Free C S Lewis and the Body in the Basement (C S Lewis Mysteries Book 1) by Kel Richards

Anthroposophy, which your friend Barfield keeps banging on about.’
    Jack laughed heartily, but said nothing, so I continued, ‘And the same could be said of Confucius and all the rest. You can’t say one set of those experiences, those ideas, was in some sense “right” and the others “wrong”. It makes more sense to say that these are different poetic visions of the same large, difficult-to-see truth.’
    ‘So in your view they’re all just different roads up the same mountain?’
    I thought for a moment about this suggestion and then said, ‘Yes, that’s a good way to put it. That paints a mental image for me. When you say that, I picture a mountain the way a child would draw one—simple and conical. And winding around that mountain is an interconnecting set of roads, tracks and pathways. Some of them zigzag up the slope; others cling precariously to the steep sides. Some are broad and well-travelled; others are narrower, less well known and less often found. But what matters is getting to the top, not which road you take to get there.’
    ‘And what you are claiming is that you are superior to all of these different “visions”, as you call them?’
    ‘No . . . no,’ I said hesitantly. ‘That can’t be right. I’m certainly not intending to say that sort of thing at all. I’m not claiming any sort of superiority.’
    ‘Oh, but you are!’ Jack pounced, like a batsman seeing a loose ball coming down the wicket towards him just begging to be whacked to the boundary. ‘You’re claiming to see the whole mountain, and to see the many different paths leading to the top, while everyone else is on their own narrow path, blind to the bigger picture that you see. You are claiming access—based, presumably, on your reason, your rationality, your intelligence and your education—to a universal truth, a bigger truth, that devout Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Mormons, even Anthroposophists, and all the rest are missing.’
    ‘Now, hang on a moment,’ I said as I gathered my thoughts. ‘It may well be the fact that a secular mind—an atheist mind, if you prefer—using reason alone, or reason supported by good information, may well be able see a greater truth than any ancient belief system. Particularly in the light of the dawning scientific age all around us.’
    ‘So what you’re now saying is not that all the great world religions are equality right, but that they’re equally wrong—and that only your scientific atheism is right. Am I understanding you correctly?’
    I felt backed into a corner. I felt like a slightly dazed lamb pushed up against the side of a pen by an experienced sheep dog. This conversation had begun with me accusing Lewis of arrogantly trumpeting Christianity’s exclusive access to the truth. Now he had somehow reversed the charge and was accusing me, as a secular rationalist, of making that same offensive claim of sole access to the truth.
    I wasn’t quite sure how the tables had been turned, and I thought it was time I pinned him down to some firm answers on his own position.
    ‘My turn to ask the questions,’ I said as I drained the last of my pint of bitter.
    ‘Fire away, young Morris,’ said Jack with a cheerful grin. Lewis was what my grandfather would have called a ‘bonny fighter’—someone who relished a good scrap over serious ideas.
    ‘Are you saying there’s no truth in any belief system other than Christianity?’ That question, I thought, would put him on the spot.
    ‘I would make the assumption,’ Jack replied with energy, ‘that any belief that has enjoyed wide currency over many centuries must contain some truth. Such a belief system must have some pieces of the jigsaw puzzle of life. In a similar way, your secular atheism—now held so enthusiastically by some intelligent and thoughtful people—must contain some truth: some pieces of the jigsaw puzzle.’
    ‘Then what we need to do is to put all our pieces of the jigsaw puzzle