snip: There is no way anyone can believe in a deity unless he or she has heard of it from another human...
Spirited: This argument rests on the assumption that man has it within his power to imagine (create) that which he has never before experienced in any way. If this claim is true, then all readers of this post should find it a simple exercise to immediately imagine a never-before-seen 4th primary color. Given that we already have experience of the other three, this feat should be easy.
All who try however, will immediately discover that though they can speculate on the existence of a 4th primary color, they cannot in any way “see” it.
As CS Lewis correctly noted, before man can imagine something he must have prior knowledge of it from a source (or sources) external to himself.
This being the case, before ancient men could imagine a god or gods, spirits and demons (and even a hellish underworld) and then hand this knowledge down through generations, someone had to “experience them” first hand.
The answer to James argument was supplied by him as well: (with the exception of direct divine intervention, perhaps).
There is no flaw in God’s design for salvation James. The fatal error is-—as always-—misplaced “faith” in mankind...”Ye can be as God.”
CS Lewis is just flat wrong.