Hey everyone,
I just finished reading C.S. Lewis's The Case for Christ by Art Lindsley and enjoyed it greatly. Lindsley brought together facts about Lewis' life and combined these with ideas from many of his books which really helped me to understand the kind of person Lewis was. I decided to write down some quotes from the book to give an overview of my favorite parts, though of course this only presents a small amount of unconnected arguments. I would recommend the book, just know that it's nothing like the apologetic slant of Strobel's Case for Christ. The bulleted points framed by quotation marks are quotations from Lewis' books and the rest are directly from Lindsley.
-Lewis' defense of his faith involved not simply a few isolated arguments but a comprehensive sense in which faith in Christ fits everything.
-"There is nothing progressive about being pigheaded and refusing to admit a mistake. And I think if you look at the world, it is pretty plain that humanity has been making some big mistakes. We are on the wrong road. And if this is so we must go back." (p. 42)
-"If we are skeptical we shall teach skepticism to our pupils, if fools only folly, if vulgar only vulgarity, if saints sanctity, if heroes heroism." (p. 44)
-"No man who values originality will ever be original. But to try to tell the truth as you see it, try to do any bit of work as well as it can be done for the work's sake and what men call originality will come unsought." (p. 47)
-Lewis argued that death is unnatural, and its unnaturalness is the source of its horror. Death is an interloper, an intruder on God's good creation caused by sin. Death ought not to be. It is a clue that this is a good world gone wrong. (p. 54)
-"God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains." (p. 58)
-I think that in many cases, atheists do not really disbelieve in God; rather, they believe in him and are angry with him. Their assertion of God's nonexistence gives them a perverse delight. (p. 62)
-"Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable. How many hours are there in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask- half our great theological and metaphysical problems- are like that." (p. 63)
-Jesus died around A.D. 30. The Gospel of Mark was written in the 60s if not in the 50s. Paul received his tradition in the mid-30s and also wrote in the early 50s. Where is there the time for the creation of legends and myths? The development of German folklore required centuries. Yet the message of the gospel exploded into life fully grown at birth. (p.76)
-"The birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe (catastrophe that leads to a happy ending) of Man's history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. The history begins and ends in joy... There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true." (Tolkien p. 70)
-Similarly, what would you have to know in order to know for sure that there is no God? You would have to know everything. If there was one thing you did not know, that one thing might be God. We are so far from knowing everything that there is to be known, that the dogmatic assertion "There is no God" is not only not provable, it is also arrogant. (p.86)
-"Now faith in the sense in which I am using it is the art of holding onto the things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing mood." (p. 87)
-"Parts of me are still twelve, and I think parts were already fifty when I was twelve." (p. 96)
-If faith in God is only wish fulfillment, why does our faith include so many problematic aspects? (p. 128)
-Lewis argues that the psychological charge "Christianity is a crutch: can be answered by the counter-charge "Atheism is a crutch." In a similar way, postmodernism (to echo Marx) is an opiate of the conscience or (to echo Freud) is a grand Oedipus complex wishing the death of the Heavenly Father. (p. 141)
-While the Bible tells us that "perfect love drives out fear" (1 John 4:18), postmodernists display "a perfect fear that drives out love." (p. 143)
-The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts. (p. 151)
-"We must note in passing that He [Jesus] was never regarded as a mere moral teacher.
He did not produce that kind of effect on any of the people who actually met Him. He produced mainly three effects- Hatred- Terror- Adoration. There was no trace of people expressing mild approval." (p. 168)
-Either Christ is God incarnate or he is not. If he made such an outrageous claim- which he did- then he is a liar, he is a lunatic or he is Lord. The claim that God became incarnate as a man in history sets Christianity apart from all others and leads to the "all or nothing" claims which Christianity boldly make. (p. 169)
-"There are no ordinary people. You have never met a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations, these are mortal and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals that we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit- immortal horrors or everlasting splendors." (p. 179)
-C.S. Lewis did a masterful job of condensing the question of Jesus to its essence: Is Jesus a liar, a lunatic or Lord? It is left to each of us to answer. Is he a liar? It would be very strange if the teachings of a liar would encourage people to walk in the way of scrupulous honesty. Throughout church history, committed Christians have been known as people who keep their word even at great cost to themselves. Is he a lunatic? Then it is impossible to explain the amazing rationality of his teachings about relationships, or the perfect balance of justice and mercy in his life. And how do we account for the effect of his "lunacy" on his followers? The weak become strong; the selfish, selfless; the defeated, victorious; the bad, good. Is he Lord? If Jesus is Lord, the fact is of more than intellectual interest. It demands a response. We can either deny his authority or we can submit to it. (p. 197)
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