Freud & Lewis

I thought I would just share about a book I recently finished called "The Question of God." It was written by Harvard professor Dr. Armand Nicholi, Jr. and is based on a class he teaches that looks at Freud and Lewis and their contrasting views on life. Freud was an atheist from his youth until his death. Lewis was an atheist from his youth until he was about thirty, when he converted to following a life after Christ. The book is fascinating. Nicholi looks at the world views held by the two geniuses and also at the actual way they lived out their lives to see if their world views matched with their daily lives. He tries to be as objective as possible, but Lewis (and therefore, Christianity) is shown to have a practical, livable faith. Maybe Nicholi isn't being completely objective in his writing, or perhaps the objectivity still points to Christianity. Freud's life is seen as being quite contradictory, and Lewis definitely believed his life was full of contradictions when he was an atheist. How can one be angry with God for not existing?

As I finished the book I was reminded of something one of my favorite thinkers once said. He also happens to be a great friend and we were having a dialogue about Christ. Specifically, he said that he was recently intrigued with Christ, and I asked him to clarify what he meant. What he wrote back was one of the greatest things I've read in years, and I'm only going to share two sentences of it here with you today. He wrote: "I'm fascinated that following Christ makes sense and I want to do it...I'm fascinated that faith works and it is the only way to live."

You see, Christ is continually calling me to follow Him. Sometimes the world that we live in makes me feel foolish or immature or unintelligent for taking up this calling. Freud was a man of great intelligence and has had a stunning influence on our world. But the thing is, he didn't live by what he believed. Lewis was also a pretty intelligent fellow and found that reason and joy and beauty and intelligence do line up with the calling to follow Christ. As the theologian said, "following Christ makes sense...faith works and it is the only way to live."

As a special bonus to this blog, I will give a candy bar to the first person to name this theologian.