Lewis Views Paper
C.S. Lewis Views Paper
Garry R. Smith
Ohio Christian University
Author Note
This paper prepared for Transformed Worldview (PH3000), taught by Professor Tino.
C.S. Lewis Views Paper
(C.S. Lewis, 1952,) I have been asked to tell you what Christians believe, and I am going to begin by telling you one thing that Christians do not need to believe. If you are a Christian you do not have to believe that all religions are simply wrong all through. If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake. If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all those religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of the truth.
When we look at religion in the sense of belief one finds that Christianity believes that God was the true creator, he made the heavens and the earth. Now if we were to look into the works of a Prussian philosopher Hegel which is also held by the Hindus one can see the view called pantheism which is in simpler terms the belief that everything is a part of God, if the universe did not exist then God did not exist either.
Let us turn our attention to what C.S. Lewis calls the two views of our world. (C.S. Lewis, 1952), Christianity-and-water, the view which simply says there is a good God in Heaven and everything is all right-leaving out all the difficult and terrible doctrines about sin and hell and the devil, and the redemption. The other is the view called Dualism. Dualism means the belief that there are two equal and independent powers at the back of everything, one of them good and the other bad, and that this universe is the battlefield in which they fight out and endless war. I liked how C.S. Lewis went into detail explaining how we are much closer to Dualism because of the Dark Power that was once good but fell out of God’s grace and now is wreaking havoc and now wages civil war and we are caught in the middle of this civil war between good
Garry R. Smith
Ohio Christian University
Author Note
This paper prepared for Transformed Worldview (PH3000), taught by Professor Tino.
C.S. Lewis Views Paper
(C.S. Lewis, 1952,) I have been asked to tell you what Christians believe, and I am going to begin by telling you one thing that Christians do not need to believe. If you are a Christian you do not have to believe that all religions are simply wrong all through. If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake. If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all those religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of the truth.
When we look at religion in the sense of belief one finds that Christianity believes that God was the true creator, he made the heavens and the earth. Now if we were to look into the works of a Prussian philosopher Hegel which is also held by the Hindus one can see the view called pantheism which is in simpler terms the belief that everything is a part of God, if the universe did not exist then God did not exist either.
Let us turn our attention to what C.S. Lewis calls the two views of our world. (C.S. Lewis, 1952), Christianity-and-water, the view which simply says there is a good God in Heaven and everything is all right-leaving out all the difficult and terrible doctrines about sin and hell and the devil, and the redemption. The other is the view called Dualism. Dualism means the belief that there are two equal and independent powers at the back of everything, one of them good and the other bad, and that this universe is the battlefield in which they fight out and endless war. I liked how C.S. Lewis went into detail explaining how we are much closer to Dualism because of the Dark Power that was once good but fell out of God’s grace and now is wreaking havoc and now wages civil war and we are caught in the middle of this civil war between good
References: Lewis, C. W. (1952). What Christians believe? (Pp. 33-67). New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers.