[net.religion] C. S. Lewis' overrated arguments

mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) (12/04/84)

In article <1522@pucc-h> aeq@pucc-h (Jeff Sargent) writes:
> I venture to point out a few sentences from "Miracles", beginning with a
> couple of definitions:

[Much obfuscatory verbiage deleted...]

> "We may in fact state it as a rule that *no thought is valid if it can be
> fully explained as the result of irrational causes*....  Now it would clearly
> be preposterous to apply this rule to each particular thought as we come to it
> and yet not to apply it to all thoughts taken collectively, that is, to human
> reason as a whole.  Each particular thought is valueless if it is the result
> of irrational causes.  Obviously, then, the whole process of human thought,
> what we call Reason, is equally valueless if it is the result of irrational
> causes.  Hence every theory of the universe which makes the human mind a
> result of irrational causes is inadmissible, for it would be a proof that
> there are no such things as proofs.  Which is nonsense.

The first sentence is blatantly erroneous.  There are at least two ways that
valid thoughts could arise from irrational (naturalistic) causes.
By coincidence, or by the causes leading to valid thoughts.  Rolling
snake-eyes in one throw of a pair of dice is analogous to my first way, and
rolling snake eyes by rolling each die until it turns up a one is analogous
to my second way.

Evolution produces validity by natural selection of variety produced by chance.
Similar production and selection of thoughts leads to valid thought.

Thus, since the rest of C. S. Lewis' argument is founded upon that first,
erroneous sentence, his argument is "nonsense".  It's unnecessary to
reproduce the rest of his attack on naturalism.
-- 

Mike Huybensz		...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh