Don Williams’ Blog

Don August 5th, 2009

I am probably the last person in America to see the new Harry Potter movie.  I don’t have that much to say about “Half Blood Prince: The Movie.”   I suspect that anyone who had not read the books would find it disjointed and hard to follow.  But that is just one more reason to read the books!  But it did remind me of what I have to say about the books, so I copy here my review of the whole (written) series:

HARRY POTTER AND THE MEANING OF IT ALL   This review appears online at the website of Modern Reformation magazine.  The URL is:

 http://www.modernreformation.org/default.php?page=articledisplay&var1=ArtRead&var2=596&var3=main&var4=Home

   Now that the Harry Potter series has finally been completed, we can look back on the whole Potter legendarium and draw some conclusions. Despite the hysterical rants of some Christians, the books are not occultic.  None of J. K. Rowling’s magicians, not even the dark ones, has an attendant spirit or anything like that.  Their “magic” is simply an alternative set of natural laws to which Muggles do not have access. Nor are the books an advertisement for Wicca.  There is no neopaganism in the Potter universe, no worship of the Goddess or of Nature. Real-life Wiccans and other New-Age “witches” are nothing like J. K. Rowling’s magicians, which are a loose compendium of folklore, literary precedent, and her own imagination.  What religion does intrude into the story is Christian as far as it can be identified.  Biblical quotations are part of the plot of Book VII and are treated as expressing universal truths; Harry puts the sign of the cross over Dobby’s grave.

Rowling did make a tactical blunder for Christian readers in using the word witch as if it were morally neutral, in contrast to writers like C. S. Lewis, in whose Narnia books witches, reflecting biblical usage of the word, are always on the wrong side. It is curious that the word wizard (though not warlock) can be used neutrally much more easily than witch.  For a warlock is simply a male witch. In Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, Gandalf (good) and Saruman (evil) are both called wizards, but you could only call one of them a warlock and get away with it.  Less sensitive to these connotations, Rowling erects unnecessary barriers for Christian readers who remember the way the word witch is used in Scripture (though some Christians object even to Lewis and Tolkien). But this lack of semantic sensitivity is more a reflection of increasing theological illiteracy in Western society as a whole than it is of nefarious intent by Rowling.  It is certainly something to be criticized in the books, and biblical reality about real witchcraft is something to be taught to Christian children and contrasted with the diction of the Potter world; but the unfortunate nomenclature is hardly a justification for rejecting the series outright.              

In reaction to those who want to burn J. K. Rowling as a witch (after all, she probably weighs the same as a duck!), we have people trying to read the Potter books as Christian works. I think these folks are over-reaching a bit, but they have more of a leg to stand on than the witch-hunters do. There are indeed themes in the books which reflect Christian teachings, but they fall short of the clear and powerful representation of the Gospel or of the full Christian world view that one finds in Narnia or Middle Earth.

Evil in the Potter universe is associated with a Nietzschean drive for power. “There is no good and evil,” says Lord Voldemort in the very first volume, “only power and those without the courage to use it.” It is a rare moment of honesty. Usually the Death Eaters pursue power while rationalizing the moral evils they commit in order to grasp and hold it by appeals to the greater “common good” which sound downright Orwellian. We see the same basic philosophy played out in all the villains, ranging from Voldemort himself, who does not stoop to justifying the imposition of his will, to Percy, who puts a little too much stock in being Prefect and ends up a tool of the Dark Lord until his repentance near the very end. On the other side we have Dumbledore, who turns down the post of Minister of Magic, being more interested in “love, friendship, truth, and loyalty” than in power. There are good insights here into the nature of evil and how it plays itself out in our own society.

The supreme theme of the whole series is one as old at least as Chaucer’s Prioresse: Amor vincit omnia, “Love conquers all.”  It is love, not superior magical power, which conquers Lord Voldemort in the end. The central embodiment of this theme turns out to be, of all people, Severus Snape. Despite all appearances, he has actually been true to Dumbledore, killing him at the end of Book VI by Dumbledore’s own command to prevent the destruction of whatever chance for innocence remains in Draco Malfoy’s soul, and giving Harry the key to understanding everything toward the end of Book VII through the gift of his dying memories. Why? Because he has always been in love with Lily Evans, an unrequited love with the added indignity that she marries his chief rival and tormenter, James Potter, and becomes Harry’s mother. Though Snape is by ancestry and inclination a servant of the Dark Lord, his love for Lily causes him to end up on the side of good in the end–for love is the one thing that Voldemort cannot understand.           

The centrality of love is strengthened by the theme of sacrifice. Lily sacrificing her life to save her son sets in motion the powerful forces that eventually lead to Harry’s triumph and Voldemort’s fall, and the willing self sacrifice of others along the way, including Dumbledore and even Harry himself (who thinks he is giving up his own life to save his friends but actually survives), contributes to the wonderful way in which this theme is worked out.  Snape’s choice is in some ways the most impressive of all.  He allows his whole life to be ruled by sacrificial love for a dead woman who did not requite it in life, knowing all along that he has no hope in this life of any reward for his self-denying acts save love itself. To sacrifice oneself for love is the very opposite of the Nietzschean drive for power which is the essence of evil in the series, and though at first love seems much weaker, it proves stronger in the end.

          The central ideas of the series then resonate powerfully with central doctrines of the Christian faith, and I do not believe Rowling could have developed them as profoundly as she did without being influenced by Christian teaching. But they do not quite rise to a Christian view of the world. For love as it comes from fallen human hearts does not conquer all. Love conquers all only because God is love and because He has sacrificed himself in His Son. The good Potter characters seem to find this all-conquering love by somehow looking within themselves, not by looking up and outward to the Source of it, which is Christ.  One is left with the impression that it could be just love itself, love in the abstract, which conquers all, rather than the scandalously specific Love which comes only from the heart of God in the sacrifice of Christ.  And only the sacrifice of that divine and innocent Victim could provide the propitiation which is necessary to the conquest of the evil which is found at the core of our own hearts.  We as believers follow Christ in taking up our own crosses, in recapitulating his loving sacrifice in our own lives, indeed.  The Hogwarts heroes could be read as exemplars of this truth.  But only as our acts flow from that supreme Act do they participate in its power.  Do Harry’s, Snape’s, and Dumbledore’s?  It is, alas, unclear.  To separate love and sacrifice from their Source, as if they could operate independently of it on their own, is to risk losing them as the Gospel evaporates into a bloodless humanism.  J. K. Rowling’s story never denies this more explicitly Christian view of love, but neither does it demand it.    She comes awfully close to the biblical view, and she communicates much profound truth in falling just short of it. But she does fall short. She could have provided clearer hints and clues to the idea that in order to defeat evil we must look, not to love in the abstract, but outside of ourselves to the Source of love, which is Christ. A great Christian mythmaker like Lewis or Tolkien would have done just that (without making it too obvious).  In the Stone Table of Narnia it is inescapable.  But even in the more subtle Lord of the Rings, especially when clarified by the creation story in The Silmarillion, meaning and victory and hope come ultimately from “beyond the circles of the world.”  For what Rowling has accomplished in the Harry Potter series we should have a profound appreciation, but we should also have an awareness of what is missing–for that is, quite literally, crucial. 

Donald T. Williams, PhD, is Director of the School of Arts and Sciences and Professor of English at Toccoa Falls College.  His most recent books include Mere Humanity: G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, and J. R. R. Tolkien on the Human Condition (Broadman, 2006) Credo: Meditations on the Nicene Creed (Chalice Press, 2007), and The Devil’s Dictionary of the Christian Faith (Chalice, 2008).  His website is www.doulomen.tripod.com. 

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Don July 15th, 2009

MOVIE REVIEW: “I AM LEGEND,” Directed by Francis Lawrence 

This review was originally published in Modern Reformation (online version): http://www.modernreformation.org/.

This is not a flick to see lightly for entertainment. 

A genetically engineered virus that was supposed to cure cancer wipes out 90% of the human race instead, and turns most of the rest into mutated, rabid, aggressive, vicious, and very hungry monsters who only come out at night.  Will Smith is a medical researcher who (with his faithful German Shepherd, Samantha) is the only survivor left in New York City and, for all he knows, the world.  He is trying to build a vaccine and cure from his own immune blood–but it may already be too late.

There are a couple of philosophical issues of interest to Christians that are central to this story.  First is the ethics of genetic engineering and “playing God.”  Scientific hubris definitely takes a hit–and yet science, which is the cause of the problem, may also be its only solution.  But will it be science alone?  No.  And thereby hangs a tale–which brings us to the second issue.

Very important also to the plot is theodicy, the problem of evil (think of C. S. Lewis’s The Problem of Pain).  Smith’s character eventually meets another survivor.  She is a believer who is looking for a colony of survivors.   She believes it is out there because “God told her” it was.  How, Smith wants to know.  “The world is so silent, now,” she replies.  “If you listen, you can hear Him.”  Smith has lost his faith because of the devastating plague, and they have a short but intense argument about theodicy.  He seems to win on points, but it turns out that the colony does exist and his meeting her is the only way his cure can reach it with hope for the future of humanity.  They are attacked by the mutants and Smith sacrifices himself so that she can reach the colony with the cure.  “What are you doing?” she asks him at that point.  “Listening,” he replies.  And so she does find the colony and the human race is presumably saved.  The role of faith and the means of its validation remind one somewhat of that Mel Gibson film of a few years ago, “Signs.” 

I have both a positive and a negative reaction to all of this.  On the negative side, the woman’s faith is in a very vague God who apparently speaks only subjectively.  It may not even be the Christian God; if it is, it is a very subjective Pentecostal or Charismatic version of Him where revelation comes not objectively through Scripture but only subjectively through an inner voice.  People in the real world who “listen” to that inner voice often hear all kinds of idiocy from it, much of it contradictory to Scripture.  So let’s not get too excited about “Christian” themes in this movie.  Some of us are too eager to read explicit Christian content that may not be there into any film that isn’t positively hostile to faith.  A work of art does not have to be explicitly Christian to be appreciated for raising in a helpful way issues worth thinking about.

On the positive side, faith in God is shown not to be bogus.  There are many positive insights either made or suggested.  Even Smith (in his atheist period) says, “God didn’t do this [evil]; we did.”  He means at that point partly that only we humans, specifically scientists, specifically himself, can fix it.  The optimistic humanist hope that “I can fix this!” echoes throughout the picture, only to be shown to be a false hope.  It turns out that Smith’s efforts would have been in vain without what looks an awful lot like Providential intervention. 

Most interesting of all then is the idea that Religion and Science need each other.  Either alone would have failed to save humanity.  The believer couldn’t have done it without Smith’s science; he couldn’t have done it without her faith.  Each comes to understand and appreciate a need for the other.  A more interesting and possibly helpful way of thinking about how Religion and Science ought to relate than those one sometimes hears from either side is then suggested by the story, one potentially consistent with reformed themes such as common grace and the cultural mandate.    

Of the films I have seen this year, this one should be one of the more interesting to Christian thinkers.  Its answers are not without flaws, but it raises good questions in a helpful way.  But seriously, don’t see it unless you are prepared to have your nose rubbed in some pretty tough realities.  It breaks one of the most basic rules of “feel good” movies (which “I am Legend” manifestly is not):  The dog dies.  And, yes, that part is hard to take.  But she doesn’t die in vain.  It hurts, but it is a pain worth having.  Just don’t say you weren’t warned!         

Donald T. Williams, PhD, is Professor of English and Director of the School of Arts and Sciences at Toccoa Falls College in the hills of NE Georgia.  His most recent books are Mere Humanity: G. G. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, and J. R. R. Tolkien on the Human Condition (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2006), Credo: Meditations on the Nicene Creed (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2007), and The Devil’s Dictionary of the Christian Faith (Chalice, 2008).  His website is www.doulomen.tripod.com.   

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Don July 13th, 2009

REVIEW: “KINGDOM OF HEAVEN” 

“Kingdom of Heaven,” the 2005 film based on the era of the crusades, is closer to history than Hollywood usually gets, close enough to make the gaps that remain especially annoying.  The depiction of medieval siege warfare is fairly accurate if one allows for the fact that Greek fire didn’t really blow up quite that dramatically when it hit.  Saladin and Balian actually existed, they did make a pact that allowed for the surrender of Jerusalem on condition of safe passage for the Christians back to Christian lands, and this was indeed an impressive military and diplomatic achievement on Balian’s part, for the realistic expectation (given what the Crusaders had done when they took the city a century earlier) was that every last man woman and child would be put to the sword.  So far, so good. 

            You knew the “but” paragraph was coming.  But . . . there are patches of 21st century dialog that stick out like sore thumbs, patches of new cloth rather clumsily woven into this allegedly 12th century tapestry.  And their overall tendency is to create a subtle, sometimes not so subtle, message:  people who take religion–any religion–seriously are a problem.  The two noblest people in the film turn out to be the two most secular-minded, one on each side.  The sheiks, for example, are going on about how they are going to win because it is Allah’s will.  Saladin asks cynically, “How often was it Allah’s will for you to win before I came along?”  Embarrassed silence.  “You don’t win because it is Allah’s will; you win because you are better prepared than your opponent” is Saladin’s conclusion.  Very powerful because it is of course half true.  The Christians are if anything even more idiotic in their belief that God is on their side.  All religions are equally bad, the film implies in other words, but some are more equal than others.  Balian actually saved the lives of the Christians by threatening to destroy the Dome of the Rock unless Saladin agreed to his terms for surrender, with the implication, “OK, you can slaughter us all, but then you can also explain to the rest of the Muslim world how you let that happen.”  In the movie he threatens to destroy all the shrines of all three religions–and Saladin replies, “Perhaps it would be better if you did.”  No commentary necessary to discern the message there!

            What we can learn from this film is a little about the 12th century and a lot about the 21st.  It confronts us with the way an awfully large and rapidly growing number of our contemporaries feel about religion, plus a view of history read in the light of those feelings.  And if we were looking at the phenomenon of religion from the outside, we would probably feel the same way.  If people would just be secular, or keep their religion safely bottled up in their private lives, all war and conflict would cease!  History–especially half understood history, like what this film offers–presents a huge amount of data that makes those feelings plausible and understandable. 

Unfortunately, the presentation of that data by secular-minded and liberal scholars often ignores an equally impressive number of facts that present a different picture indeed.  Tragically, the  attitude engendered by this tendentious scholarship and the popular entertainment that parrots it cuts us off from our own Founding Fathers and makes it impossible for us to understand what motivated them or what they meant by their own statements about religion.  If Christians and other conservatives are going to counteract such views, it will take good arguments and better lives. 

 Donald T. Williams, PhD

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Don June 24th, 2009

This review appeared in Philosophia Christi, 6:2 (2004): 375-77.

Victor Reppert, C. S. Lewis’s Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason.  Downers Grove, Il.:  InterVarsity Press, 2003, 132pp., pbk.

C. S. Lewis’s famous debate with Elizabeth Anscombe at the Oxford Socratic club over the validity of his argument in Miracles for the self-defeating status of naturalism may or may not have produced much clarification of the issues, but it definitely produced a tendentious interpretation of Lewis’s career:  that he was so mortified at being defeated that he gave up rational apologetics from then on.  Never mind that many of the people who were present either thought Lewis had won or that the debate was a draw; never mind the fact that he revised the relevant chapter in a later edition of Miracles to meet Anscombe’s objections and published several subsequent essays on apologetics.  Why let mere facts stand in the way of a good myth?   

Victor Reppert first destroyed the “Anscombe Myth” in “The Lewis-Anscombe Controversy: A Discussion of the Issues,” Christian Scholar’s Review 19:2 (1989).  It is good to see that discussion brought forward for a new generation of readers.  If Reppert had done nothing else, he would have performed a valuable service here.  It is to be hoped that more people will read his complete review of the evidence in the new book and that this particular bit of arrant nonsense will finally be put to rest.  But Reppert’s goal is much broader:  to bring Lewis’s argument for theism up to date and see how it fares after all these years.  He concludes that the argument from reason is still a good one.

Reppert begins with his review of the Lewis-Anscombe debate and then moves on to a discussion of a healthy approach to apologetics, rejecting fideism (just believe) and “strong rationalism” (Christian truth is so evident that any rational person should accept it) in favor of “critical rationalism” (Christian apologists can show that Christianity is a reasonable option).  I find myself wishing there were a middle position between his “strong rationalism” and “critical rationalism.”  He points out well the problems with strong rationalism of the Josh McDowell type.  But . . . if Christianity is really true, the universe ought in the final analysis to reflect that truth. One doesn’t want to be able to offer nothing more than one reasonable alternative among many.  I feel this problem at the end of the book, where I believe Reppert has earned the right to be at least a bit less tentative than he is.  Naturalists really can’t defend naturalism without cutting off the limb they are wanting to sit on . . . but Reppert is not willing to say that this is irrational?  How self defeating must a position be before we are willing to say so? 

Also, it doesn’t seem to me possible to give a complete account of the issues surrounding apologetic method without dealing with 1 Cor. 2:14.  It would seem that one would have to get past that verse somehow in order to see the amount of irrationality as being as evenly distributed between believers and non-believers as Reppert seems to imply.  Or, to put it more accurately, I should say that irrationality may well be tragically fairly evenly distributed in fact, (I unfortunately think he is right about that), but there should be a difference in theory.  Christians don’t have to be as irrational as they are; non-Christians do.  They have no choice but to be irrational at some point, because they have set themselves against the rational universe that God actually made.  I think this is a pretty important distinction that I wish had come out more clearly.

When Reppert turns to the argument from reason itself, he does a good job of guiding us through the issues.  The argument on p. 68 is especially fine.  “If a materialist says that she believes in materialism because she perceives the reasons for believing it, then I take it she is committed to the existence of reasons,” and therefore has to explain how they can exist in a materialist universe.  It is really the same argument that Socrates used at his defense:  How can you believe in flute playing and not believe in flutes?  How can you believe in divine effects and not believe in the gods?  Reppert has updated it and applied it to the existence of reasons in a useful and persuasive manner.  His refutation on pp. 100-101 of the notion that reason could have been produced by natural selection is also good.  The “inadequacy objection,” which argues that non-scientific explanations do not explain, is one of the biggest hurdles the argument from reason has to face.  Reppert’s question on p. 111 is an excellent response to it:  “Is it more dangerous to the scientific enterprise to suggest that a comprehensive “scientific” account of cognition cannot be correct, or to suggest that truth should not be the goal of our rational deliberations?”    That is a question that we need ask more insistently.

When I tried to update Lewis’s argument in”Some Propositions for a Theistic Argument,” Bulletin of the Evangelical Philosophical Society, 14:1 (1991): 70-81, I focused on the fact that a naturalistic universe is by definition a deterministic universe.  The laws of physics determine everything because the universe, being uncaused, exists a se and therefore by definition cannot be other than it is.  It seems to me that this fact needs to be stressed, for it provides a simpler way of defeating Anscombe’s objections.  It really doesn’t matter whether chains of reasoning caused by non-rational causes can happen to have been valid or not, unless we are free to choose between them on a non-deterministic basis.  If nobody can help believing what he believes, whether it be rational or irrational, then nobody is in a position to distinguish between warranted and unwarranted truth claims or to urge his own truth claims with any moral force.  Valid chains of reasoning might occur, but nobody–including the naturalist making truth claims for naturalism–would be in a position to benefit from them.  Reppert implies all of this when he talks about the problem of knowing that one is rational, but it seems to me that his case would be strengthened by bringing it out more clearly.

Over all this is a very fine book, one of the few books on Lewis that actually contributes something useful to our knowledge of him and our understanding of the things he talked about.  I hope it will have the success it deserves.

Donald T. Williams

Toccoa Falls College

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Don June 22nd, 2009

This review was published in Mythprint 43:9 (September 2006): 11-12.

Louis Markos, Lewis Agonistes: How C. S. Lewis can Train us to Wrestle with the Modern and Postmodern World.  Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2003.  ISBN 080542778-3, pb, xv + 174 pp., $19.99.

From Chad Walsh’s pioneering C. S. Lewis: Apostle to the Skeptics (1949) to Michael Aeschliman’s The Restitution of Man: C. S. Lewis and the Case against Scientism (1983) to John Beversluis’s C. S. Lewis and the Search for Rational Religion (1985) to Scott Burson and Jerry Walls’ C. S. Lewis and Francis Schaeffer: Lessons for a New Century from the most Influential Apologists of our Time (1998) to Victor Reppert’s C. S. Lewis’s Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason (2002), a number of substantial attempts have been made to evaluate C. S. Lewis as a Christian apologist.  In some ways the best of these studies is Lewis Agonistes by Louis Markos, professor of English at Houston Baptist University.  The title means “Lewis the wrestler,” from the Greek agwn (agon), an athletic contest or struggle.  It nicely captures the fact that for Lewis, apologetics was not simply a polite academic hobby, but rather a phase of the battle of light against darkness, a struggle for minds and hearts with the eternal souls of men and women at stake. 

            As a general guide to Lewis’s apologetic work, Lewis Agonistes is clearly the class of the field.  Walsh is dated, Beversluis unsympathetic and tendentious, Aeschliman and Reppert excellent but limited in scope to one issue or argument.  Markos is comprehensive, covering not only the standard nonfiction works (Mere Christianity, Miracles, Problem of Pain, etc.) but also showing how Lewis’s fiction, literary scholarship, and works such as Surprised by Joy and A Grief Observed contribute to a holistic approach in which the modern estrangement between Reason and Imagination is overcome.  The book is organized thematically, first covering Lewis’s preparation for his wrestling in both education and life experience and then analyzing his response to five challenges:  science and the modernist paradigm, the new age and neopaganism, evil and suffering, the meaning of art and language, and heaven and hell.  The emphasis is not so much on Lewis’s arguments in themselves (which, however valid, must be constantly updated) as on Lewis as a role model for our own apologetic wrestling.  In the process Markos gets beyond the typical caricature of Lewis as a reactionary to elucidate the wholeness of his approach, which responds to the challenges of modernity “both by means of a reactive defense that takes us back to an older, medieval countervision and a proactive offense that looks ahead to a new synthesis of ancient and modern” (x).

            The general excellence of Markos’s treatment is marred by an occasional yielding to the temptation to psychologize, speculating about the sources of Lewis’s own need to wrestle toward a synthesis of Reason and Imagination.  I also think he misses the point in his attempt to show how Lewis might have responded to Postmodern forms of intellectual nihilism such as Deconstruction.  Markos contrasts “conservative Evangelicals who argue that language is meaningful because it is not slippery” with “liberal theorists who claim that it is slippery and therefore meaningless.”  He finds a middle way in “poetry that cries out on the rooftops that language is more meaningful precisely because it is slippery” (130).  But why use the word “slippery,” which concedes too much, when a more positive description like “rich” would have achieved his purpose equally well?  One can’t resist imagining a Lewisian “Distinguo!” being thundered over a mug of Eagle and Child beer at that point.  For a much better treatment of this question see Bruce Edwards’ outstanding study, A Rhetoric of Reading: C. S. Lewis’s Defense of Western Literacy (1986).

            These are about the only flaws I can find in a very fine work, except the fact that a book of this much intellectual substance rather demands the bibliography and index which are inexplicably missing at the end.  Markos avoids the endless dreary summarizing and rehashing which makes most secondary works on Lewis a waste of time that would have been better spent re-reading (or reading) Lewis and gives us readable analysis that is profitable to follow even when I think it is wrong.  And it is mostly right.

Reviewed by Donald T. Williams, PhD 

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Don June 20th, 2009

LII Wordsworth wrote an endless poem in blank verse on” the growth of a poet’s mind.”  I shall attempt a more modest feat for a more distracted age: a blog, “Things which a Lifetime of Trying to Be a Poet has Taught Me.” 

            We are pilgrims and strangers in this world.  Christianity teaches this truth explicitly, but every other mythology, it seems, hints at it implicitly.  It is as inescapable as death; but it is more than just the fact that life here cannot last forever.  Would we be satisfied here if it could?  Or would we just find the need for something indefinably more growing ever more acute?  Either Augustine was right, and “our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee,” or we are of all men most miserable.  If he was, then we can find spiritual wholeness only in that place where we neither idolize this world nor despise it.

 PILGRIM 

I would not leave the sun-lit stones

That line the streets of Athens town;

But I will search for Hesperus’ Isle

Though in the end I drown.

I would not turn from Caerleon

Nor Byzantium forsake;

But I will seek Broceliande

Though on her rocks I break.

I lose not lightly Rivendell

Nor Misty Mountains’ chilly breath;

But I will sail for Numinor

E’en though I sail to death.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

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Don May 26th, 2009

Part of the growth of a poet’s mind–or any mind–is learning how to think, to the end of discovering what to think.  Here is a wonderful passage from G. K. Chesterton on why philosophy is necessary:

 ”The best reason for a revival of philosophy is that unless a man has a philosophy certain horrible things will happen to him. He will be practical; he will be progressive; he will cultivate efficiency; he will trust in evolution; he will do the work that lies nearest; he will devote himself to deeds, not words. Thus struck down by blow after blow of blind stupidity and random fate, he will stagger on to a miserable death with no comfort but a series of catchwords; such as those which I have catalogued above. Those things are simply substitutes for thoughts. In some cases they are the tags and tail-ends of somebody else’s thinking. That means that a man who refuses to have his own philosophy will not even have the advantages of a brute beast, and be left to his own instincts. He will only have the used-up scraps of somebody else’s philosophy; which the beasts do not have to inherit; hence their happiness. Men have always one of two things: either a complete and conscious philosophy or the unconscious acceptance of the broken bits of some incomplete and shattered and often discredited philosophy. Such broken bits are the phrases I have quoted: efficiency and evolution and the rest. The idea of being “practical”, standing all by itself, is all that remains of a Pragmatism that cannot stand at all.  Doing the work that is nearest is obvious nonsense; yet it has been repeated in many albums. In nine cases out of ten it would mean doing the work that we are least fitted to do, such as cleaning the windows or clouting the policeman over the head. “Deeds, not words” is itself an excellent example of “Words, not thoughts”. It is a deed to throw a pebble into a pond and a word that sends a prisoner to the gallows. But there are certainly very futile words; and this sort of journalistic philosophy and popular science almost entirely consists of them.

Some people fear that philosophy will bore or bewilder them; because they think it is not only a string of long words, but a tangle of complicated notions. These people miss the whole point of the modern situation. These are exactly the evils that exist already; mostly for want of a philosophy. The politicians and the papers are always using long words. It is not a complete consolation that they use them wrong. The political and social relations are already hopelessly complicated. They are far more complicated than any page of medieval metaphysics; the only difference is that the medievalist could trace out the tangle and follow the complications; and the moderns cannot. The chief practical things of today, like finance and political corruption, are frightfully complicated. We are content to tolerate them because we are content to misunderstand them, not to understand them. The business world needs metaphysics – to simplify it.

Philosophy is merely thought that has been thought out. It is often a great bore. But man has no alternative, except between being influenced by thought that has been thought out and being influenced by thought that has not been thought out. The latter is what we commonly call culture and enlightenment today. But man is always influenced by thought of some kind, his own or somebody else’s; that of somebody he trusts or that of somebody he never heard of, thought at first, second or third hand; thought from exploded legends or unverified rumours; but always something with the shadow of a system of values and a reason for preference. A man does test everything by something. The question here is whether he has ever tested the test.” 

The entire passage can be found at:
http://evans- experientialism. freewebspace. com/chesterson02 .htm

Donald T. Williams, PhD

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Don May 20th, 2009

Note:  This review was published in Mythlore: The Journal of the Mythopoeic Society 105/106, Spring/Summer 2009): 168-70. 

C. S. LEWIS AND THE SEARCH FOR RATIONAL RELIGION.  Revised and Updated.  John Beversluis.  Amherst, N. Y.:  Prometheus Books, 2007. 363 pp.  $20.00, pbk.  ISBN 978-1-59102-3.

Surely one of the most controversial books in the history of Lewis studies was the first edition of John Beversluis’s C. S. Lewis and the Search for Rational Religion, originally published by Eerdmans in 1985.  Billing itself as the only book-length critical study of Lewis’s rational apologetic for Christian faith, it concluded that none of his arguments succeeded.  Reviewing the first edition in Mythlore 43 (Autumn 1985), Nancy-Lou Patterson called it “as waspish a work” as it had ever been her “disagreeable task to review,” concluding that the faith, “including its reasoned elements” would survive the book (42).  Patterson was right: the first edition sometimes gave the impression that Beversluis thought accusing Lewis of a fallacy was equivalent to demonstrating that he had committed it.  Few readers who had appreciated Lewis’s apologetic works were convinced by Beversluis’s arguments.

Now we have a new revised, updated, and expanded edition.  It has already caused much exultation on atheist websites and much dismissive eye-rolling among Lewis fans.  Neither reaction is justified. 

Beversluis has responded to his critics, continued his own thinking, and rewritten each section to the point that this version is almost a completely new book.  In the process, he has strengthened his presentation considerably.  While in the end I still find it mostly unconvincing, it does keep its promise to provide the strongest sustained critique of Lewis’s apologetic on the market.  As such it performs a valuable service.  Those who wish to continue using updated versions of Lewis’s arguments for Christian theism will have to get past Beversluis in order to do so with credibility, and their arguments will be stronger for the exercise.

Beversluis sets out to take seriously Lewis’s statement in Mere Christianity that he does not ask anyone to accept Christianity “if his best reasoning tells him that the weight of the evidence is against it.”  Beversluis approves of Lewis for demanding evidence and wants to know if he has succeeded in showing that the best reasoning supports Christian faith.  Beversluis concludes that Lewis’s own best reasoning fails to do so.  While he examines several of Lewis’s arguments—the argument from desire, the moral argument for theism, the “trilemma” argument for the deity of Christ, the argument from reason for the self-refuting character of naturalism, Lewis’s theodicy, etc.—in great detail, his objections can be summarized in two points.  First, the “apparent cogency of [Lewis’s] arguments depends on his rhetoric rather than on his logic” (20).  Lewis was such a good writer that people are carried away by his words and do not notice the fallacies being committed under their cover.  Second, Lewis’s arguments are fallacious, and his besetting fallacy is the False Dilemma.  Lewis will say that there are only two (or three) choices, refute one, and thus seem to leave Christian theism standing in sole possession of the field; but in reality, there are other alternatives he has not considered, and the one he is rejecting is a straw man.  

It should be immediately obvious to Beversluis’s readers that his first criticism of Lewis is valid only if, and only to the extent that, the second is upheld.  It is hardly a fault to write well unless that writing can be shown to be in the service of error.  The details of the second criticism will likely be debated in the journals for some time.  The question will be whether the additional alternatives Beversluis tries to posit do not in fact ultimately reduce to the set of choices that Lewis’s more incisive analysis had set before us in the first place.  In most cases, I believe that they do. 

For example, Beversluis argues that Lewis’s refutation of moral subjectivism is vitiated by the fact that he treats it as a single genus, when actually “there are more sophisticated and nuanced versions that . . . cannot be disposed of so easily” (83).  The example we are offered is Hume’s theory of morals as based on human feeling, which Beversluis claims is not susceptible to Lewis’s “loose-cannon generalizations” (87).  Well, I think it is.  In fact, I think it can be doubted whether Hume’s view is properly a theory of ethics at all, as it has absolutely no answer to Lewis’s charge that subjectivist ethics is unable to account for the word “ought.”  When the philosophical jargon is stripped away from the allegedly “more nuanced” views, it is not clear at all to me that Beversluis has made his charge of False Dilemma stick rather than just muddying the water.  The other forms of subjectivism remain species of the genus. 

In the discussion of the Trilemma (“Lord/Liar/Lunatic”—not Lewis’s words, by the way), the alleged missed alternatives include the possibility that Jesus did not actually say or mean the statements on which the argument is based, and that a person could be mistaken about being God and still be a great moral teacher.  In the first case, Beversluis himself commits the fallacies of dicto simpliciter and ad verecundiam, telling us that “All mainstream New Testament scholars agree that the synoptic Gospels are fragmentary, episodic, internally inconsistent, and written by people who were not eyewitnesses” (123).  All?  That generalization has never been true, and it is less true now than it has ever been.  (See Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, Eerdmans, 2006, as just one counter-example.)   Even if the “experts” were in fact unanimous, it would not make them right.  And surely one can be mistaken about a great many things, including one’s own identity, and still be a good moral teacher.  But we are asked now to believe that a person could wrongly think he is the Creator of the Universe, the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, eternal Being who thundered from Sinai now incarnate in human flesh, and still retain any credibility on anything else he might say!  Beversluis argues that Jesus’ moral statements would still be true even if he were a lunatic; but this misses the point completely.  Lewis assumes the validity of the teaching; it is the credibility of the Teacher that is on trial.  To say the least, I do not find Beversluis’s “alternatives” to Lewis’s allegedly prematurely limited choices terribly impressive.

What my best reasoning tells me at the end of the day is that people who want to escape the conclusions of Christian theism can always find a loophole that will satisfy them.  John Beversluis is particularly good at doing so.  It does not follow that theism is false or that Lewis’s arguments for it are bad.  Whether you agree with me or with Beversluis about Lewis’s arguments, one thing is certain: the discussion is sure to continue.  I for one look forward to that.

Donald T. Williams         

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Don March 13th, 2009

XXXVII Wordsworth wrote an endless poem in blank verse on” the growth of a poet’s mind.”  I shall attempt a more modest feat for a more distracted age: a blog, “Things which a Lifetime of Trying to Be a Poet has Taught Me.” 

            Grad school asks for a step up in maturity.  Your peers are more uniformly purposeful and serious, and your professors are the masters of your former masters.  Add to that the greater stock of experience of the human condition and empathy in human joy and sorrow that any passing year brings to the attentive.  As I look back into the yellowed pages of the old notebook, I hope I am seeing a new level of maturity as an artist start to emerge.  At any rate, this is the first sonnet that seems to me to reach a level I might call fully satisfactory.  It still has a wee bit of cheating, but it has one well developed central image that flows inexorably toward its climax without any feeling of being contrived.  My first mature sonnet?  See what you think.

 SONNET XI 

The sky was huddled up next to the ground

As if for mutual warmth against the cold.

But that there was no warmth there to be found

Was plain: the earth looked hoar with frost and old.

The wild wind with great pressure swept the land

As though constricted by the louring sky,

And with many a powerful, grasping, unseen hand

Stripped naked all the trees as it swept by

And laid their twisted inner natures bare.

They bent beneath the wind as if with shame

Or some great lostness or despair

Or even greater burdens with no name.

On a day like that no man should e’er be out;

But out I was, and that I could not doubt. 

Doubt is part of faith, and the dark night of the soul a necessary prelude to dawn.  Never doubt that, no matter how cold your own winds blow.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

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Don January 13th, 2009

We take a break from the poetic history to bring you a condensation of my review forthcoming in Mythlore of an attack on Lewis that should actually be taken seriously.

C. S. LEWIS AND THE SEARCH FOR RATIONAL RELIGION. Revised and Updated. John Beversluis. Amherst, N. Y.: Prometheus Books, 2007.

One of the most controversial books in Lewis studies was the first ed. of John Beversluis, C. S. Lewis and the Search for Rational Religion (Eerdmans, 1985). Billed as the only book-length critical study of Lewis’s rational apologetic, it concluded that none of his arguments succeed. The first edition sometimes gave the impression Beversluis thought accusing Lewis of a fallacy was equivalent to demonstrating he had committed it. Few who had appreciated Lewis’s apologetics were convinced.

Now we have a new revised, updated, and expanded edition. It has already caused much exultation on atheist websites and dismissive eye-rolling among Lewis fans. Neither reaction is justified.

Beversluis has rewritten his critique to the point that this version is a completely new book. In the process, he has strengthened it considerably. While I still find it mostly unconvincing, it does keep its promise to provide the strongest sustained critique of Lewis’s apologetic available. As such, it performs a valuable service. Those who wish to continue using Lewis’s arguments will have to get past Beversluis in order to do so with credibility, and they will be stronger for the exercise.

Beversluis takes seriously Lewis’s statement in MC that he does not ask anyone to accept Christianity “if his best reasoning tells him that the weight of the evidence is against it.” Beversluis wants to know if Lewis succeeded in showing that the best reasoning supports Christian faith. He concludes that Lewis fails.

Beversluis’s objections can be summarized in two points. First, the “apparent cogency of [Lewis’s] arguments depends on his rhetoric rather than on his logic” (20). Lewis was such a good writer that people are carried away by his words. Second, Lewis’s arguments are fallacious, and his besetting fallacy is the False Dilemma. Lewis will claim there are only two choices, refute one, and thus seem to leave Christian theism standing sole possessor of the field; but in reality, there are other alternatives not considered, and the one rejected is a straw man.

Clearly, Beversluis’s first criticism is valid only if the second is upheld. It is hardly a fault to write well unless that writing can be shown to be in the service of error. The second criticism will likely be debated for some time. The question will be whether the additional alternatives B tries to posit do not in fact ultimately reduce to the set of choices that Lewis’s more incisive analysis had set before us in the first place. In most cases, I think they do.

For example, Beversluis argues that Lewis’s refutation of moral subjectivism is vitiated by his treating it as a single genus, when actually “there are more sophisticated and nuanced versions that . . . cannot be disposed of so easily” (83). The example B offers is Hume’s theory of morals as based on feeling, which B claims is not susceptible to Lewis’s “loose-cannon generalizations” (87). Well, I think it is. In fact, it is doubtful whether Hume’s is properly a theory of ethics at all, as it has absolutely no answer to Lewis’s charge that subjectivist ethics is unable to account for the word “ought.” When the jargon is stripped away from the “more nuanced” views, it is not clear at all that B has made his charge of False Dilemma stick.

In the discussion of the Trilemma (“Lord/Liar/Lunatic”), the alleged missed alternatives include the possibilities that Jesus did not make the statements on which the argument is based, and that a person could be mistaken about being God and still be a great moral teacher. In the first case, B himself commits the fallacies of Hasty Generalization and Ad Verecundiam, telling us that “All mainstream New Testament scholars agree that the synoptic Gospels are . . . internally inconsistent and written by people who were not eyewitnesses” (123). All?? That generalization has never been true, and it is even less true today. (See Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, Eerdmans, 2006, as just one counter-example. ) Surely one can be mistaken about many things, including even one’s own identity, and still be a good moral teacher. But we are asked now to believe that one could wrongly think he is the Creator of the Universe, the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, eternal Being who thundered from Sinai, and still retain any credibility on anything else he might say! B rightly argues that Jesus’ moral statements would still be true even if he were a lunatic; but this misses the point. Lewis assumes the validity of the teaching; it is the credibility of the Teacher that is on trial. B’s “alternatives” to Lewis’s choices aren’t very impressive.

What my own best reasoning tells me is that people who want to escape Christian theism can always find a loophole that will satisfy them. Beversluis is particularly good at it. It does not follow that theism is false or that Lewis’s arguments for it are bad. Whether you agree with me or with B about Lewis’s arguments, one thing is certain: the discussion is sure to continue. I look forward to that.

Donald T. Williams

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