Pete's Blog

"Logic!" said the Professor half to himself. "Why don't they teach logic at these schools? There are only three possibilities. Either your sister is telling lies, or she is mad, or she is telling the truth. . . ."

-C. S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia, p. 131. Emphasis added. This is a single volume of all seven books, published by Harper Collins. It is from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, chapter 5.

Its logic is identical to Lewis' argument for the deity of Christ. It goes something like this: In the gospels, Christ claimed to be God. (E.g., in John 8:58 Jesus implied He was the "I AM" of Exodus 3:14, He received worship without rebuke [e.g., Mt. 28:9], He forgave sins [e.g., Mk. 2:5, cf. vv. 6-12], He had authority to state that Old Testament law was fulfilled [e.g., Mt. 19:8, 9; Mk. 7:15-19].) This leaves only three options: either He's a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord of heaven. (Skeptics pushed back against this argument saying that these aren't the only three options. They claim that a fourth option may be posited: that Jesus' claim to divinity, or His existence itself, were legendary. I agree with them, but it doesn't help their case.)

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe came out in 1950, where Mere
Christianity came out in 1952. That caught my interest at first, thinking, I wonder whether Lewis first formed the Lord, Lunatic, Liar argument in Wardrobe and then flushed it out more completely in Mere Christianity. Then I remembered that Mere Christianity was based on a radio series he did.

I love the Chronicles of Narnia. I've never found any book (or books) such a page turner. Highly recommended.

Over the next week I'm going to post at least twice more on little passages in the books. Stay tuned.