Introduction
The lives of two great giants compared side by side in one book. Dr. Armand M. Nicoholi Jr.’s book, The Question of God, takes two renowned philosophers and thinkers who started life in similar circumstances with similar outlooks on living. However these two men, Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis, turned out to lead very different lives. As children, both men experienced a significant loss in their families. At one point in their young lives, they both decided that God did not exist, and had little hope for life. And the two stories might have turned out quite the same, except C.S. Lewis was radically transformed by the finding Christ as his Savior from the world of brokenness, while Sigmund Freud continued to wallow in the world
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Who has the authority to tell us how to live? Lewis believed this authority was found in God’s creation of human beings, because God has given mankind a conscience: an internal sense of right and wrong. Because morals are given by God, they stand the test of time, and remain true for everyone everywhere. However, Freud concluded that morals simply came from the child’s parents and their circumstances. Thus in his mind, morals change with time and with culture, not based on any one thing. While Lewis agreed that parents have a major influence on morals, he concluded that morals do not come solely from human creation, but rather on God’s everlasting truth and standards.
Conversion
While Freud experienced no conversion, Lewis experienced a total transformation. Up until he was thirty, Lewis was an Atheist. But then slowly but surely, challenges came up against his secular beliefs, which caused him to research about Jesus. Although Lewis could never quite pinpoint his exact moment of conversion, he could certainly tell a difference. He realized that humanity should come to faith not simply in spite of ourselves, but rather for the fact of God’s infiniteness and holiness. As a result of Lewis’s conversion, he found meaningfulness in life, with more joy and productivity.
The Pursuit of