Christmas, Evolution, and Narnia
By Hendrik van der Breggen
One of this holiday season’s megahit movies will probably be The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the first installment of C. S. Lewis’s seven-part The Chronicles of Narnia.
Lewis (1898-1963) is famous as a writer of children’s fantasy. But what many Narnia fans don’t know is that Lewis, an Oxford and Cambridge University professor, was persuaded by J.R.R. Tolkien and others to believe that, in the Christmas story, the ancient myth of a dying and rising God became fact.
According to the Christmas story, the God of the universe came to earth as a human being named Jesus, to walk among us and reveal God to us. But, Lewis learned, the Christmas story isn’t complete without Easter. About thirty years after Jesus’ birth, Jesus revealed God’s radical love for us by suffering and dying on a cross, thereby taking the punishment for our sins onto Himself and granting us a pardon. Two days after the crucifixion, Jesus rose from the grave—a glorious sign to help us accept God’s gift of grace, by faith.
Lewis presented arguments for the literal truth of the Christmas-Easter story in his book Miracles (Geoffrey Bles, 1947, 1960; now republished by HarperCollins).
Intriguingly, one of Lewis’s arguments in Miracles is relevant to contemporary discussions of evolution versus intelligent design, when “evolution” is understood atheistically.
The argument (abridged) goes like this. Evolutionary theory on the assumption of an unguided, unplanned, gradual process of genetic mutation and natural selection guarantees at most that we behave in ways conducive to immediate survival. Significantly, this means that the reliability of our belief formation very probably does not extend to theories about nature. Why? Because these theories are, if at all, only tenuously related to immediate survival. So, if atheistic evolutionary theory is true, then logic (beyond rudimentary logic) and mathematics and science—especially theoretical science—should be, very probably, wholly dubious.
Now, two problems arise for atheistic evolution.
Problem 1. If logic and mathematics and science are wholly dubious, then atheistic evolutionary theory is dubious too (because it is a theory of science).
Problem 2. It is obviously false that logic and mathematics and science are wholly dubious, so evolution’s prediction concerning their general dubiousness fails.
Thus, atheistic evolution is rationally problematic.
Interestingly, the fact that we clearly know much more of the world than is required for mere immediate survival is suggestive evidence for thinking that our brains and sensory equipment are intelligently designed (for truth seeking).
What’s the significance of all this?
First, it means that in the evolution versus intelligent design debate, the problematic logical implications of atheistic evolution should be factored into our discussions, as should the apparent evidence of intelligent design which arises from our ability to reason and do science in the first place.
Second, it means that Lewis’s book Miracles, along with, perhaps, a ticket to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, might be welcome stocking stuffers for persons who believe evolution demonstrates that God, Christmas, and Easter are mere myths (i.e., fictions).
Third, and most importantly, it means that we should pay close attention to what Lewis called the “Deeper Magic,” that is, God’s redemption plan for humanity, established before time and space began, but revealed in history, paradoxically, by a baby in a manger.
Hendrik van der Breggen has a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Waterloo. Hendrik also recommends as a stocking stuffer Victor Reppert’s book C. S. Lewis’s Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason (InterVarsity Press, 2003).