Here is a quick note on a classic gem from C. S. Lewis. If you have a copy of his Mere Christianity and turn to Book One (the opening five chapters), you’ll find something fascinating at the end of Chapter Four. There, you’ll see a “Note” — a marvelous passage that functions as a one-page appendix to the chapter.
An Alternative to Intelligent Design
This Note in fact is one of my favorite short Lewis pieces. Best of all, it is one that is intensely relevant to the debate between intelligent design and what is sometime advocated as an alternative to ID. Here’s the conclusion:
One reason why many people find Creative Evolution so attractive is that it gives one much of the emotional comfort of believing in God and none of the less pleasant consequences. When you are feeling fit and the sun is shining and you do not want to believe that the whole universe is a mere mechanical dance of atoms, it is nice to be able to think of this great mysterious Force rolling on through the centuries and carrying you on its crest. If, on the other hand, you want to do something rather shabby, the Life-Force, being only a blind force, with no morals and no mind, will never interfere with you like that troublesome God we learned about when we were children. The Life-Force is a sort of tame God. You can switch it on when you want, but it will not bother you. All the thrills of religion and none of the cost. Is the Life-Force the greatest achievement of wishful thinking the world has yet seen?
Lewis in the earlier half of the Note mentions Henri Bergson as one of the formulators of this “Life-Force” philosophy, a viewpoint that is quite parallel to, or even quasi-equivalent to, the “panpsychist” view of philosopher Thomas Nagel. I wrote a laudatory review of Nagel’s brilliant critique of Darwinism in Mind and Cosmos (see here or here), while I also pushed back against his refusal to consider the Hoyle “super-intellect” possibility — better known as the monotheistic God.
Judeo-Christianity and Wald-Nagelanity
If you read the review, you’ll see that I have joined Nagel at the hip with the late George Wald who changed his “time is the hero of the plot” view near the end of his life, as he veered strongly toward a panpsychist position. I describe the two alternatives as Judeo-Christianity and Wald-Nagelanity. My phone conversation and correspondence with George Wald in 1988 are summarized in the Nagel review.
In any case, this Note of Lewis is one of the most spectacular brief statements on the putative Life-Force escape route for those who reject the “random collision of atoms/natural selection of mutations” theory yet who also rule out a priori the clear-cut theistic alternative.