Sunday, January 17, 2010

Is it Reasonable to Believe in God? - Mere Christianity

Every once in a while I read a book that is so good that I get a little upset.  This happened to me the first time I read a Charles Dickens novel.  I was 20 or 21 years old and I read Nicholas Nickleby.  I marvelled that there could be such writing - such thoughts - such wisdom out there, and I hadn't been aware of it until I was in my twenties!

So I read a second Charles Dickens novel (Great Expectations) and I marveled again because I realized that the first time wasn't a fluke!

Later, I read Jane Austen books for the first time - I found that there was a whole world of these great minds out there - great thinkers who wrote their thoughts on paper and their words were sitting on library shelves - waiting for me to discover them!

Why did this upset me?

Because it had taken me 20+ years to find them!  I knew I could have been much wiser in my youth if my mind had been opened a little by these wise stories.  As I read them, I knew they were books everyone ought to read, so I wondered why I didn't know how important they were.  I knew it was my fault - I was used to all the watered-down versions of great writing that you get in text books, and that's what I had chosen.  I'm sure I read a few classics in high school, but I skimmed them just enough to get a good grade - I didn't realize what they had to offer.  After all, I already knew everything back then.

Once I realized what I was missing, I felt determined to get it!   It's too bad I didn't realize it when I was younger though - I had a lot more time to read them!  Now, as a busy mom, I'm plugging away at them - slowly but surely!  However, I'm probably getting more out them now than I would have back then anyway. 

I just finished Mere Christianity and it was one of those books that upset me.  It was just so good and I hadn't known until now!  I saw the great need for this book in our world, and felt sad that it sits on shelves - untouched by so many who could really use it (I feel the same way about the Bible and the Book of Mormon - these histories speak to our Spirits and witness of their truth.  Mere Christianity is the type of book that opens your mind and allows you to let truth enter, so your Spirit can be uninterrupted by the clutter of preconceived notions about what truth "ought" to be).

I especially enjoyed it because I was talking to a friend about atheism recently.  She mentioned that she thought a person could only come to believe in religion through their feelings, and since feelings couldn't be trusted - a person could not really know that there was a God.

I wanted to explain that it not only feels right, but that it also makes a lot of sense if you really take the time to ponder and think about it.  Not too many people will put this kind of mental effort into life.  It is easy to go through the motions in life without stopping to examine them very thoroughly The truth penetrates your heart, but it can also penetrate your head if you can manage to get rid of some pre-conceived notions and really try to seek what is real.

That is just what C.S. Lewis did.  Mere Christianity puts those truths in a very logical and clear way.  He lifts the fog from our minds for a minute.  C. S. Lewis was a very intellectual atheist who became a very intellectual Christian.  He not only explains how it is very reasonable and logical to believe in God (as many great thinkers have), but takes it a step further and shows how it is also reasonable to believe in Christ.  I'm not saying that an atheist who reads it will suddenly become Christian.  You need both your mind and your heart to go that far (you can talk yourself out of anything if you really want to - no matter how much sense it made to you at one time).  I do, however, think that a person who is being kept from believing in God because certain things don't make sense to them, will have an enlightening experience if they choose to read this book.

If I tried to write my favorite quotes, I would be writing down the whole book, so I will have to settle for writing down a few of passages that I liked.

On judging:
"It is as well to put this the other way round.  Some of us who seem quite nice people may, in fact, have made so little use of a good heredity and a good upbringing that we are really worse than those whom we reagard as fiends.  Can we be quite certain how we should have behaved if we had been saddled with the psychological outfit, and then with the bad upbringing, and then with the power, say , of Himmler?  That is why Christians are told not to judge.  We see only the results which a man's choices make out of his raw material.  But God does not judge him on the raw material at all, but on what he has done with it.  Most of the man's psychological make-up is probably due to his body: when his body dies all that will fall off him, and the real central man, the thing that chose, that made the best or the worst out of this material, will stand naked....We shall then, for the first time, see everyone as he really was.  There will be surprises."
On choice:
"People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, 'If you keep a lot of rules I'll reward you, and if you don't I'll do the other thing'... I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before..."

On anger:
"One man may be so placed that his anger shed the blood of thousands, and another so placed that however angry he gets he will only be laughed at.  But the little mark on the soul may be much the same in both.  Each has done something to himself which, unless he repents, will make it harder for him to keep out of the rage next time he is tempted, and will make the rage worse when he does fall into it.  Each of them, if he seriously turns to God, can have that twist in the central man straightened out again: each is in the long run doomed if he will not."
"Perhaps my bad temper or my jealousy are gradually getting worse---so gradually that the increase in seventy years will not be very noticeable.  But it might be absolute hell in a million years: in fact, if Christianity is true, Hell is the precisely correct technical term for what it would be."
 On science:
"Science works by experiments it watches how things behave...Do not think I am saying anything against science.  I am only saying what its job is.  And the more scientific a man is, the more (I believe) he would agree with me that this is the job of science---and a very useful and necessary job it is too.  But why anything comes to be there at all, and whether there is anything behind the things science observes---something of a different kind---this is not a scientific question.  If there is "Something Behind," then either it will have to remain altogether unknown to men or else make itself known in some different way.  The statement that there is any such thing, and the statement that there is no such thing, are neither of them statements that science can make.  Supposing science ever became complete so that it knew every single thing in the whole universe.  Is it not plain that the questions, 'Why is there a universe?' 'Why does it go on as it does?' 'Has it any meaning?' would remain just as they were?'  Now the position would be quite hopeless but for this.  There is one thing, and only one, in the whole universe which we know more about than we could learn from external observation.  That one thing is Man.  We do not merely observe men, we are men.  In this case we have so to speak, inside information; we are in the know..."
Obviously, I could go on and on - it's all wonderful.   If you haven't read it - read it!  I'm thinking I need to read the rest of his books...

14 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and the quotes from your book. For some weird reason the title of this blog entry drew my attention. ;-) On the judging section, I found it curious that the author thought that there exists an man outside of the raw material. I wonder why he thinks this way. Is it unreasonable to think that we are a physical being and that our thoughts are functions of a complex biological machine? When we “strip away” our body what makes us think there is something left? When you lose an arm there is no glowing outline of an arm. Does the spirit shrink as we remove body parts? Does it follow the brain? I wonder if people with this view feel uncomfortable around people with dementia or other mental disease? The physical changes of the brain correlate with changes in personality. I agree with the author that we should be careful when judging people because we don't have a good reference point to compare to, given we only get one life.

    Yesterday when I was watching an autopsy I saw the physician take out a persons brain and slice it up to find pathology. It made me sad inside. It seemed like someone was burning the Mona Lisa. Not thinking dualistically makes death less scary for me because I know that sadness it a biological function and that it is only felt by the living. It would be rough to watch my loved ones miss me. Is it weird that I like the idea that dead people don't feel things? The idea of having emotions for eternity scares me. Wow that was an interesting thought. I better get back to studying before I get too philosophical.

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  2. "You need both your mind and your heart to go that far."

    Very true. What Lewis says makes perfect sense to me because I want to believe. Someone who doesn't want to believe could look into the face of God and still not understand the truth.

    I want to study everything that Lewis wrote too. I've read The Weight of Glory and Mere Christianity. What should we read next?

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  3. Lara - I've read Screwtape Letters and LOVED it. I'm up for any of them. Have you heard of any recommendations?

    Pepen- I love that you said this:" I found it curious that the author thought that there exists an man outside of the raw material. I wonder why he thinks this way. Is it unreasonable to think that we are a physical being and that our thoughts are functions of a complex biological machine? When we “strip away” our body what makes us think there is something left? " You and C.S. Lewis are so much alike! I think of you often as I read his words. I think that if you ever decide to be Christian again - you would be the type that he was. You guys seem to think in the same logical way. Anyway, I would attempt to answer your question, but I would have to retype the first few chapters in his book (he goes into that exact question) to explain it as clearly as he does. I know you're busy, but if you get a chance to read the first 50 pages or so of Mere Christianity, let me know - I would love to hear what you think! (I think Darwin is coming up soon in my study plan - I'll let you know how that goes :^) )

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  4. I also really wanted to discuss the section of science. I have heard this argument before. It basically states that science answers the “how” questions and religion answers the “why” questions. I think there are good reasons why people ask questions about purpose, and that one of them is that it speeds up learning. I know my son asks why questions all day and I am grateful that he understands that my actions are not arbitrary but have a purpose. I think we run into trouble though to draw that out too far because not everything has a purpose. You could point to a rock and ask why it is there, but perhaps the answer is that it just simply is there. Perhaps that rock is there because some lizard bumped to one centimeter to the left 300 years ago and it hasn't moved back. No one purposefully moved it there. So I don't believe that all why questions need to have an answer or that religion has a monopoly on the answers. So the question “why are we here?” presupposes that we have some great purpose. If that were not so, wouldn't we be satisfied by answering the question by saying that two haploid sets of chromosomes provided the instructions for a new cell to develop into a human. We could also answer it by saying that we allow energy to go into a lower state. We could also answer that we are here because our parents wanted to have children. The only reason these why questions aren't satisfactorily answered this way is that we have presupposed some greater purpose. If you want to make the argument that religion answers the questions posed by itself you are free to take comfort in that.

    I just got your response. I'll read the book if you send it to me. 8)

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  5. Pepen -Do you read books online? I don't like to, but if you do - you can read it here - http://www.philosophyforlife.com/mctoc.htm
    It's also at the NSU libaray:
    BT77 .L348 2001 ; Sherman Library
    But I think it is checked out. I'm sure it's at your local library also if you have a membership there.
    Let me know if you don't have a membership - I'll send you my copy.

    About your comment on science-
    Mankind invented science in order to answer questions that were posed by mankind. The quote above is just saying that it can't answer all of the questions that are posed by mankind. Maybe there is a purpose to our being here - maybe not - we can't find that answer through science. In fact, we can't really make any inferences based on science - those require our reasoning abilities.
    Maybe there is no need to know anything outside facts that can be proved by duplicate experiments and observations. In that case, why is there a need to know anything that can be proved by duplicate experiments and observations? Maybe for our survival? I guess that would make it an instinct - which brings me back to the book - he talks about instincts and what makes us choose one instinct over another. It's very interesting. Let me know what you think of it!

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  6. The only reason it can't be answered with science is that you have tailored the question to be unanswerable. For example you could say that science can never answer the question as to why circles aren't squares. Like I said before it only serves to answer problems created by religion itself. One of the purposes of your life is to provide a mechanism for your genetic material to survive another generation. You also serve the purpose of transforming O2 into CO2 for plants to use. Your ability to move gives plants a good mechanism for transporting their seeds. A lot of bacteria depend on you for their survival. Many can't survive without a human host. The only reason these answers to the purpose of life don't satisfy, is that you have supposed a greater purpose for yourself. You can't blame science for not being able to satisfy delusions of grandeur.

    I tried to understand the last paragraph but failed. Could you clarify what you are saying there?

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  7. Sure, I was basically just asking why mankind has a need for science.

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  8. Oh, also, I wasn't trying to say that science doesn't explain our reason for being here, I was saying that science doesn't explain anything. It can't, but you already know that.

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  9. I should probably also add that if you say that the need for science is to find unbiased truth, I will want to ask why we care. That would be an unanswerable "why" question so a better question might be - what is it about man that makes him search for truth? That is what brought me to instinct which is what brought me back to C.S. Lewis' book. I can't wait to hear your thoughts on it.

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  10. It sounds like a fascinating book - I think I'll look for it next time I go to the library. I love all your book recommendations - I think I have a lot of reading to do.

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  11. Thanks for your courteous response. I enjoy hearing your thoughts. I sure would like to get Ces' thoughts on these things too. He likes to philosophize with me and these are great topics. Maybe we should message him on Facebook.

    I think the reason we care about unbiased truth is that it is beneficial to our species. If we believed everything we heard we would be pretty easy to take advantage of. For example if Ug the caveman was wanting our cave he might tell us that the tar pits are a fun way of spending time. If we were kind of gullible Ug might be the greatest survivor. It doesn't seem like a stretch for me that there is an inherent benefit to truth over fiction. Particularly for the survival of a species so dependent on communication and problem solving as humans. It is interesting you/he uses the word "instinct" when it describes so many phenomenon observed in other species. If other animals are known to have instincts that are much more obviously beneficial to them, why not believe that some of these instincts are also directly beneficial to us? So I guess it comes down to what benefit you are looking for. C.S. Lewis and you believe that it has the benefit of allowing us to find God. I think that it is more likely to have the benefit of helping us outsmart Ug.

    Thanks for being so nice to talk to.

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  12. Thanks Spence!
    I think it would be better if we continued this conversation off a "public" domain so I'll e-mail you my response in a little bit. Love ya!

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  13. I absolutely love Mere Christianity! It's one of my all-time favorites. Maybe you would enjoy C.S. Lewis' book "Miracles" as well.

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  14. Hey K and Spence,

    I'm guessing this is what Spencer wanted me to comment on.

    I guess I'm not really sure what to say.

    I can't honestly say I've ever asked some of these "why" questions. I can't ever remember asking myself if there was a purpose to life. My question growing up was only whether the purpose I'd been taught was correct. I heard things in church that led me to believe that it was. The history of our Church was compelling evidence for me. Why all those people would sacrifice so much for a lie made no sense to me, and what Joseph Smith was able to accomplish seemed impossible unless things were as he said.

    Since then, I've come to know God lives through prayer and answers to prayers some of which are too sacred and dear to my heart to share.

    I guess its not a very compelling philosophical response. I love you both like crazy though! :)

    -Ces

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