Liar, Lunatic, or Lord? Reviving C.S. Lewis' Trilemma by Jonathan McLatichie
https://jonathanmclatchie.com/liar-lunatic-or-lord-reviving-c-s-lewis-trilemma/
Showing posts with label C.S. Lewis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label C.S. Lewis. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 27, 2025
Liar, Lunatic, or Lord? Reviving C.S. Lewis' Trilemma by Jonathan McLatichie
Monday, July 11, 2022
Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism by C.S. Lewis
The following essay addresses the issue of whether the story of Jesus could have been pure fiction. This is important because a common objection to C.S. Lewis' famous "Liar, Lunatic, or Lord" Argument is that Lewis failed to address whether Jesus, or the story of Jesus, was/is a Legend. Thus making four instead of three "L" options. The argument is also called the "Trilemma" Argument. Adding the fourth "L," some have called it a "Quadrilemma."
Here's VIDEO and TEXT links to C.S. Lewis' essay: Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism. It also goes by the title, Fern-Seed and Elephants.
C. S. Lewis - Fern Seed and Elephants
https://youtu.be/hJ1RnnBKKiQ
Link to the text here:
https://orthodox-web.tripod.com/papers/fern_seed.html
OR here: https://web.archive.org/web/20121107160310/https://orthodox-web.tripod.com/papers/fern_seed.html
Tuesday, July 3, 2018
The Pilgrim's Regress: An Allegorical Apology for Christianity, Reason and Romanticism
I've often heard it said that because C.S. Lewis was so shaken by his defeat in his debate with Elizabeth Anscombe on the existence of God that he stopped writing apologetical material and resorted to writing fiction in order to promote Christianity. C.S. Lewis expert Jerry Root points out that C.S. Lewis' first apologetical work was in the form of this allegorical fiction. So, it wasn't a retreat. In fact, according to Root, Lewis wrote 36 essays on apologetics before the debate, and 34 essays after the debate. So. the evidence goes contrary to the common claim.
Jerry Root makes the above point in his enlightening lecture below at 13 minutes and 4 seconds:
“Unfallen Worlds: Malacandra and Perelandra” - Jerry Root
The below link is to Lewis' book: The Pilgrim's Regress: An Allegorical Apology for Christianity, Reason and Romanticism
http://www.samizdat.qc.ca/arts/lit/PDFs/Pilgrims_Regress_CSL.pdf
Monday, March 13, 2017
The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
The TEXT of the Screwtape Letters HERE.
The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis as narrated by John Cleese
Click Here to play all audio files in their order.
See also my blogpost on Lewis' book Mere Christianity. It includes a link to the text, though the links to the audio versions may be dead:
http://misclane.blogspot.com/2013/08/mere-christianity-by-cs-lewis.html
Click on the "Labels" link below for more C.S. Lewis blogs.
Monday, May 25, 2015
Thursday, August 14, 2014
The Apologist’s Evening Prayer
by C.S. Lewis
From all my lame defeats and oh! much more
From all the victories that I seemed to score;
From cleverness shot forth on Thy behalf
At which, while angels weep, the audience laugh;
From all my proofs of Thy divinity,
Thou, who wouldst give no sign, deliver me.
Thoughts are but coins. Let me not trust, instead
of Thee, their thin-worn image of Thy head.
From all my thoughts,
even from my thoughts of Thee,
O thou fair Silence, fall, and set me free.
Lord of the narrow gate and the needle’s eye,
Take from me all my trumpery lest I die.
C.S. Lewis, “The Apologist’s Evening Prayer,” in Poems, ed. Walter Hooper (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1964), p. 129.
From all my lame defeats and oh! much more
From all the victories that I seemed to score;
From cleverness shot forth on Thy behalf
At which, while angels weep, the audience laugh;
From all my proofs of Thy divinity,
Thou, who wouldst give no sign, deliver me.
Thoughts are but coins. Let me not trust, instead
of Thee, their thin-worn image of Thy head.
From all my thoughts,
even from my thoughts of Thee,
O thou fair Silence, fall, and set me free.
Lord of the narrow gate and the needle’s eye,
Take from me all my trumpery lest I die.
C.S. Lewis, “The Apologist’s Evening Prayer,” in Poems, ed. Walter Hooper (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1964), p. 129.
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
C. S. Lewis: Why He Matters Today
C. S. Lewis: Why He Matters Today
Lessons from an Inconsolable Soul
Learning from the Mind and Heart of C. S. Lewis by John Piper
[what Piper as an Evangelical finds good and bad in Lewis]
http://www.desiringgod.org/biographies/lessons-from-an-inconsolable-soul
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA8BAC9375345E6C7
The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis as narrated by John Cleese
Click Here to play all audio files in their order.
The TEXT of the Screwtape Letters HERE.
Lessons from an Inconsolable Soul
Learning from the Mind and Heart of C. S. Lewis by John Piper
[what Piper as an Evangelical finds good and bad in Lewis]
http://www.desiringgod.org/biographies/lessons-from-an-inconsolable-soul
The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis as narrated by John Cleese
Click Here to play all audio files in their order.
The TEXT of the Screwtape Letters HERE.
On C. S. Lewis' rejection of Roman Catholic Claims:
“The real reason why I cannot be in communion with you [Catholics] is not my disagreement with this or that Roman doctrine [but see his quote below on some disagreements with several Roman Catholic doctrines], but that to accept your Church means, not to accept a given body of doctrine, but to accept in advance any doctrine your Church hereafter produces. It is like being asked to agree not only to what a man has said but also to what he is going to say.”
“Christian Reunion”, in Christian Reunion and Other Essays, edited by Walter Hooper, London: Collins, 1990, p. 17-18. [My emphasis and comments in brackets.]
“The Roman Church where it differs from this universal tradition and specially from apostolic Christianity I reject. Thus their theology about the Blessed Virgin Mary I reject because it seems utterly foreign to the New Testament; where indeed the words “Blessed is the womb that bore thee” receive a rejoinder pointing in exactly the opposite direction. Their papalism seems equally foreign to the attitude of St. Paul toward St. Peter in the epistles. The doctrine of Transubstantiation insists on defining in a way which the New Testament seems to me not to countenance. In a word, the whole set-up of modern Romanism seems to me to be as much a provincial or local variation from the central, ancient tradition as any particular Protestant sect is. I must therefore reject their claim: though this, of course, does not mean rejecting particular things they say.”
June 16, 1945
Letter of C. S. Lewis to H. Lyman Stebbins, “The Boldness of a Stranger”
http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2011/09/two-excellent-quotes-by-c-s-lewis-on.html
“The real reason why I cannot be in communion with you [Catholics] is not my disagreement with this or that Roman doctrine [but see his quote below on some disagreements with several Roman Catholic doctrines], but that to accept your Church means, not to accept a given body of doctrine, but to accept in advance any doctrine your Church hereafter produces. It is like being asked to agree not only to what a man has said but also to what he is going to say.”
“Christian Reunion”, in Christian Reunion and Other Essays, edited by Walter Hooper, London: Collins, 1990, p. 17-18. [My emphasis and comments in brackets.]
“The Roman Church where it differs from this universal tradition and specially from apostolic Christianity I reject. Thus their theology about the Blessed Virgin Mary I reject because it seems utterly foreign to the New Testament; where indeed the words “Blessed is the womb that bore thee” receive a rejoinder pointing in exactly the opposite direction. Their papalism seems equally foreign to the attitude of St. Paul toward St. Peter in the epistles. The doctrine of Transubstantiation insists on defining in a way which the New Testament seems to me not to countenance. In a word, the whole set-up of modern Romanism seems to me to be as much a provincial or local variation from the central, ancient tradition as any particular Protestant sect is. I must therefore reject their claim: though this, of course, does not mean rejecting particular things they say.”
June 16, 1945
Letter of C. S. Lewis to H. Lyman Stebbins, “The Boldness of a Stranger”
http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2011/09/two-excellent-quotes-by-c-s-lewis-on.html
Lewis on the Reformation:
The process whereby ‘faith and works’ become a stock gag for the commercial theatre is characteristic of that whole tragic farce which we call this history of the Reformation. The theological questions really at issue have no significance except on a certain level, a high level, of the spiritual life; they could have been fruitfully debated only between mature and saintly disputants in close privacy and at boundless leisure. Under those conditions formulae might possibly have been found which did justice to the Protestant–I had almost said the Pauline–assertions without compromising other elements of the Christian faith. In fact, however, these questions were raised at a moment when they immediately became embittered and entangled with a whole complex of matters theologically irrelevant, and therefore attracted the fatal attention both of government and the mob. When once this had happened, Europe’s chance to come through unscathed was lost. It was as if men were set to conduct a metaphysical argument at a fair, in competition or (worse still) forced collaboration with the cheapjacks or the round-abouts, under the eyes of an armed and vigilant police forced who frequently changed sides. Each party increasingly misunderstood the other and triumphed in refuting positions which their opponents did not hold: Protestants misrepresenting Romans as Pelagians or Romans misrepresenting Protestants as Antinomians [emphasis mine].
- C.S. Lewis, English Literature in the Sixteenth Century (Excluding Drama), Introduction, p37
The process whereby ‘faith and works’ become a stock gag for the commercial theatre is characteristic of that whole tragic farce which we call this history of the Reformation. The theological questions really at issue have no significance except on a certain level, a high level, of the spiritual life; they could have been fruitfully debated only between mature and saintly disputants in close privacy and at boundless leisure. Under those conditions formulae might possibly have been found which did justice to the Protestant–I had almost said the Pauline–assertions without compromising other elements of the Christian faith. In fact, however, these questions were raised at a moment when they immediately became embittered and entangled with a whole complex of matters theologically irrelevant, and therefore attracted the fatal attention both of government and the mob. When once this had happened, Europe’s chance to come through unscathed was lost. It was as if men were set to conduct a metaphysical argument at a fair, in competition or (worse still) forced collaboration with the cheapjacks or the round-abouts, under the eyes of an armed and vigilant police forced who frequently changed sides. Each party increasingly misunderstood the other and triumphed in refuting positions which their opponents did not hold: Protestants misrepresenting Romans as Pelagians or Romans misrepresenting Protestants as Antinomians [emphasis mine].
- C.S. Lewis, English Literature in the Sixteenth Century (Excluding Drama), Introduction, p37
From all my lame defeats and oh! much more
From all the victories that I seemed to score;
From cleverness shot forth on Thy behalf
At which, while angels weep, the audience laugh;
From all my proofs of Thy divinity,
Thou, who wouldst give no sign, deliver me.
Thoughts are but coins. Let me not trust, instead
of Thee, their thin-worn image of Thy head.
From all my thoughts,
even from my thoughts of Thee,
O thou fair Silence, fall, and set me free.
Lord of the narrow gate and the needle’s eye,
Take from me all my trumpery lest I die.
C.S. Lewis, “The Apologist’s Evening Prayer,” in Poems, ed. Walter Hooper (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1964), p. 129.
From all the victories that I seemed to score;
From cleverness shot forth on Thy behalf
At which, while angels weep, the audience laugh;
From all my proofs of Thy divinity,
Thou, who wouldst give no sign, deliver me.
Thoughts are but coins. Let me not trust, instead
of Thee, their thin-worn image of Thy head.
From all my thoughts,
even from my thoughts of Thee,
O thou fair Silence, fall, and set me free.
Lord of the narrow gate and the needle’s eye,
Take from me all my trumpery lest I die.
C.S. Lewis, “The Apologist’s Evening Prayer,” in Poems, ed. Walter Hooper (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1964), p. 129.
Click on the "Labels" link below for more C.S. Lewis blogs.
Sunday, September 8, 2013
The Narnia Code by Michael Ward
https://youtu.be/C1SlkBc6LIc
Based on his acclaimed books
Planet Narnia:The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis
and
The Narnia Code: C. S. Lewis and the Secret of the Seven Heavens
Or watch the video documentary The Narnia Code
Lessons From An Inconsolable Soul The Life of C S Lewis by John Piper
http://youtu.be/kSxyG7wLkmk
Based on his acclaimed books
Planet Narnia:The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis
and
The Narnia Code: C. S. Lewis and the Secret of the Seven Heavens
Or watch the video documentary The Narnia Code
Lessons From An Inconsolable Soul The Life of C S Lewis by John Piper
http://youtu.be/kSxyG7wLkmk
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
The following are links to the text of the classic book Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. To say this is a classic is an understatement. Here's a link to Wikipedia's article on the book:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere_Christianity
Notes:
1. C.S. Lewis uses the enigmatic abbreviation "H.C.F." Some interpret it to mean "Holy Catholic Faith" while others "Highest Common Factor." Lewis uses "H.C.F." in the third chapter of The Abolition of Man: "What is now common to all men is a mere abstract universal, an H.C.F...." From both contexts, it seems Lewis would most likely mean "Highest Common Factor."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere_Christianity
Notes:
1. C.S. Lewis uses the enigmatic abbreviation "H.C.F." Some interpret it to mean "Holy Catholic Faith" while others "Highest Common Factor." Lewis uses "H.C.F." in the third chapter of The Abolition of Man: "What is now common to all men is a mere abstract universal, an H.C.F...." From both contexts, it seems Lewis would most likely mean "Highest Common Factor."
The only surviving audio of C.S. Lewis' original radio broadcasts on which the book Mere Christianity was based. HERE
Text of the book Mere Christianity
or
Wikipedia's Article on the book Mere Christianity
Why 'Mere Christianity' Should Have Bombed:
A C.S. Lewis Factsheet
Why Evangelicals need to be discerning while reading C.S. Lewis
Here's a link to C.S. Lewis' sermon "The Weight of Glory"
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this sermon for anyone. Including non-Christians.
Why 'Mere Christianity' Should Have Bombed:
A C.S. Lewis Factsheet
Why Evangelicals need to be discerning while reading C.S. Lewis
Here's a link to C.S. Lewis' sermon "The Weight of Glory"
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this sermon for anyone. Including non-Christians.
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