C. S. Lewis on the Defense of the Faith (part twelve)

In 1945, C. S. Lewis was invited to address a gathering of Welsh Anglican priests and youth workers on the subject of Christian apologetics. Here are his remarks, published in the book, God in the Dock, and, as needed, some commentary on them.

It is very difficult to produce arguments on the popular level for the existence of God. And many of the most popular arguments seem to me invalid. Some of these may be produced in discussion by friendly members of the audience. This raises the whole problem of the “embarrassing supporter.” It is brutal (and dangerous) to repel him; it is often dishonest to agree with what he says. I usually try to avoid saying anything about the validity of his argument in itself and reply, “Yes. That may do for you and me. But I’m afraid if we take that line our friend here on my left might say etc. etc.”

Fortunately, though very oddly, I have found that people are usually disposed to hear the divinity of our Lord discussed before going into the existence of God. When I began I used, if I were giving two lectures, to devote the first to mere theism; but I soon gave up this method because it seemed to arouse little interest. The number of clear and determined atheists is apparently not very large.

When we come to the Incarnation itself, I usually find that some form of the aut Deus malus homo [either God or an evil human] can be used. The majority of them start with the idea of the “great human teacher” who was deified by His superstitious followers. It must be pointed out how very improbable this is among Jews and how different to anything that happened to Plato, Confucius, Buddha, Mohammed. The Lord’s own words and claims (of which many are quite ignorant) must be forced home. (The whole case, on a popular level, is very well put in Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man.)