C.S. LEWIS VS THE NEW ATHEISTS
By Peter S. Williams
Paternoster. 275 pages. £11.69
ISBN 978 1 842 277 706
In this book, the philosopher and apologist Peter Williams takes on the new atheists and exposes the flaws in their thinking.
Others have already done the same, but what makes his approach unique is his use of C.S. Lewis as his spokesperson in the debate. He traces the central arguments which had the greatest impact on Lewis and slowly led him from atheism to Christ, and places them in dialogue with the new atheists. It is a novel approach and the end result is refreshing, stimulating and compelling.
The arguments of the new atheists are nothing new, but, given their popularity today through the works of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and others, they require a reasoned response, and that is what this book delivers with confidence and intellectual rigour. The main four chapters retrace the four main arguments that shaped Lewis’s spiritual journey — the numinal (the argument from desire for God), the philosophical (the argument from rationality), the moral (that the moral law presupposes a lawgiver), and the historical (the person of Jesus Christ).
Strengthening faith
The first three arguments moved Lewis from atheism to theism, and the final one brought him from believing in the existence of God to believing in Christ and becoming a Christian.
This book will strengthen your faith that Christianity is true and give you confidence in countering the arguments of the new atheists. It also serves as a fascinating introduction to Lewis and his own spiritual journey. It is jam-packed with quotes from Lewis and other Christian apologists, as well as from the new atheists. There are very extensive lists of resources for further study in the form of online video, audio, papers and books. One very minor irritation is that on pages 95-131 there is a recurring typo on every other page, with ‘arguent’ instead of ‘argument’ in the page header. Given the nature of the subject matter, the argument, style and language tends to be quite philosophical, but this should not put off the thinking Christian. It would actually also be a stimulating book to give to an atheist or sceptic. The final chapter ends with a rousing challenge to such a person to ‘follow the argument wherever it leads’ and, in Lewis’s words, ‘to be a man, not an ostrich, hiding its head in the sands’.
