Christian teaching are solid evidence that Christianity arises from fallible human sources rather than from infallible and divine inspiration” is very overstated. There are plenty of other things this could be indicative of, thus it is not ‘solid’ evidence by many meaning of the word.*
In fact, I think the evidence only supports the contention that “Christianity is promulgated and taught by fallible human sources”. Beyond that Christianity could be true or false, but either way you would see what we see now.

It’s insufficient to show inconsistency in human beings to demonstrate the false nature of religion. We already know that humans are highly fallible, that doesn’t imply anything about the truth of any religion, unless you believe the hidden proposition “Any true religion would be kept pure by God”

To put this point in a more formal way: Your conclusion can be restated as “It is impossible for a religion to be true if it is taught in an inconsistent manner”. This is easily falsified, many true things are taught inconsistently by fallible mistaken human beings. Then you can take “It is very unlikely for a religion to be true if it is taught in an inconsistent manner”, to which the question is: Why? As it stands that is a positive assertion, and thus requires evidence. I would contest, instead, that “It is very unlikely for a true religion to be taught in a consistent manner unless this is enforced by the Deity”, my evidence: people are fallible and inconsistent all over the place. That’s just what people do. Why would they be any different with truth unless something intervened?

Sorry if I am diverting from what was originally a comment on your review to more of a comment on your a-priori conclusions about Christianity. My original point has been lost in this, which was that your review (so far) was not that good as you were just assuming a conclusion and justifying what you read in light of that. I was wrong, your review is useful, but only to atheists who believe that religion arose from confused myth making*. In that respect it’s as good as a Christian review of a book that uses the a-priori “True morality comes from God alone”. Sure it’s a useful review to those who agree already, but it’s damn useless for anyone else. (*And not say, the natural desire to make morality and history ‘official’ by writing it down, combined with the fact that the written word is has almost infinite plasticity and can be interpreted to mean any one of many many things.)

p.s. In light of your first paragraph, I assume that neither of us will just assume that the other is stupid or evil merely because they persistantly disagree with us, even though we can quite clearly see why the other is wrong and are amazed that they don’t get it? I hope so.

As to your comments, when I say Christianity is a confused myth arising from men, I am not drawing that conclusion from reading Mere Christianity. It’s a conclusion I’ve come to over the course of about 30 years of experience as a devout, Bible-believing evangelical Christian, Sunday school teacher, Bible study leader, lay preacher, and deacon. Plus what I’ve learned in the 10 years since, of course. My commentary on Lewis is naturally written from that perspective.

As for falsifying my conclusion, that could be a bit trickier. When someone contradicts themselves, and you conclude that they are therefore not telling the truth, how would one go about falsifying that conclusion? Of course, my conclusions are falsifiable in that God could easily prove that Christianity was not a confused myth by the simple expedient of showing up to spend time with us in person, consistent with the great, humble, self-sacrificing love which He allegedly has for us. But then again, if real-world circumstances were consistent with Christianity being true, then I wouldn’t have drawn my conclusions in the first place, since I started out as a devout believer.

Hope the next few posts improve on that.

However, I appreciate that you are treating C.S. Lewis so respectfully here (at least so far!). However flawed his reasoning is in this book, from what little I know of him he seems to have been a basically decent man, and I would rather attribute his flawed reasoning to normal human self-deception rather than to deliberate disingenuousness (as is more obviously the case with such authors as, say, Geisler and Turek).

~David D.G.

Other than that, the commentary looks excellent and … I’m much looking forward to see what someone else makes of ‘Mere Christianity’.

Thanks,
Nathan

Anyway, looking forward to it with bated breath. You are taking on the holiest of holies.