Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist and the University of Oxford’s Professor for Public Understanding of Science once said, “Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.” Professor Dawkins is an avid evangelist of reason and logic, and condemns any faith-based worldviews, seeing faith and reason as complete opposites. The conflict between the two is and everlasting debate, pondered by many great philosophers since the time of Aristotle and Plato. C.S. Lewis takes on the debate in his novel Till We Have Faces by expressing his views through the actions and thoughts of Orual and her two mentors, Bardia and the Fox, as well as her sister Psyche. Because of the insufficiency of the explanations of Orual’s two mentors, as well as the eventual unison of Psyche’s faith-based worldview and Orual’s reasonable skepticism, C.S. Lewis provides a conclusion to the debate between faith and reason by uniting the two in an unbreakable bond.
The Fox, a mentor for Orual who bases his life purely on reason, fails to provide Orual with insufficient explanations for the nature of the gods. His stubbornly logical point of view is expressed early in the novel, when he disregards the stories of the gods: “‘Not that this ever really happened,’ the Fox said in haste. ‘It’s only lies of poets, lies of poets, child. Not in accordance with nature’” (Lewis 8). Even this early on, an incompleteness in a purely logical viewpoint appears in the Fox, because these stories that he dismisses are the same stories that he studies and sometimes cherishes even more than his reason-based philosophy. Further insufficiencies in this logic bas...
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...syche” (208). The gods fulfill Lewis’ purpose by telling Orual that she is both Reason and Faith. She finally fulfills both sides of the debate.
Through the resolution of Orual’s conflict between a reason-based worldview and a faith-based worldview, C.S. Lewis challenges the notion that the two must remain eternally separate. By becoming Psyche, Orual is able to demonstrate to the reader the meaning of C.S. Lewis’ purpose through her example as a character. Lewis calls the reader to apply this to real life, forcing them to ponder their worldview and encouraging the reader to critically evaluate the balance of faith and reason in their own worldview.
Works Cited
Dawkins, Richard. "The Nullifidian." Dec. 1994. The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. Web. 10 Mar. 2014.
Lewis, C. S. Till We Have Faces. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1984. Print.
In 2002, Doctor Armand Nicholi, Jr. sought to put two of the greatest minds of the 20th century together to debate the answer to the lifelong question, “Is there a God, and if so, how should we respond to his existence?” Nicholi is the first scholar to ever put the arguments of C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud side by side in an attempt to recreate as realistic of a debate as possible between the two men. He examines their writings, letters, and lectures in an attempt to accurately represent both men in this debate. His result, the nearly 300 page book, The Question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life, is one of the most comprehensive, well researched, and unbiased summaries of the debate between the worldviews of “believer and unbeliever” (Pg. 5).
Gould continues his base argument on NOMA by comparing religion against science and some of the past disputes between the two subjects. He compares the ideas of an absent clock-winder, to that of one that is ever-present to press it upon the hour to make it chime, which alludes to a later argument of intelligent design versus natural development. (Pg. 49-95) After the clock-makers discussion, Gould discusses two of the largest figures in evolutionary biology, Charles Darwin and Thomas Henry Huxley, and a liberal clergyman, Charles Kingsley. Gould talks about the correspondence between Huxley and Kingsley, where Kingsley reaches out to his skeptical friend Huxley with faith and Huxley retorts in turn with natural science against religion. Huxley thanks Kingsley for his condolences, but argues against immortality for humans but not for the rest of the natural world, when humans are but an insignificant speck in the whole of the natural world. Hu...
Clearly, there is a distinction between the world of the Roman gods and the world that everyday people live in. Man, according to Ovid, has experienced a gold, sil...
Three characters, Demea, the rationalist, Cleanthes, the empiricist and theist, and Philo, a skeptical, agnostic empiricist prepare to discuss their ideas about the universe in Part I. The discussion begins as the characters debate how they should teach their students philosophy, ethics, logic, and theology.
Cocteau’s The Infernal Machine and Sophocles’s Oedipus the King are both centered on the myth, yet their themes are different. By changing Oedipus’s personality, motive, relationship with Jocasta, and his character development Cocteau makes his theme the idea that the gods basically just play with humans, instead of like Sophocles’s theme that man cannot escape his own fate.
In this essay, I hope to provide answers to how the actions of Hippolytus and Phaedra relate to the gods, whether or not the characters concern themselves with the reaction of the gods to their behavior, what the characters expect from the gods, how the gods treat the humans, and whether or not the gods gain anything from making the humans suffer. Before we can discuss the play, however, a few terms need to be defined. Most important would be the nature of the gods. They have divine powers, but what exactly makes the Greek gods unique should be explored. The Greek gods, since they are anthropomorphic, have many of the same characteristics as humans.
In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis employs symbolism, development and morality. He uses symbolism as a driving force throughout the novel. Without the use of characters similar to Christian figures, Lewis’ series would lack a sense of meaning. His use of these figures evokes a sense of wonder in the reader and encourages them to continue reading. Lewis uses development throughout The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe as a means to create vivid and more impressionable world. He uses morality as a means for rallying the reader behind a character, inspiring them to continue to support them though the story. These three elements work harmoniously to establish a novel that contains literary depth and meaning.
Through my study of Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” and Saint Augustine’s “The Confessions”, I discovered that both text involve a journey of finding real truths before acquiring a faith. This suggests that faith and reason are compatible because one must embark on journey in which they are educated about real truths before they are able to acquire a faith.
Pope John Paul II once said, “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth – in a word, to know himself – so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves.” (Fallible Blogma) Based on this significant and powerful quote, one can infer that faith and reason are directly associated and related. It can also be implied that the combination of faith and reason allows one to seek information and knowledge about truth and God; based on various class discussions and past academic teachings, it is understood that both faith and reason are the instruments that diverse parties are supposed to use on this search for truth and God. There are many stances and viewpoints on the issues of faith and reason. Some believe that both of these ideas cannot and should not be combined; these parties deem that faith and reason must be taken as merely separate entities. However, this writer does not understand why both entities cannot be combined; both terms are so closely compatible that it would make sense to combine the two for a common task. Based on various class discussions and readings, there are many philosophers and theologians who have certain opinions regarding faith, reason and their compatibility; these philosophers include Hildegard of Bingen, Ibn Rushd, Moses Maimonides, and St. Thomas Aquinas. The following essay will examine each of the previously stated philosopher’s viewpoints on faith and reason, and will essentially try to determine whether or not faith and reason are ultimately one in the same.
Lewis’ writings and their relationship to Christianity are perhaps better understood after a basic knowledge of Lewis’ journey to, away from, and then back to his faith. He became a Christian in his early youth but as an adolescent he rejected it. In his autobiography, “Surprised by Joy” Lewis wrote that the strongest argument in support of atheism was this quote from a poem written by Lucretius: “Had God designed the world, it would not be / A world so frail and faulty as we see” (65). As an atheist and a Christian, Lewis always had an analytical way of thinking that contrasted with his imaginative side so well-known for works like “The Chronicles of Narnia.” It might be surprising for fans of Lewis’ fantasy works to learn that Lewis had a great interest in the sciences. He never went too far into the sciences because, as he explained, in all sciences “the lion Mathematics lies in wait for you”...
C.S. Lewis was the 20th century’s most popular proponent of faith based on reason. As a child, he created an imaginary world where personified animals came to life, and later, he wrote the book, Chronicles of Narnia. How did he transform from a boy fascinated with anthropomorphic animals into a man of immense faith? His transformation to the Christian religion happened as his fame began to flourish. People wrote him, asking him about his claims about the truth of Christianity (Belmonte, Kevin). As I attended the drama of Freud’s Last Session, I was engrossed into the plot of the play and was constantly thinking about how it pertained to the objectives of the World Literature class. I not only connected the content of the play to its context, but I also reached out to apply the context to a discussion on a broader scale. I then discovered why the context of literature is imperative for true understanding of the w...
In Ancient Greece the existence of gods and fate prevailed. In the Greek tragedy King Oedipus by the playwright Sophocles these topics are heavily involved. We receive a clear insight into their roles in the play such as they both control man's actions and that challenging their authority leads to a fall.
Wiester, John L. 1993. The Real Meaning of Evolution. Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 45 (3): 182-86.
“Gods can be evil sometimes.” In the play “Oedipus the King”, Sophocles defamed the gods’ reputation, and lowered their status by making them look harmful and evil. It is known that all gods should be perfect and infallible, and should represent justice and equity, but with Oedipus, the gods decided to destroy him and his family for no reason. It might be hard to believe that gods can have humanistic traits, but in fact they do. The gods, especially Apollo, are considered evil by the reader because they destroyed an innocent man’s life and his family. They destroyed Oedipus by controlling his fate, granting people the power of prophecy, telling Oedipus about his fate through the oracle of Apollo, and finally afflicting the people of Thebes with a dreadful plague. Fundamentally, by utilizing fate, prophecies, the oracle of Apollo, and the plague, the gods played a significant role in the destruction of Oedipus and his family.
In today’s modern western society, it has become increasingly popular to not identify with any religion, namely Christianity. The outlook that people have today on the existence of God and the role that He plays in our world has changed drastically since the Enlightenment Period. Many look solely to the concept of reason, or the phenomenon that allows human beings to use their senses to draw conclusions about the world around them, to try and understand the environment that they live in. However, there are some that look to faith, or the concept of believing in a higher power as the reason for our existence. Being that this is a fundamental issue for humanity, there have been many attempts to explain what role each concept plays. It is my belief that faith and reason are both needed to gain knowledge for three reasons: first, both concepts coexist with one another; second, each deals with separate realms of reality, and third, one without the other can lead to cases of extremism.