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Naturalism claims that everything that exists, including our own mental states, results from nonrational causes. As Lewis explained in the third chapter of Miracles, “If there is nothing but Nature . . . reason must have come into existence by an historical process. And of course, for a Naturalist, this process was not designed to produce a mental behavior that can find truth. There was no Designer; and indeed, until there were thinkers, there was no truth or falsehood.” Human beings could have learned to respond to their environment, but this does not necessarily mean the same thing as learning to think rationally.That means that we have no way of evaluating whether our reasoning process—which comes from chance—is itself valid. But if we can’t trust that our reasoning processes are truly rational, then we can’t trust the reasoning we used to arrive at that conclusion, or any conclusion. Therefore, naturalism must be false. It is a self-refuting proposition.
Nothing wrong with this argument, as a matter of fact, the naturalists have no answer for it. They have more supreme trust in reason then most theists have in God himself, but they have no explanation for why they trust it so, except to label it a "logical necessity," which is, of course, a circular argument: "We believe in rational thought because without it we couldn't think rationally..."
The ultimate failure of naturalism is that there's no real explanitory power in it. It's wonderful for making observations and testing theories about our natural world, but it fails miserably to explain the more significant questions of man: "Why am I here?" "Why am I a rational creature?" "What am I suppose to do?" "Why is there such tremendous biological diversity?"
Naturalism, at best, can explain some of the "hows" of life, but none of the "whys."
Excellent post...
Not in my classroom. I love it when I get audio-visual materials from the naturalist/humanist viewpoints (which is mostly always). When they are at their most blatant, that is when I use the "pause" button, stop the fool in mid-sentence, mouth agape until I've had my say: "Nature decided...blah, blah, blah..." That's when I can really go off and show that there is another valid viewpoint. "Nature DECIDED?!!!", I ask, with my jaw nearly on the floor? "How can mindless matter "decide" anything?"
Point is, materialist has his say; I have my say -- and that, by the way, is how it should be. The educative process should be one of DI-alogue. "DI-" means there are two conversing in the Great Conversation. The only thing unfair about it is that he can't pause ME in mid-sentence and make ME look like a fool; but I'll get over it (heh, heh).
I, too, struggle with some of the things CS Lewis wrote (while mostly being in awe of him); so I must pick up this new commentary on him. Thanks for the post.
It is most informative of his life, family, friends, career, beliefs. writings letters, etc. I have greatly enjoyed it for many hours and several months. Check it out, for getting to know the man himself, his teaching style, radio broadcasts, etc.