On page 301 of C S Lewis and the Search for Rational Religion John Beversluis has a lovely passage from Mill. At the end Mill gives what I have long thought of as the Huck Finn response, but Huck seems to have derived it from Mill, so I will attribute it to Mill in future.

From Mill’s Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy:

‘If in ascribing goodness to God I do not mean what I mean by goodness; if I do not mean the goodness of which I have some knowledge, but an incomprehensible attribute of an incomprehensible substance, which for aught I know may be a totally different quality from that which I love and venerate – and … Read the rest

I read a funny story in II Samuel 6 today. (I was reading about what a shit god can be. There’s this bit in II Samuel 6 where David and some friends are transporting the ark of the covenant somewhere in a cart, and Uzzah put his hand on the ark to steady it because the cart was shaking – so god killed him. That makes a lot of sense – Uzzah tries to help and god kills him for it. Nice guy. David gets cold feet then and puts the ark in storage, not wanting to get smited, then he runs some experiments and confirms that god helps people who have the ark [apart from Uzzah, but that’s not … Read the rest

I’m writing a review of C S Lewis and the Search for Rational Religion by John Beversluis. It’s a gripping read, at least if you’re interested in argument and belief and arguments for belief in god and the problem of evil and theistic epistemology and the difference between rhetoric and argument. Beversluis shows carefully and in detail what is wrong with Lewis’s various claims. It’s a gripping read if you’re interested in reasons for believing things, and if you’re not interested in that, you ought to be; everyone ought to be.

The most gripping chapter, in my view, is chapter 10, ‘C S Lewis’s Crisis of Faith.’ Beversluis argues (and shows, I think) that in his despair after his … Read the rest