“Supposing there was no intelligence behind the universe, no creative mind. In that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen, for physical or chemical reasons, to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I call thought. But, if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? It’s like upsetting a milk jug and hoping that the way it splashes itself will give you a map of London. But if I can’t trust my own thinking, of course I can’t trust the arguments leading to Atheism, and therefore have no reason to be an Atheist, or anything else. Unless I believe in God, I cannot believe in thought: so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God.”
—C.S. Lewis
The Case for Christianity, p. 32.
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This is all very well and good in terms of reaching the conclusion that there was a First Cause. It’s quite a stretch to also insist that one must conclude that this Being also demanded we break the necks of birds or slit the throats of goats to appease His anger, that picking up sticks on the wrong day is worthy of death or that women are of less monetary or intellectual value than men.
I’m sympathetic to Deism as it’s reasonably rational. To insist that the God of the Bible is equally rational is … well, it’s a leap beyond my capacity.
Thanks for the thoughts James.
I think the same logic Lewis used goes beyond the mere necessity that God exists, but requires that God Himself is rational, intentional and good. If He were otherwise, our own ability to rationalize would still be suspect because and there would still be no reason for us to trust our thinking.
With regard to God arbitrarily requiring certain actions to satisfy His own anger there really is none of that in Scripture. It might seem that way if one goes about picking out a command here and there and holds it up as if it stands alone, but that is not how Christians read Scripture – it unfolds over time, the fuller picture being revealed which then in turn makes sense of that which came before. And an examination of the commands themselves make sense within a larger moral framework within which we understand we a creatures designed for a purpose and who have attempted to live contrary to that purpose.