MediumTex wrote:
RE C.S. Lewis's position that he can't know what deal God has made with other religions, that almost made me want to laugh out loud.
While it's certainly true that no one can know what deal God has made with other religion, it is also impossible to know for sure what deal God has made with your own religion (look at how many different interpretations of Christianity are out there), whether God has actually made a deal with any religion, or whether God even exists at all. It's ALL a matter of faith, since God has apparently chosen not to reveal himself to us except through images of the Virgin Mary burned on pieces of toast, statues of her crying blood, etc. If one were to say that God has actually revealed himself to us through all of creation, I would say fine, but that same creation is also the manifestation of many other deities as well. For example, what would the Sun God say if someone were to say that the sun is a manifestation of God? He might say: "Look, my sun franchise runs through the year 3,999, so could you maybe just pick something else in nature to cite as a manifestation of God? I've already got the sun pretty well covered."
C.S. Lewis was a very smart man and a very good writer, but I think that many of his writings about Christianity sound better than they actually are simply because he was so good at crafting and telling a story. When you really pick apart his arguments and reasoning, though, his logic is pretty tangled. Ultimately, I came to see Lewis as basically a fellow who was very happy with how his religion made him feel, and he had a sincere desire to share that good feeling with others.
The problems I have with the kind of joy that C.S. Lewis was trying to share are the following:
(1) The joy often evaporates into a sense of guilt and anxiety over whether you are actually doing everything that God wants you to do in order to let you into Heaven. In such cases, a person may come to live with so much guilt and anxiety that their religious experience can begin to literally shake them apart psychologically.
(2) The casual certainty that Lewis dangles in his writings simply isn't the day-to-day experience that most religious people have. To the extent that the joy he writes about is contingent upon being able to develop the same sense of casual certainty about the truth of Lewis's brand of Christianity, then the failure to cultivate that degree of certainty can create much disillusionment and disappointment.
But that is not true. God has revealed himself primarily through Jesus Christ. To be quite honest I'm skeptical of most claims of miracles, even those performed by Jesus in the Gospels since I can see how these could be metaphorical. But the one miracle that all of Christianity rests upon and needs to be accepted if one is to receive the deeper meaning of Christ, is the Resurrection. Without this then I agree that Christianity is a manufactured religion and might result in some happy feelings and possibly thoughts of being unworthy of God. I think the most important question one must answer in life is "Did God raise Jesus from the dead?"
I realize this is not easy to accept, and is likely impossible for most people, especially highly intelligent people.
Why hasn't God given us a clearer sign? Why doesn't he give us all a vision and tell us that he truly exists? I don't know. My hunch is the reason is similar to the difference between an arranged marriage and a marriage based on love. God wants us to love Him, not simply follow Him because we have to. Blaise Pascal said that irrefutable proof would only satisfy the mind and weaken the will. That is not what God wants.
Keep in mind that there were several other Jews claiming to be the Messiah around Jesus' time. But all these men were put to death and their disciples gave up or attempted to find a new Messiah that would free the Jews from Roman rule. Remember that the prophesies claimed the Messiah would conquer the gentiles. How can a Messiah do that when he is dead?
We need to explain the explosion of Christianity after the death of Jesus. What would cause this? A nice guy with some good moral teachings? I doubt it. Was a legend of Jesus manufactured? I doubt it since it would be difficult for his followers to keep this secret, especially when being stoned, jailed, and killed. Was Jesus only in a coma or unconscious when taken down from the cross? I doubt it since we are dealing with professional executioners.
Also look at Paul's letters, they are all about the resurrection of Jesus and how this changes everything. Paul almost never mentions the moral teachings of Jesus, since that is not what was driving the early Christians.
It seems possible, but not entirely provable, that the cause of the explosion of Christianity was the literal resurrection of Jesus. It still requires faith to accept, but it is not a blind leap of faith, there is reason involved in the process. Don't just brush this problem away; the least you can do is look at the evidence and then decide.
I'll stop blabbering and for those interested in this question then I suggest they start with this slightly over produced but simple
YouTube documentary from NT Wright (50 minutes).
Here are a couple lectures given by NT Wright on this topic:
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"Can a Scientist Believe the Resurrection?" (80 minutes)
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"Did Jesus really rise from the Dead?" (100 minutes)
To be honest I am still working through this problem myself. A large part of me wants to write it off as a trick or conspiracy theory, but it seems so bizarre that this strange religion would take off the way it did and still remain so strong today.
