C.S. Lewis... stupid or conniving?

Question

C.S. Lewis:

Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.

So, did he say this because he was genuinely stupid, or because it makes Christians feel more secure?

Christians, whether consciously or subconsciously know that no atheist (in the U.S.) would say Christianity is of no importance... so what was going through this man's head?

jacquot... excellent point... money will make people say the wildest things.

fishy character... Christianity is of high importance in the U.S.! I'm an atheist, and I can see this quite clearly. It affects our policies, our education, our freedoms (or lack thereof)... the list goes on & on. It shapes our culture.

person with the crazy name & crazy picture... I know he is intelligent - I'm just trying to fire up some conversation about the meaning of this quote, which I see too often. Christianity is very important to me, and I'm an atheist (who is drenched in Christianity every day)

To all who are giving me your oh-so-wise interpretations... the quote does say "of no importance"... I can only assume he means, "of no importance". And not, "of no spiritual importance".

Answer 1

C.S. Lewis loves to create false dichotomy in order to convince readers to think that there is no middle ground in various issues.

Another great if not pitiful is the dichotomy he sets for Christ.
He says either Jesus was a mad man or really the son of God, and he keeps his emphasizes how one cannot say he was a great moral teacher. This is completely false. Of course one can accept Jesus as a moral teacher.

Answer 2

That's not what he's talking about. He's saying that since Christianity preaches that your eternal soul is at stake, and it preaches that without Christ, you will be damned, it is of HUGE importance IF it is true. After all, what is 80 or 100 years on earth compared with an eternity in Heaven or hell? If it is not true, you don't need to give it a second thought in terms of how it affects your eternal soul (or even that you have an eternal soul, necessarily). He wasn't talking about how important it is or isn't in culture/nation/laws, but rather that if Jesus' claims are true, it is THE most important thing IF it is true. If Jesus was just a lunatic, you can still talk about how it affects others and the nation, but what does it matter to you that Jesus says He is the only way to Heaven if Heaven doesn't exist (or if there are many ways to it)?

Answer 3

There is no way I could call C.S. Lewis stupid. Conniving is a possibility, but I like the guy too much to call him that.

What I think is that Lewis was not talking about the importance of the churches but the importance of the ideals of Christianity. If it's true, belief is of utmost importance. If it's not true, it is of no importance.

Answer 4

I've seen many answers from atheists on Yahoo Answers that say Christianity is irrelevant today. Is that not the same as saying it's of no importance?

Answer 5

This is the first time I have ever heard C.S.Lewis referred to as stupid. He was a most eminent scholar. What he says makes perfect sense to anyone who pays serious attention to it. Either Christianity has to take centre stage in your life or you should reject it entirely. What is not acceptable is merely to pay lip service to it. He refers not to the institution of Christianity, but to a personal faith in Christ. He knows just what he is saying, as formerly he was an atheist. This statement is completely consistent with the teachings of the Bible. What's your problem?

Answer 6

One, Lewis was British so the remark about Americans is out of place.

Two, he is talking about a personal relationship as opposed to what you see as a cultural demographic.

You are misrepresenting the data to get the result you want.

Answer 7

Something quite profound im sure

He was undecided, thats simple enough, for a time he was angry at God for not existing, then he changed his mind about it and was actually influenced by JR Tolkein whom he was close friends with. And he was from Ireland, not England.

"He fought greatly up to the moment of his conversion noting, "I came into Christianity kicking and screaming." He described his last struggle in Surprised by Joy:

You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. "

-Wikipedia

Answer 8

What amazing hubris! I don't believe I have ever seen anyone with the gall to accuse one of the greatest minds of the past 100 years of stupidity. Like him or hate him, stupid he was not.

Have you considered that you may lack the mental capacity to understand his writings? That seems a more realistic possibility.

edit-- Do you honestly believe that someone deemed worthy to be the Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge needed a "hook to get published"?

edit-- gyeeker There are indeed issues on which there is no middle ground. Lewis was adept at pointing some of them out. This is a great service to all persons as there are issues on which one should choose wisely. You seem to do a somewhat shoddy job of referring to Lewis' "trilemma" of "liar", "lunatic" or "Lord". The crux of this argument is that Jesus claimed to be God in the flesh. If he was not, he was no moral teacher he was a con-man or crazy.

Answer 9

cs lewis wasn't very interested in america. he was an english gentleman, and would have considered the united states as considerably less important than his favourite tobacconist.

Answer 10

He was making a rhetorical point. Not a particularly good one, as it's a redux of Pascal's Wager, but please, try not to take him TOO literally. This brilliant man tried to dabble in theology, and it was, in my opinion, a mistake. Let us not forget, however, the extremely high quality of much of his other work.



He most certainly was neither stupid, nor conniving. In this case, he was just wrong (not in his beliefs, no one could prove those objectively wrong, but in his style of argumentation.)