Other than the moral argument, C.S. Lewis has not made many explicit arguments for God's existence even 130 pages into Mere Christianity. In his chapter on hope, that changes: he introduces an argument for some kind of afterlife grounded in theism. It is one thing to describe the possibility of an optimistic afterlife in which every righteous individual would find all of their existential longings fulfilled, but Lewis fallaciously argues that the desires of some humans for an existence beyond the scope of life in the natural world (the world of logical truths already transcends the natural world and is accessible to all, but an afterlife is different) is probabilistic evidence that humans are created for a heavenly sort of existence:
"The Christian says, 'Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.'" (136-137)
Lewis's predictable, incomplete emphasis on male sexual desires instead of male and female sexual desires aside, the Bible never teaches that all desires creatures are born with must be capable of being fulfilled, much less that a longing for another world or a desire that all ordinary experiences cannot satisfy truly points to another world. The desire argument for God's existence, as this has been called, is riddled with assumptions and non sequiturs. Nothing about having a desire indicates anything about it being possible or probable that one can satisfy that desire on any level. A desire "which no experience in this world can satisfy" is also highly vague on its own, as there are many ways someone could long for something beyond the universe without desiring anything remotely resembling the Christian God.
Since a desire for another world naturally connects with the concept of heaven, Lewis next addresses a straw man understanding of the Christian heaven, only to respond with more errors of his own:
"All the scriptural imagery (harps, crowns, gold, etc.) is, of course, a merely symbolic attempt to express the inexpressible. Musical instruments are mentioned because for many people (not all) music is the thing known in the present life which most strongly suggests ecstasy and infinity." (137)
There is a vast difference between unknown and inexpressible, and nothing fully falls in the second category. At least a few people may have difficulty communicating specific ideas, but the ideas themselves are not incommunicable. Moreover, music does not have a special ability to communicate truths about spirituality and metaphysics. It is not even a language at all! Music in no way suggests infinity, even if specific individuals feel subjectively prompted to contemplate infinity when they hear certain forms of music. Lewis also blatantly assumes that this, even if it was true, is the exact reason why the Bible utilizes musical imagery. How could he know? He couldn't!
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