C. S. Lewis’s Case for the Christian Faith by Richard L. Purtill (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 147 C. S. Lewis's Case for the Christ-ian Faith. By RICHARD L. PURTILL. New York: Harper and Row, 1981. Pp. 146. $10.95. Richard L. Purtill's study of C. S. Lewis presents a concise summary of key themes in the thought of that still-popular apostle to skeptics who died in 1962. It also helps focus two questions of major importance in contemporary apologetic theology: Hew is one properly to deal with biblical scholarship in addressing a nonbeliever~ And, more important, how is one to wed imagination to reason in an apologia for the faith 7 BBC broadcast talks by the Oxford don, which were first published in this country in 1942 as The Case for Christianity, inspired Purtill's title. He shows an impressive command of the Lewis literature. Although he tried to ke2p qurtation to a minimum, most of Lewis's forty-some books, as well as unpublished letters and manuscripts, find their way into the notes. Nevertheless Purtill expresses the opinion that Till We IIave Faces is perhaps Lewis's best novel, Letters to Malcolm one of his best nonficticn books, and The Last Battle, the final chronicle in the Namia series, " one of Lewis's greatest books." He is equally aware of the many secondary studies, from which he quotes judiciously, with commendable restraint. Professor of philosophy at Western Washington University, Purtill is an admitted and unabashed Lewis fan. It is therefore to his enormous credit that he gives us Lewis without honey. One good example of his honest criticism comes in disrussion of the argument for the so-called "mental proof" for belief in God. Fellowing a quotation from M;racles, he writes, " Here, I think, Lewis makes one of his rare missteps in argument ." Lewis has lost pnints to evolutionists. Purtill puts great stress on the cogency of Lewis's arguments. In this respect he is loyal to his professi0nal interest in logic. A Christian logic shapes the book. In ten brief chapters we are taken from belief in God to death and beyond. En route we are introduced to Lewis's ideas about Christ, miracles, other religions, ethics, prayer, and related themes. Clean prose and clear thinking are evident throughout, and Purtill has frequently transposed Lewis's arguments into an American key. Thus, for example, Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon successfully illustrates the discussion of miracles, and the "Playboy (or Playgirl) philosophy" the discussion of Christian living. In this respect Purtill makes a significant contribution as an apologist in his own right, as well as a sensitive interpreter of his British predecessor. Both Lewis and Purtill, therefore, contribute to the maior questions about the apologetic task raised above. Lewis's attitude toward biblical criticism, apparently shared by Purtill, is perhaps one of the reasons for 148 BOOK REVIEWS Lewis's current popularity. In my opinion, however, it is an attitude which oversimplifies the nature of the New Testament and misunderstands the intention of biblical scholars. The issue is clearest in the short chapter headed "Who is Christ~"· There Purtill begins with an accurate paraphrase of Lewis: " Christ claimed to be God. He was either telling the truth, or he was insane, or he was a liar." Indeed the whole of J esus's behavior as recounted in all four gospels is said to be " inexplicable " if Jesus did not claim to be God. A similar attitude pervades the chapter on miracles and history. There Purtill explains Lewis's position with equal simplicity: "In other words, proponents of the view that Christ's cures were psychosomatic ... must decide whether they accept the written records as factual or fictional, or believe them to be a mixture of both." Purtill allows himself to quote at length from a paper on "Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism" which Lewis originally delivered in 1959. Those chiefly responsible for "undermining the old orthodoxy" are "divines engaged in New Testament criticism." Himself a literary critic, Lewis eharges these scholars with reading rationalistic presuppositions into the text. He and his interpreter prefer the plain words of the Gospel story to demythologizing. They both reject any theory of interpolation [sic] by the early Church. Again it...