56 pages • 1-hour read
God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics
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Index of Terms
Apologetics
Apologetics is the branch of theology and philosophy dedicated to intellectual defense and explanation of religious belief. The term comes from the Greek word apologia, meaning reply or defense, and does not imply an apology in the modern sense of expressing regret or remorse. Instead, apologetics offers rational arguments in response to questions, objections, and criticisms directed at believers of a specific faith.
Within Christianity, apologetics has traditionally aimed to show that belief in God, the truth of the Christian doctrines of the Incarnation and Resurrection, and the credibility of the Bible are intellectually defensible. Apologetics is often structured as a conversation or debate between believers seeking deeper understanding and skeptics demanding justification. In the modern era, the central concerns of apologetics are responding to challenges posed by widespread suffering, advances in science, and growing skepticism.
C.S. Lewis is among the most famous Christian apologists, and many of the essays collected in God in the Dock are explicitly apologetic. One objection that Lewis addresses is the argument that ancient people did not understand the size and scope of the universe, and if they had, Christianity would never have developed. Lewis addresses this objection in two separate essays, identifying evidence to the contrary in ancient texts. Lewis’s goal is not to embarrass the critic, but to dismantle their underlying arguments. His attempts to answer this objection in multiple forums reflects a genuine desire to engage in apologetics with readers at all levels of British society.
Argument From Reason
The argument from reason is a philosophical argument directed against the materialist view that everything that exists can be explained in terms of physical causes and laws. The argument was developed primarily by C.S. Lewis in his book Miracles (1947), but many of the ideas introduced in that book appear first in the essays collected in God in the Dock. The argument from reason claims that if the materialists are correct, and human thoughts are wholly the result of chemical reactions, then human thought cannot be considered rational. As a result, belief in any human argument—including materialism itself—is irrational and can therefore be disregarded. As Lewis argues in God in the Dock, if materialism is true, “then we can know no truths—it cuts its own throat” (137).
The argument from reason does not claim that physical processes play no role in thought. Instead, it contends that reason cannot be fully explained in purely material terms. Lewis distinguishes between the physical responses that produce thought, which he calls “irrational causes” (137), and “grounds” (145), which explain which thoughts are rationally justified. He argues that reasoning requires grounds, not just causes. In order for a thought to be rational, it must have grounds outside of the physical processes that caused it. The essays collected in God in the Dock suggest that Lewis was developing the argument from reason early on.
Materialist Philosophy
Materialist philosophy is the view that reality is fundamentally composed of matter and energy, and that all things, including human consciousness, can be explained in terms of physical processes. Materialist philosophy holds that science provides the only reliable means of understanding reality. As a result, it rejects any supernatural or metaphysical explanations that go beyond empirical observation.
Materialists argue that consciousness is not a distinct, immaterial entity but rather an emergent property of the brain. Thoughts, emotions, and subjective experiences are understood as the result of neural activity and biochemical processes. From this perspective, human consciousness is wholly dependent on the physical state of the brain, and materialists believe that consciousness ends after death. Materialist philosophers active at the same time as C.S. Lewis include C.E.M Jones, Bertrand Russell, and Lewis’s Oxford colleague A.J. Ayer.
Lewis identifies materialism as “the popular creed” (25) of his day, and sees its influence at all levels of British society. He argues that “it is not the books written in direct defense of Materialism that makes the modern man a materialist; it is the materialistic assumptions in all the other books” (93). Many of the essays in God in the Dock are aimed at disputing materialist principles, in particular the idea that there is no physical evidence for consciousness or the soul. Lewis repeatedly argues that natural laws do not negate the possibility of supernatural activity.
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