{"id":83614,"date":"2022-11-06T23:21:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-07T03:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=83614"},"modified":"2022-11-17T14:01:50","modified_gmt":"2022-11-17T18:01:50","slug":"c-s-lewis-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/c-s-lewis-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"C. S. Lewis: Faith Is Commitment, Not Blind Belief"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>If belief is based on evidence, is it still faith? How does C. S. Lewis define faith?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to C. S. Lewis, faith is reasoned devotion, not thoughtless adherence. In <em>Mere Christianity<\/em>, he identifies faith as one of several Christian virtues that God calls people to follow, and he explains how it makes a difference in your life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Continue reading for a brief discussion on faith, as Lewis sees it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-c-s-lewis-on-faith\">C. S. Lewis on Faith<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>According to C. S. Lewis, faith is a <strong>commitment to and trust in Christian teachings in the face of daily distractions and doubts.<\/strong> Lewis pushes back against the widely held idea that faith entails a blind or thoughtless belief in Christian doctrine. In fact, he writes that you should not believe in Christianity if you don\u2019t think the evidence supports it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lewis also asserts that faith requires you to <strong>greet life with hope and optimism. <\/strong>To accept Christianity is to believe that there is something better in the next life and that the power of good is greater than the power of evil, both of which give you a reason for a hopeful outlook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td><strong>Does Faith Require Evidence?<\/strong><br><br>Lewis argues that faith is not the same thing as blind acceptance. However, many of Christianity&#8217;s most strident critics argue that faith and blind acceptance are one and the same. For example, Richard Dawkins, writing in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/app\/book\/the-god-delusion\"><em>The God Delusion<\/em><\/a>, argues that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/app\/book\/the-god-delusion\/chapters-8-9#evidence-vs-belief\">belief without evidence is the &#8220;essence&#8221; of faith<\/a>.<br><br>There are two contrasting schools of Christian thought on whether faith requires evidence: <em>fideism <\/em>and <em>evidentialism<\/em>.<br><br><strong>Fideism<\/strong> advocates faith without evidence. It is the belief that <a href=\"https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/fideism\/#2.2\">faith is opposed to reason, but of the two, faith is superior<\/a>. Scholars associate this perspective with the 17th-century French philosopher Blaise Pascale. He argued that religion is mysterious and unknowable by nature, and therefore it is senseless to expect rational proofs for religion.<br><br><strong>Evidentialism <\/strong>is the belief that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/Christianity\/Evidentialist-approach\">religious doctrines must be supported by evidence<\/a>. Evidentialist Christians argue for the existence of God and the veracity of Christian doctrine with logical proofs that don&#8217;t rely on presupposed Christian faith. By stating that you shouldn&#8217;t believe in Christianity if you don&#8217;t accept the evidence, Lewis aligns himself with evidentialism.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If belief is based on evidence, is it still faith? How does C. S. Lewis define faith? According to C. S. Lewis, faith is reasoned devotion, not thoughtless adherence. In Mere Christianity, he identifies faith as one of several Christian virtues that God calls people to follow, and he explains how it makes a difference in your life. Continue reading for a brief discussion on faith, as Lewis sees it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":83616,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,6],"tags":[799],"class_list":["post-83614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","category-spiritual","tag-mere-christianity","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>C. S. Lewis: Faith Is Commitment, Not Blind Belief - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"According to C. S. Lewis, faith is reasoned devotion, not thoughtless adherence. He lays out his viewpoint in the classic Mere Christianity.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/c-s-lewis-faith\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"C. S. Lewis: Faith Is Commitment, Not Blind Belief\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"According to C. S. Lewis, faith is reasoned devotion, not thoughtless adherence. He lays out his viewpoint in the classic Mere Christianity.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/c-s-lewis-faith\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shortform Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-11-07T03:21:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-11-17T18:01:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/man-praying.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Elizabeth Whitworth\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Elizabeth Whitworth\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/c-s-lewis-faith\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/c-s-lewis-faith\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Elizabeth Whitworth\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/d2928cf6c11a69ced1491d6a5b74fb13\"},\"headline\":\"C. 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