TimmyofOz
Well-known member
This may cause a lot of tempers to fly, but I saw that there was no thread on the Lewis and Anscombe so called debate. This subjects has been bought up occasionally on other threads but only in a passing by manor like recently in the Till We Have Faces thread. Now I don't have a 1947 edition of Miracles to go alone with my 1960 edition, and there is no transcript of the 1948 debate with Anscombe. In a search of the internet there are letters written of various persons reaction to the debate (including some by Lewis apparently found by Hooper). There are even a couple books written on the subject. But I felt that The Dancing Lawn would be the best place to explain what really happen in this debate and did it lead Lewis not to be so focused on apologetics but to go into existential focus in his later writings.
I get from my research that in the debate after Lewis refuted Naturalism by his usual apparent flawless logic, Anscombe used the logic of Sherlock Holmes, and basically followed the idea that, “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” Meaning that there are always other possibilities that both sides come later come up with. You may use logic to refute Naturalism, but they will always come back with other possibilities (even abstract and non-logical possibilities). Such a recent possibility is the ancient alien planting life on earth theory.
Now I may be all wrong in my interpretation of the debate and that is why I am opening this thread. I hope we can get into if there was a change in Lewis toward an existential focus later and what caused it.
P.S. If anyone could provide a pdf of the relevant chapter 3 of the 1947 edition, it would greatly help the discussion.
P.P.S. With some more searching I was able to find the following here:
A. C. S. Lewis: Miracles, first edition (1947), chapter III
B. Elisabeth Anscombe‟s “Reply to Lewis” (1948)
C. Miracles revised (1960): A survey of changes from irrational to non-rational
D. Miracles revised (1960): A survey of further changes
E. Miracles III, original and revised: parallel excerpts
F. Miracles III, original and revised: parallel summaries
I get from my research that in the debate after Lewis refuted Naturalism by his usual apparent flawless logic, Anscombe used the logic of Sherlock Holmes, and basically followed the idea that, “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” Meaning that there are always other possibilities that both sides come later come up with. You may use logic to refute Naturalism, but they will always come back with other possibilities (even abstract and non-logical possibilities). Such a recent possibility is the ancient alien planting life on earth theory.
Now I may be all wrong in my interpretation of the debate and that is why I am opening this thread. I hope we can get into if there was a change in Lewis toward an existential focus later and what caused it.
P.S. If anyone could provide a pdf of the relevant chapter 3 of the 1947 edition, it would greatly help the discussion.
P.P.S. With some more searching I was able to find the following here:
A. C. S. Lewis: Miracles, first edition (1947), chapter III
B. Elisabeth Anscombe‟s “Reply to Lewis” (1948)
C. Miracles revised (1960): A survey of changes from irrational to non-rational
D. Miracles revised (1960): A survey of further changes
E. Miracles III, original and revised: parallel excerpts
F. Miracles III, original and revised: parallel summaries
Last edited: