C.S. Lewis

"Supposing there was no intelligence behind the universe, no creative mind. In that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen, for physical or chemical reasons, to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I call thought. But, if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? It's like upsetting a milk jug and hoping that the way it splashes itself will give you a map of London. But if I can't trust my own thinking, of course I can't trust the arguments leading to Atheism, and therefore have no reason to be an Atheist, or anything else. Unless I believe in God, I cannot believe in thought: so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God."

—C.S. Lewis, The Case for Christianity

And you thought the guy who wrote the Narnia books was just a nice little fiction writer! Turns out he's quite the philosopher on states of matter and God.

Mr. Lewis, shall we say, 'evolved' in his theism and published a book called Mere Christianity in which he states,

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to." (Lewis 1952, p. 43)

My own concern is, of course, just how much faith he had in the authenticity of the biblical texts he reached his conclusions from. I think that anyone who begins to doubt the literal interpretations formulated by the Vatican latches onto this non-ideal state of faith(in this context-ignorance) with a heaping dose of contempt. Either God or a Demon? Only an apologetic would not be able to open their mind to other possibilities.

The Nicene Creed was put forth as a unifier within the Church and while this is not a bad thing in the grand scheme of stopping the madness of fracturing countries and families- it didn't work. Why? Because human beings are meant to be free thinkers. We can't all fit into the cross shaped Jello mold the Vatican wishes we could. Those of us with brains will break free and when we do we will begin by questioning the authenticity of the very texts, catechism, and hymns shoved down our throat from cradle to grave. A wee bit of research will show just how corrupt the Council of Nicaea was. From its purpose to it's execution and enforcement. Pure sacrilege against the divinity which resides in us all.

"He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to." He, as in Jesus Christ? Or He as in Irenaeus? Or how 'bout He as in whoever originally(if that) wrote the texts before Irenaeus got his devilish fingers on them?

The conclusion I've reached through gnosis thus far is the only thing we can trust is our own experiences with the divine. No melodious lines inked on papyrus from antiquity will sway me unless I have a genuine experience concerning them.