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When it comes to writing about Christianity, C.S. Lewis had an impressive talent for making claims that were witty, sincere, clever, pithy, and completely wrong. I discussed one of these – the “Lord, Liar, or Lunatic” argument – before. Recently, I’ve been seeing another one popping up in church ads on the Boston subway, where I do a lot of my writing. Lewis said:
One must keep on pointing out that Christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance, and, if true, of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important.
The church slightly modified this quote to fit in its ads: “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important.” The modified version removes a little bit of the untruth: surely there is more to the two-thousand-year history of Christian tradition, from St. Teresa’s visions to church architecture, than a mere statement. But the “statement” bit isn’t the point of Lewis’s quote, and it’s not what I want to focus on here either.
Rather, there is something very wrong with the claim that Christianity, however one identifies its nature, is either of no importance or of infinite importance. It is no coincidence that those who make this claim – Lewis and the church advertising it – are entirely on one side of the presumed dilemma. They believe Christianity to be true, and therefore of infinite importance. That part is a perfectly defensible claim.
The problem comes on the other side of the dilemma. I am surprised at how little Lewis seems to have thought it through, given that he was at one point an atheist himself. There are many in this world who believe Christianity to be false. But the inference that it would therefore be unimportant is utterly bizarre. Many self-proclaimed atheists spend a great deal of time attacking Christianity. Are they wasting their time?
The question is entirely rhetorical. One might as well ask whether right-wingers who attack left-wing ideologies, or left-wingers who attack right-wing ideologies, are wasting their time. Of course they aren’t! For millions of people believe in each of those opposing ideologies, and the beliefs matter because the people matter. They’re real and they’re powerful. Left-wingers can tax you. Right-wingers can take away your health care and your children’s education. Left- and right-wing ideologies matter for this reason. That either ideology is true or false makes no difference to this importance.
Christians, meanwhile, can put you in jail for your choice of sexual partners. They can make it impossible for you to access abortion or even contraception. And they can fight for – and achieve – the equality of people of all races amid a society that denies it. In the past century, Christians of various sorts have done all these things many times, and done them because they were Christians: because they believed in, identified with and/or practised Christian tradition.
Beyond these political implications lies the historical memory of Christianity that continues to percolate through modern Western culture, a long set of influences we are often unaware of – the kind of influence that serious atheists like Nietzsche take great pains to uproot. And that’s not even to mention the beauty of Christian art and literature, so often appreciated by people who have no patience for Christian belief. All this is of no importance? Only to someone who has not thought seriously about what it is to believe Christian tradition false.
I am not taking a position here on the truth or falsity of Christianity, only on what is implied by its being false. Can a false Christianity be moderately imporant? If the answer is no, it is only because a false Christianity must be very important.
1. Given the vagueness of “importance”, the “importance” of clarifying the key concept of “importance” in this context is crucial.
I: “X is important if and only if its adoption has, and/or had, inspired or motivated actions bearing, positively or negatively, on human well-being”.
If we use (I) as the criterion of the importance of a belief, then it is clear that a huge range of beliefs, obviously not limited to religious beliefs or even to true beliefs, qualifies for “importance”.
The question then is: Given the vast range of important beliefs, including true or false beliefs, does the claim that Christianity is “important” have any special importance? If so, why?
I suspect that one could make a good case for the view that even if Christianity is important, the claim that it is important, given the vast range of beliefs which qualify for “importance”, has no philosophical importance!
2. Importance admits of degrees. It also admits relativity.
Hence, the claim that “X is of no importance or of infinite or absolute importance” suffers from the fallacy of excluded alternatives, e.g., the possibility that X may have some importance or moderate importance, the possibility that X may have a great deal of importance, but not infinite or absolute importance.
Further, X could be important for achieving goal A, but irrelevant, and, hence, unimportant for goal B.
Thus, believing in the immaculate conception resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth may be important for Christians, but irrelevant, and, hence, unimportant for Hindus and Buddhists
3. The relation between “importance” and truth deserves careful inquiry.
Lewis’ claim that Christianity is of “infinite importance” if it is true and of no importance if it is false assumes, at the very least, that truth is important and falsity is unimportant.
But if the criterion of importance of a set of beliefs is the merely the impact, positive or negative, of their adoption on human well-being, then it’s clear that false beliefs could have not only a great deal of importance, but possibly infinite or absolute importance!!!
If Christian beliefs are of “infinite importance”, then it follows, on this very ground, that atheism is also of “infinite importance” since it leads to “eternal damnation”!!!
Thus, Christians have compelling reasons to take atheism very, very seriously!
On the other hand, atheists do not have any reasons of comparable importance to take Christianity seriously. What reason could possibly compete with the importance of the prospect of “eternal damnation”?
4. All this, I think, raises the importance of the issue of the truth of a belief, or a “meta-belief”, that a set of beliefs is true.
To adopt a belief is to hold that it is true.
If the adoption of Christian beliefs has and/or had any impact, positive or negative, on human well-being. this is entirely a function of believing in them or having the conviction that they are true.
In essence, this to have the “meta-belief” that Christian beliefs are true.
Thus, the impact, positive or negative, that Christian beliefs have had on human well-being is due to the meta-belief that they are true.
It follows that Lewis is required to acknowledge that the “meta-belief” that Christian beliefs are true, or that they are false, is of “infinite importance”!
The crucial question, then, is:
Is there good evidence to justify holding this “meta-belief” that Christian beliefs are true?
5. In essence, what I am saying is that beliefs, religious or otherwise, have consequences for human well-being only because they are held true, correctly or incorrectly, by their adherents.
Hence, the value of truth is the engine which drives the train of consequences of a belief or a set of beliefs!
It follows that it won’t do merely to appeal to those consequences, good or bad, of the adoption of Christian beliefs, as evidence of their importance.
Rather, by the same token of the value of truth, we must inquire into whether there are really good grounds for believing and valuing those Christian beliefs as true beliefs!
6. Irrational and false beliefs have had a great deal of impact on human well-being, but only because they were mistakenly held true by their adherents.
Thus, paradoxically, irrational and false beliefs also owe their “impact power” on human well-being to the value of truth.
This is an eloquent testimony to the power of the value of truth in the human condition!
“If Christian beliefs are of “infinite importance”, then it follows, on this very ground, that atheism is also of “infinite importance” since it leads to “eternal damnation”!!!
Thus, Christians have compelling reasons to take atheism very, very seriously!
On the other hand, atheists do not have any reasons of comparable importance to take Christianity seriously. What reason could possibly compete with the importance of the prospect of “eternal damnation”?”
What I want to say is that, given their belief that atheism leads to eternal damnation, Christians have a stake, of “infinite importance”, in showing that atheism is false, but atheists do not have a comparable stake in showing that Christianity is false.
1. Anyone who believes that a belief system, e.g., Christianity or Islam, is important because of its effects on the human condition ought also to investigate the evidence for the truth or falsity of that belief system. This is because beliefs have power only if they are held to be true. And this makes the power of those beliefs parasitical or dependent on the value of truth.
It follows that it would be inconsistent to presuppose the value of truth and yet suspend inquiry into evidence for the truth or falsity of the beliefs in question.
2. Nazism, Stalinism, and Maoism have had an impact greater than that of Christianity, or any other religion, on the human condition in the twentieth century.
Given their actual effects on the human condition, and given the criterion of “importance” in terms of the seriousness of consequences for the human condition, they are undoubtedly very important.
But this in itself tells us nothing about whether we should espouse any of those belief systems, or approach them sympathetically, or give them any role in our lives.
What really follows from the “importance” of a belief, in the specified sense, is that its adoption or rejection is a matter of grave intellectual and moral responsibility.
Recognizing the importance of a belief is entirely consistent with a total and uncompromising rejection of it on grounds of the value of truth, a value which accounts for the very importance of the belief in question!
It’s probably important too to remember that Lewis is writing a popular tract and not a paper for a learned journal. Close parsing and fine dicing may not be appropriate. It’s also essential to bear in mind that Lewis had a naive realist view of Christian doctrine. As he says in a following section:
Obviously being true in that sense is significant and it is the stick which religions have cut to beat each other and themselves with. ‘But they are all saying different things how can they all be true’ is a common rebuttal of religion in general. In a naturalist sense religious doctrine is not truth sensitive. Atheist naturalists feel that they have done all the work they need to do when they establish this and if the measure of how important they take religion to be is the amount of work they put into establishing an acquaintance with its doctrines they do not reckon it at all highly. They might if they went into more sophisticated theological speculations find it worth a thinking man’s consideration but the evidence is that they mostly do not.
I completely agree, Michael. To Thill’s reply I would say that it is rather the other way around: ontological statements found in Christianity can be understood only in the light of the soteriologically relevant ones. “God” in a religion does not mean “An all-pervasive substance” as if one were talking within the framework of Natural Sciences. It rather indicates someone who is soteriologically relevant to an individual in his or her singularity.
“In a naturalist sense religious doctrine is not truth sensitive.”
What is it for a doctrine to be “truth sensitive”?
If you mean “truth value”, or the capacity for being true or false, then many religious doctrines contain claims which are “truth sensitive” because such claims are purportedly descriptive in nature.
Obviously, religions have a mass of prescriptive or normative claims which have a stranglehold on their adherents, but as I have pointed out on several occasions on this blog, these prescriptions or norms are dependent on descriptive “supernaturalist” claims, e.g., the notion that you should follow the Ten Commandments is dependent on the “supernaturalist” claim that they were issued by God.
As so often happens, I couldn’t respond in full in a comment box. Bottom line: I agree that there are, in this world, more shades of importance than Lewis seems to admit; but I don’t think that was the arena he was concerned with. (I haven’t re-read the Lewis article in question, though.)
I find CSL’s and Amod’s approaches similar in a funny way. Each of CSL and Amod reach make their arguments based on perspectives that are derived from their relationship to Christianity.
CSL, as a Christian apologist, defines importance not based on this world; he believes that Christianity’s promise of the salvation of our immortal soul is of utmost importance. But he acknowledges that Christianity is not at all important and the religion should be left behind like spit on the sidewalk if the promise of salvation is untrue. CSL could as well say that if Christianity is untrue, nothing is important — we are lost. This is why Christianity is of infinite importance in CSL’s view.
Amod is not a Christian. He has already concluded that there is no immortal soul and, therefore, views Christianity’s importance from a secular viewpoint (the effect of Christianity on Western culture, art and politics).
So, I think CSL and Amod are talking past each other.
The interesting aspect of the CSL statement is that it illustrates the difference between an apologist and a philosopher. CSL’s assumptions about the world are based on Christian doctrine and they are never really questioned. Therefore, in postulating a world where Christianity is false, he is left with a world of meaninglessness with a god sized hole in it. In that world, Christianity has no importance — but only because the absence of god has rendered life meaningless.
It strikes me that it is not rational to make one’s “inner security”, peace, and happiness depend on mere beliefs (in contrast to knowledge), particularly religious beliefs.
Where there is mere belief (albeit belief in “Mere Christianity”), there will always be doubt. And where there is doubt, there is, in the parlance of Yoga, “Vikshepa” or “tossing of the mind” and the resultant feelings of insecurity, anxiety, hostility toward those who seek to undermine the belief, etc.
Perhaps, it is rational to strive to attain a mental condition in which the need to believe that God exists AND the need to believe that God does not exist, etc., are both absent?
The “Awakened Mind” has no need of belief or disbelief in God?
If so, “God” and all the religions which purvey that notion would be unimportant for the “Awakened Mind”!
This seems right to me. However, it is worth considering that, among mistaken beliefs, some are more helpful than others. A non-theist might recognize that a belief in god that results in humbleness and cultivation of compassion might be expedient — and that it might be unskillful to disturb this belief. Buddhists, for example, assert that eternalistic beliefs are more helpful than nihilistic beliefs (although both are considered wrong views).
The Christian ideal of salvation rests on a number of “truth sensitive” descriptive claims, e.g., the existence of God, the existence of the soul, the reality of God’s incarnation as Jesus Christ, etc., which are taken to be true by the adherents.
Obviously, this ideal of salvation will collapse if those descriptive claims are undermined.
“Witters” was right in emphasizing the importance of values and ideals and actions based on them in the religious life, but I think he was mistaken in thinking that the descriptive claims in religions are simply truncated expressions of emotions, e.g., awe, and normative attitudes (“My attitude towards him is an attitude towards a soul. I am not of the opinion that he has a soul” in the Philosophical Investigations) characteristic of the human “form of life”.
Rather, the emotions and normative attitudes in religion and their forms of expression are sustained by the foundation of descriptive claims taken to be true.
Hence, I think that the inquiry into the truth of the descriptive claims in religions is of crucial importance.
Thill:
Truth sensitive is a metaphorical expression that simply indicates the inability of naturalist explanations to discern the truth of religious utterances. In the Humean tradition a naturalist is simply obliged to reject the notion of miracle. No evidence could establish that one took place. There cannot be evidence for it that trumps the continuity of natural law etc. We are all familiar with those arguments. The narrow view is that only evidence that corresponds to naturalist criteria of what evidence is can be accepted. That’s the impasse.
1. “The narrow view is that only evidence that corresponds to naturalist criteria of what evidence is can be accepted.”
Unless it’s a “narrow view” merely by your definition or stipulation, it would be a “narrow view” only if you show that there are plausible alternative criteria of evidence.
One would certainly like to know what is meant by “naturalist criteria of evidence” and about alternative criteria of evidence allegedly appropriate for descriptive religious claims.
If you mean by “naturalist criteria of evidence” inter-subjective verification by means of observations of facts, then assuredly those who believe in “miracles” subscribe to this very criterion, e.g., the evidence offered by Christians for the “miracles” of Jesus is (alleged) inter-subjective testimony (of the disciples) based on direct observation!!!
Proponents of the design argument obviously employ naturalist criteria of evidence in making claims about the the design, or “fine-tuning”, of the universe, and also in arguing that “irreducible complexity” constitutes evidence of a designer! (The watchmaker analogy is thoroughly naturalist in temper!).
Even the “first cause argument” presupposes a naturalist view of causation.
The central problem with the proffered justifications of descriptive religious claims is not the absence of appeal to “naturalist criteria of evidence”, but their inconsistent and arbitrary application, e.g., appealing to (alleged reports of) inter-subjective observation or verification of the “miracle” of the conversion of wine into water by Jesus and at the same time denying that this form of observation applies to claims of transubstantiation of bread and wine into the “flesh and blood” of Jesus Christ.
2. Anyone familiar with the Christian concept of God understands that it includes the notion that God is an all-pervasive or omnipresent spirit. It is strawman to ascribe to the critic the notion that God is an all-pervasive material substance.
All the same, it is interesting to note that mystics from diverse theistic traditions have attributed the property of “Light” to God.
3. Since the Christian concept of God involves the notion of an eternal being which, obviously, existed before it created the universe and humanity, it is clearly a mistake to claim that the existence of God can only be understood in terms of its power to save or grant salvation to human beings1
This gets the logic backwards. Salvation talk, in Christianity, assumes the existence of God, and, of course, Satan. But the existence of God does not require that we assume that there must be salvation. Clearly, salvation is not in the picture before God created humanity.
Thill, it is not the case that I (or anyone else) was ascribing to you a claim which is in fact present in Christian theology. Your first point nicely explains what is happening: you say with absolute certainty that according to Christian theology God existed *before* the world although already Augustine explained that this way of reasoning is influenced by Greek/Latin ideas and is inherently not Christian (God did not create the world “at a certain point”, at least since there was no time preceding the creation). According to Augustine (and, as far as I know, all theologians after him) God eternly wanted humans and their salvation, he did not start wanting it “at a certain point”.
sorry: I meant to say “your third point”.
Elisa,
Let’s go back to your earlier comment:
“ontological statements found in Christianity can be understood only in the light of the soteriologically relevant ones. “God” in a religion does not mean “An all-pervasive substance” as if one were talking within the framework of Natural Sciences. It rather indicates someone who is soteriologically relevant to an individual in his or her singularity.”
1. Since I did not make any claim which assumes or implies that God is the sort of “all-pervasive substance” which could be the object of inquiry in natural sciences, I don’t know why you would point out that this is not the sort of claim made about God in a religion. Unless, of course, you meant to suggest that I had that misconception. Hence, my reference to a strawman move.
2. “ontological statements found in Christianity can be understood only in the light of the soteriologically relevant ones.”
What does this mean? Surely, it means that concept of God can only be understood in terms of the soteriological functions attributed to God in Christianity.
This makes the existence of God dependent on (evidence of)his functions.
But it is a simple truth that existence precedes function. A being (or anything which has a function) must first exist in order to exercise any functions!
Hence, the existence of God is logically presupposed by, and, hence, logically prior to, any claims about his functions, soteriological or otherwise.
Further, it also a simple truth that absence of function is not evidence of absence. In other words, if I don’t have any evidence to show that God has “saved” me, or is showering his grace or love on me, this doesn’t imply that God does not exist.
By the same token, if we don’t have any evidence of God’s intervention, soteriological or otherwise, in the universe, this doesn’t imply that God does not exist.
3. You are assuming that Augustine’s “spin” is coherent and consistent with Biblical accounts of creation and God.
On the contrary, the notion of “timeless creation” is unintelligible. Indeed, “timeless action” is itself unintelligible. The concept of action implies a beginning. Hence, the concept of action implies temporality.
Further, as critics of the incoherent Augustinian dogma of “Divine Timelessness” have pointed out:
a. Christianity holds that God intervenes in the universe. This implies that God brings about temporal changes or changes in time. but a timeless being cannot bring about temporal changes. Hence, God is not a timeless being.
b. Christianity also holds that God is a personal being aware of and responding to the predicament of temporal beings. But a timeless being is not capable of this. Hence, God is not a timeless being.
c. The notions of “The Last Judgment” and “Eternal Damnation”, essential to the Christian faith, are temporal notions and constitute examples of God’s interventions in time. A timeless being is not capable of this. Hence, God is not a timeless being.
As Wolterstorff has put it:
“Some of God’s actions must be understood as a response to the free actions of human beings—that what God does he sometimes does in response to what some human being does. I think this is in fact the case. And I think it follows, given that all human actions are temporal, that those actions of God which are “response” actions are temporal as well.” (Wolterstorff, 1975, 197)
D. Further, as Kenny has shown, if God is timeless, then all events are simultaneously present to his consciousness. Since God’s knowledge is infallible, this would imply that as I type these lines, thousands of followers of Spartacus are being crucified by the Romans and lining the Appian Way from Rome to Capua!
But this is absurd. Hence, God is not a timeless being.
The Bible does not suggest anything remotely akin to timelessness. “Eternal” in the sense of “everlasting in time” is the notion of God’s existence invoked by it, or implied by it, in its references to God.
Biblical creationism (Genesis) does not have anything to do with “timeless creation”. The Genesis accounts of creation clearly imply that creation was a temporal process with stages.
4. “God eternly wanted humans and their salvation, he did not start wanting it “at a certain point”.”
According to the Bible, the question of salvation arises only because of the “Fall” of Adam and Eve. And the “Fall” was a contingent event in time, an event which occurred after creation.
Hence, God could not possibly have “eternally wanted humans and their salvation”. It also follows that God’s soteriological function is not a necessary attribute. and this implies that we can conceive of God’s existence without reference to his soteriological function.
We also ought to bear in mind that, according to the Bible, creation was a contingent event and a free choice by God.
If so, again, God’s soteriological functions are not his necessary attributes. this implies, again, that we can conceive of God’s existence independently of his soteriological functions.
5. Certainly, a Christian believes that God is the sort of being who can and will save him subject to the condition of obedience to divine commandments.
But I don’t think any Christian, or any Christian theologian for that matter, believes that sans this capacity to save or condemn humanity, God would not exist!
To hold that view would also be extraordinarily anthropocentric.
Dear Thill,
I will not write here about time, since I already tried to do justice to Augustine (and probably failed). God is surely not timeless, as you rigthly say, but this does not mean that He did not create time. I suppose that you agree that God created the Earth while being earthless, according to the Bible-standpoint, isn’t it? And would not you say that He created the space and that there was no space before?
As for your other very important point, namely, whether God would have existed if not in order to save human beings:
I do not think that it is anthropocentric to say that God is love (“deus charitas est”) and that love requires a relation. If the very essence of God is relation, than it does not make sense to think of Him/Her as a solitary being. The ones who have done it were philosophers wanting to ontologize a theological concept that they could not fully understand (see my criticism above, the one you deal with in your point 1). But, once again, I am only trying to do justice to Christian theology, while not being a theologian myself.
Regarding 3.a., I think you must consider the role of Christ in Christianity. It seems to me that a Christian might take the view that Christ was the manifestation of god in time and a world subject to change — and that the Trinity is a descent or progression of god into the relative world.
But I am not a Christian and likely am not making an orthodox statement.
I do think that the question whether god exists — forces something fundamentally inconceivable into a conceptual framework. And it might be better for a Christian to open her mind in awe or to bow to the ground rather than to do this.
“the “miracle” of the conversion of wine into water by Jesus”
Sorry, I was boiling water for some green tea when I wrote this and “subconsciously” gave priority to water!
All the same, I dare say that a few miracles of conversion of wine into water, or better, sand into water, may have been apposite in the arid environment in which Yeshua lived! LOL
One more thing. I suspect that the dogma of “Divine Timelessness” was invented in order to escape from the quandaries of mutability in temporal existence and action, quandaries created by the assumption that a perfect being must be immutable.
The only way God can be rendered immutable or changeless is to banish him to timelessness!
But “Divine Timelessness” opens a bigger can of worms than mutability in temporal existence.
Biblical accounts clearly suggest that God can change his intentions or purposes in response to human choices.
Unless we assume that perfection and mutability are incompatible, there is no reason to hold that God must be absolutely immutable.
Also, why must God’s capacity to change his plans or purposes be inconsistent with the immutability of his essential nature?
Timelessness only regards God before he created time.
Did God timelessly create time? :)
“Christians, meanwhile, can put you in jail for your choice of sexual partners. They can make it impossible for you to access abortion or even contraception.”
Their much-vaunted principle of “sanctity of life” life is fully evident in the recent horrible and tragic death of Savita Halappanavar at the Galway University Hospital in Irlend.
“Savita Halappanavar 31, went into a hospital on October 21, complaining of back pain. She was 17 weeks pregnant at the time.
The doctors who examined her told her she was having a miscarriage but denied her an abortion even though she was in extreme pain, her husband has said.
Halappanavar died at the hospital, leading lawmakers to call for an investigation into what role abortion laws may have played in her death.”
http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/14/world/europe/ireland-abortion-controversy/index.html?iref=obinsite
I have always found it odd that Judaism is generally ignored or not given the same importance (compared to Christianity and Islam) by atheists, critics of religion, etc. Perhaps, mortal terror at the prospect of being the target of malicious and vicious accusations of anti-semitism is responsible?
Judaism, with its strange notions of a territorial covenant among members of a tribe and God and its dominant principle of lex talionis in human affairs (I know that there are different interpretations of this principle, but its importance in the Judaic conception of punishment is undeniable), is also very important, particularly in the context of the Middle East.
Right now, the “Jewish State” of Israel, with a secretive nuclear weapons program which has enabled it to produce at least 200 nuclear weapons, is carrying out yet another campaign of mass murder and collective punishment and humiliation against the helpless civilian population of Gaza, e.g., targeting houses and apartment complexes with U.S. supplied missiles.
I dare say that the Judaic notions of exclusive territorial covenant with God and the principle of lex talionis play an important role in the mindset of the Israeli political and military leadership.
I know that Shamir, for one, a former war criminal Israeli leader, explicitly invoked the strange notion of a territorial covenant with God in justifying the annexation or occupation of the Palestinian territories.
Yes, religion is very important!
It can be and is the source of a great amount of cruelty in human affairs!