As ENV readers will probably know, this coming Friday, November 22, marks the 50th anniversary of the death of C.S. Lewis. Yes, interestingly Lewis, JFK, and Aldous Huxley all died on the same day in 1963. We have been releasing excerpts from CSC associate director John West’s important book The Magician’s Twin: C. S. Lewis on Science, Scientism, and Society (go here to see the series so far). Today we’re delighted to announce the online debut of the third installment of an extremely interesting and beautifully produced documentary based on Dr. West’s book: “C.S. Lewis and Intelligent Design.”
See here for the previous two installments:
Lewis’s views on science are important not because arguments from authority carry any weight — “Lewis said it, therefore it’s true” — but because his own arguments, critiquing scientism and Darwinism and anticipating the contemporary case for intelligent design, are themselves so intellectually compelling. (I say this, by the way, as someone who is not a Christian and who finds Lewis’s better known case for his Christian faith eloquent but not compelling.) As the film documents, Lewis’s journey of exploration took him from a position sharply hostile to arguments for design to views bearing remarkable similarities to those advocated (in a more formal manner) by ID proponents like William Dembski.
Lewis believed that integrity demands we follow the lead of the available evidence to whatever destination it points us, and that we candidly say what we find when we get there. In this view, as the film also shows, he was joined by philosopher Antony Flew, whom he met at Oxford University. Flew, long known for his atheism, finally became convinced that current scientific evidence objectively considered requires a conclusion in favor of intelligent design.
I know you’ll enjoy “C.S. Lewis and Intelligent Design,” its companion films, and our ongoing series of excerpts from The Magician’s Twin.