By the point that someone reading Mere Christianity from start to finish has reached page 57, C.S. Lewis has started addressing distinctly Christian theology, as opposed to the broader philosophical theology he focused on closer to the book's beginning. He has elaborated on the distinction between a divine creator and its creation before bringing up theological dualism and Satan as the evil but lesser counterpart of God between the excerpts this post will focus on and the excerpts from previous posts in this series. At page 57, he makes yet another statement that is worth refuting while talking about the transformation within individuals that God can bring:
"He lends us a little of His reasoning powers and that is how we think: He puts a little of His love into us and that is how we love one another. When you teach a child writing, you hold its hand while it forms the letters: that is, it forms the letters because you are forming them. We love and reason because God loves and reasons and holds our hand while we so it." (57)
If Lewis meant that all other beings besides the uncaused cause (God) could cease to exist if God willed it to come about, then he would not have said anything irrational in this case, but the context is completely different. He seems to say that humans are incapable of properly reasoning or of truly loving other people without direct assistance from God. This is logically erroneous because a divine investment in someone's life has no inherent connection to whether or not they are rational or loving. Ironically, he writes this shortly after describing why free will is a necessary part of human existence on the Christian worldview, and yet he still fails to see that free will allows for humans to do these things without any activity on God's part beyond whatever efforts keep them in existence!
Several pages later, Lewis openly concedes that he bases the vast majority of his beliefs on persuasion and appeals to authority, which consequently undermines even many parts of his worldview that he has not already outlined in Mere Christianity. He does not attempt to hide this:
"And it seems plain as a matter of history that He taught His followers that the new life was communicated in this way. In other words, I believe it on His authority. Do not be scared by the word authority. Believing things on authority only means believing them because you have been told them by someone you think trustworthy. Ninety-nine per cent of the things you believe are believed on authority. I believe there is such a place as New York. I have not seen it myself. I could not prove by abstract reasoning that there must be such a place. I believe it because reliable people have told me so. The ordinary man believes in the Solar System, atoms, evolution, and the circulation of blood on authority--because the scientists say so." (62)
Like many other popular Christian apologists, Lewis is both aware of how necessary appeals to authority are to his epistemology and fallacious enough to think they are logically valid. An appeal to authority at most only proves that there is evidence that an authority said something, and this only makes it hearsay. One cannot even know if other minds exist in the first place as well as if their claims that involve epistemological mechanisms other than pure reason and introspection are true. This goes for all matters logic alone cannot establish, from the claim that the Civil War occurred to the claim that electrons and quarks exist to the claim that someone else is feeling inwardly upset.
How "trustworthy" would an authority need to be before their words "justify" a belief? If anyone means that anything short of absolute trustworthiness is necessary, they really mean that whatever they find appealing and persuasive is worth believing, as absolute trustworthiness is absolute certainty, and absolute certainty is a total absence of trust in the first place. At this point, belief in things logic cannot prove by itself becomes a matter of sheer subjective persuasion, and this contradicts every claim to objective knowledge based on appeals to authority. Even aside from this question, the non sequiturs involved make it obvious that only logically demonstrable facts are truly knowable.
There is no rationality in believing that China exists if you live in America, but it is rational to believe that there is evidence, and consistent, strong evidence at that, for China's existence. The difference between the two is of tremendous importance. Moreover, living as if China exists is not the same as believing in its existence! It is impossible for me to know if China is a real country, but I still speak as if it is for the sake of convenience and because there is evidence for it. Nothing about this contradicts pure rationalism. Appeals to authority are inherently, entirely antithetical with a rational worldview, for the only rational worldview is a rationalistic one.
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