C.S. Lewis - “Unless I believe in God, I cannot believe in thought.”

[christophertaylor]

One of the most clear and coherent expressions of rational thinking in modern times.

[personified]

Never thought about it that way, but it makes sense.

[robertlux]

World class reasoning, indeed. Hats off (as always) to C.S. Lewis.

[DefendersoftheFaithRestNot]

Brilliant. C.s Lewis has so my great books discussing Christianity.

[dannettepeters]

Personally, I think only the intelligence within a person, can recognize GOD IS.

[bradleyhenry]

Oh my goodness 😂 argument closed 😂 so good

[FarReacher]

Beautiful! So clear and logical. Put that in your pipe and smoke it Richard Dawkins.

[TonyTooTuff]

Refreshing to hear truth in this world. Thank you. It earned a subscriber 👍

[zachjensen]

This thought is fleshed out in great detail by Cornelius Van Til and his work on presuppositional apologetics.

[TheHivefl]

I am in the process of listening to Mere Christianity, Lewis makes some very compelling arguments. I will say openly I am not a Christian. This statement posed here is interesting, yet it does fall into the trap of anthropomorphizing God.

I think atheism makes no sense. However I also find myself thinking that Christians, for example, say that what we perceive as random occurrences via evolution and other phenomena are random. If God is infinitely powerful is something that we perceive as random from a unicellular organisms or the Big Bang random? I have never seen how the idea of God and all the scientific understanding we have now collide at all. Seems to me the problem arises when humility is lacking in both areas.

[tbcreative]

Alvin Plantinga has a similar argument to this which is probably a bit more fleshed out, it's called the "Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism"

That being said, I absolutely love C.S Lewis and the way his mind wanders through the string of his philosophical thoughts, he has a way with words that I believe is unmatched.

[cheeseballs]

Where do we draw the line? Unicorns? Dragons? Talking elephants? Gnomes?

[philb]

God is all-powerful, right? So he could make us think whatever he wants us to think. That means whatever we are thinking isn't necessarily reasoned and true. It could just be what he wants us to think. He could have reasons known only to him for us to reach false conclusions and manipulate things to get us there.

So under a theistic model, why should we trust thinking? At least under a non-theistic model, we can check our conclusions with each other and independent observation through our senses. An all-powerful god could override *all* of that. So why trust thinking and reasoning under a theistic model?

[freshcarrot]

Where does consciousness/thought point directly to the single God of the Bible? Why couldn’t it be any other god like the ones in Hinduism or whatever religion or even a god who has no religious following?

If you can’t even define who or what that god is, then what even is the point of calling it god?

[GodlessCommie]

this just feels like a repackaging of the argument from complexity. not super convincing unless your worldview predisposes belief in god already.

[princecharlesokere]

WHY ARE ATHEISTS NOW QUIET IN THIS COMMENT SECTION.???

[sakshampokhrel]

Hot take: I don't believe in God because it is boring. There are all these theories that people spend their lifetime researching and thinking about, which are much more complex in explaining time and space itself. I am not saying that there is no chance that God does not exist; however, the ideology of some cosmic being who was there from the beginning, without an explanation for creating the universe, is too simple for me to believe in. I do not hate anyone who believes in God or those who don't.

[Doushibag]

A lack of a creative god doesn't mean things, notably thinking minds, are random. It's a bad point.

[jacoblogan]

This logic is wrong. It presupposes that the only alternative to an intelligent creator is randomness. For instance, if consciousness is fundamental to the universe it could be the case that brain is within our mind, not the other way around

[BenTheHenAgain]

What Darwin showed was that you can have the most exquisite design and yet no intelligent designer is necessary. So yes our brains are designed for thinking and we can have as much ‘trust’ in that as we do that legs are good for running. No god necessary.