Between Heaven and Hell

On Nov. 22, 1963, three prominent leaders of the 20th century all died within hours of each other: C.S. Lewis (a Christian Theist), John F. Kennedy (a modern humanist), and Thomas Huxley (an Eastern Pantheist). This book records an imaginary discourse between these three great men. The dialogue is even humourous at times as the characters hash out their differences with each other. Ironically, the author, although a Catholic, sides with Lewis in this debate. (After all, as is communicated in the exchange, Lewis was more Catholic than Protestant and Kennedy was more Protestant than Catholic!) Lewis’s definitive use of logic is simply astounding! Among others, he employs his “Liar, Lunatic, Lord” argument, by which he argues that Jesus can’t just be a good moral teacher with a lot of good ideas. Jesus was either lying, was crazy, or was telling the truth. (This type of logic shows up again in “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.”) Until reading this book, I had no idea that one could use an inductive (“evidentalist”– arguing from particulars to universals rather than vice-versa) approach to argue for the validity of Christianity this efficiently. Of course, Christianity cannot be proved beyond a shadow of a doubt, but it can be proved beyond reasonable doubt.