C. S. Lewis Quotes
It is Christ Himself, not the Bible, who is the true Word of God. The Bible, read in the right spirit and with the guidance of good teachers, will bring us to Him.
Lewis, C. S. The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 3: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy, 1950-1963. HarperSanFrancisco, 2007, p. 245.
Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York
This quotation illustrates that in the late 19th Century, there were still very prominent American scientists who were Biblical Literalists as well—a virtual intellectual impossibility. Dana was a Yale professor, and yet he rejected Evolution and had the age of the rocks he studied all wrong. At the time, America had only 1 great world class scientist (Physicist Albert A. Michelson) and American Science really became great in the 20th century. Dana was not a total incompetent however. He had amassed vast descriptive knowledge of California and other areas and was at the time considered America’s preeminent Geologist despite his lack of understanding of many fundamental aspects of his own science which was understood by many English and European scientists.
Einstein and his wife gave this bible to an American friend, Harriett Hamilton. In 2013, the Bible sold at auction for $68,500.
Although a conservative, he had a great tolerance for and understanding of other points of view. For this some people thought him a radical.
Priests at the time were mostly uneducated. They would tend to make up their own Biblical stories that the people would prefer rather than the official church versions. The bishops wanted this practice stopped.
The Creation Museum makes the Christian Fundamentalist Case for their alternative view of the creation of the earth and man. In the process, they make claims that are proven incorrect every day in science, like the earth is only about 6000 years old {641849} , and all the species on earth were then separately created in their immutable form with no evolutionary process. There are many deeply religious Christians who do not take the Bible literally and have no problem with evolution as the mechanism which God selected to create and develop life. The Roman Catholic Church, for example, does not maintain that the Bible is literally true and Evolution did not account for the development of life on earth. The major difference between most modern scientists, philosophers, and theologians, is that some believe that God of other Supreme Being had nothing to do with the evolution and development of life forms and those who believe that Evolution was the mechanism that God created and used. See {641848} for an example of the former.
Franklin was a deist. He believed in God and the Creation but not the Bible which is often referred to as “revealed” truth. He did believe that classic Christianity was a positive force as some people were led to good works and a moral life by it.
Clive Staples Lewis was a British writer and lay theologian. He held academic positions in English literature at both Oxford University (Magdalen College, 1925–1954) and Cambridge University (Magdalene College, 1954–1963). He is best known for his works of fiction, especially The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Space Trilogy, and for his non-fiction Christian apologetics, such as Mere Christianity, Miracles, and The Problem of Pain.
