I’ve actually always found C.S. Lewis to be one of the single most fascinating and compelling Christian writers. Obviously I think he makes some very fundamental mistakes, but his approach to Christianity is about as rationalist as you can get. He really emphasizes that if you’re going to believe in something, it better really be true not just “worth believing in” or “virtuous” or “helpful”—he himself could have written Belief in Belief. Furthermore, he seems committed to a conception of “faith” that doesn’t involve any conflict with rationality—he thinks that the logical arguments for the existence of God do a lot of work, and he’s fairly sophisticated scientifically (seems reasonably knowledgeable about evolution, quantum mechanics, etc.). I would actually highly recommend The Screwtape Letters to any rationalists who find religious arguments interesting (if not compelling).
He really emphasizes that if you’re going to believe in something, it better really be true not just “worth believing in” or “virtuous” or “helpful”—he himself could have written Belief in Belief.
One gets that impression if one reads Mere Christianity and the Screwtape Letters. But if one reads his works aimed at children one gets the impression that he wants children to believe despite evidence. See for example the scene in The Silver Chair where the protagonists are trapped underground and the Lady of the Green Kirtle tries to enchant them to think that Narnia, Aslan and the Sun are all things they made up as part of a game. They are almost taken in until they declare that they will believe in Aslan even if there’s is no Aslan because the world they’ve imagined if it has been imagined is a better world than the one they live in.
I’ve actually always found C.S. Lewis to be one of the single most fascinating and compelling Christian writers. Obviously I think he makes some very fundamental mistakes, but his approach to Christianity is about as rationalist as you can get. He really emphasizes that if you’re going to believe in something, it better really be true not just “worth believing in” or “virtuous” or “helpful”—he himself could have written Belief in Belief. Furthermore, he seems committed to a conception of “faith” that doesn’t involve any conflict with rationality—he thinks that the logical arguments for the existence of God do a lot of work, and he’s fairly sophisticated scientifically (seems reasonably knowledgeable about evolution, quantum mechanics, etc.). I would actually highly recommend The Screwtape Letters to any rationalists who find religious arguments interesting (if not compelling).
One gets that impression if one reads Mere Christianity and the Screwtape Letters. But if one reads his works aimed at children one gets the impression that he wants children to believe despite evidence. See for example the scene in The Silver Chair where the protagonists are trapped underground and the Lady of the Green Kirtle tries to enchant them to think that Narnia, Aslan and the Sun are all things they made up as part of a game. They are almost taken in until they declare that they will believe in Aslan even if there’s is no Aslan because the world they’ve imagined if it has been imagined is a better world than the one they live in.
He’s proof that you can develop a quite rational account of human psychology, and then use it to shoot yourself in the foot.