The World Union of National Socialists, pardon, Deists

In contrast to the other critical reviewers, I didn't just read the free sample. I bought the whole damn thing…and stopped reading about half-way through! Bob Johnson is an ex-Catholic and ex-evangelical who now preaches his own brand of Deism. He has also founded a group called the World Union of Deists. In this particular book, Johnson takes on “Mere Christianity” by C S Lewis. Johnson's book is tedious and rambling, with frequent repetitions. The best (or at least best-written) parts are extensive quotes from Thomas Paine's “The Age of Reason”. Most of the concrete arguments would be considered Village Atheism 101 today, but with an occasional Deist twist.

More ominously, Johnson's anti-Christian polemic comes with Nazi and anti-Semitic tint. “Mere Christianity” is based on radio talks given by Lewis during the Blitz. Lewis was, of course, pro-British and anti-Nazi, something Johnson takes strong exception to. His comments on World War II do sound like a Hitler apologetic, as the main critical reviewer has already pointed out. Johnson supports the Nazi attack on Poland, respectfully refers to Hitler's genocidal regime as “National Socialist Germany”, quotes the Führer's peace proposals to Britain, supports Quisling's collaborationist regime in Norway, never mentions the Holocaust (as far as I can tell), and clearly sees “atheist Communism” as a greater danger than National Socialism. His anti-Semitism is also obvious: Moses was a “Hebrew terrorist”, Jews preach “racial supremacy” and practice usury, etc (you know the drift already). Even the name World Union of Deists sounds suspicious, since there used to be a neo-Nazi group called the World Union of National Socialists. But sure, perhaps Johnson is simply poking fun at the World Union of Churches (or the World Union of Jewish Students!)…

The author's more concrete arguments for Deism strike me as problematic, too. Johnson attacks Lewis' idea of a general law or rule for morality (what Lewis called the Tao in another book, “The Abolition of Man”). Johnson argues that such a law can't exist since people aren't following it, a curious statement which could logically “prove” that there's no law against murder, since murders in fact do happen. Further, he argues that morality is different in different cultures, also disproving the existence of a universal law. On this point Johnson could be correct – if the Tao is taken to be an empirically verifiable universal law of conduct, it could indeed be argued that the differences between, say, Aztec cannibalism and Jain pacifism negates the existence of the Tao. On the other hand, it could also be argued that the similarities between human cultures are sufficiently large to justify belief in the Tao (which is indeed Lewis' position in “Mere Christianity”).

Johnson's main argument is that the Bible doesn't seem to contain a universal moral law, both because it's frequently contradictory, and because many people would find its injunctions horrid (stoning for adultery, etc). This may or may not be true, but only proves that Lewis is wrong to look for the moral law in the Bible – it doesn't prove that Lewis is incorrect arguing for a universal law in the first place. Since Deism believes in the existence of a god, a god Johnson calls “our Creator and Best Friend”, the author should logically appeal to Deist God to solve our moral conundrums, especially since no unrevealed natural law seems to exist. But on this focal point, Johnson backtracks. He actually says that Deism *doesn't* give us a universal moral law! It turns out that Johnson's god doesn't communicate with humans in any sense. There is no deist revelation, nor is conscience a divine creation, being either a product of evolution or of cultural indoctrination (Johnson is unsure which). Nor do humans know anything about the afterlife. Johnson says that the Deist God wants it that way, so humans can do good for the sake of the good itself rather than for the selfish end of avoiding Hell, but since our Creator and Best Friend hasn't told us what the moral law is, it's not clear on what basis we should choose the “good” and the “unselfish”. (Perhaps we should study Adolf Hitler's table talk?)

The author constantly talks about “God-given reason”, almost like a mantra, so presumably our reason is the closest thing we have to a divine guide. But what exactly is “reason”? It's a public secrete that “reason” to an atheist or materialist means exactly that – atheism or materialism – while to a Deist it presumably denotes Deism. Thus, Johnson believes the argument from design is reasonable, that DNA is “information” and must therefore be the creation of a Mind, etc. Of course, atheists will consider this the height of unreason – an exchange between Johnson and the atheists at the “Darwin's Doubt” product page could be interesting to read… Besides, Johnson admits that humans are imperfect and that no universal moral law is accessible, so his “reason” seems to be problematic on these grounds alone. The author constantly attacks the idea that the Devil or demons are literal creatures, calling such notions unreasonable. However, there are countless of (supposed) empirical observations of paranormal phenomena and/or entities, some of whom seem malign, and exactly *none* observation of Deist God (who can only be known indirectly and even then only imperfectly). Johnson must argue that all empirical observations of discarnate entities (good or evil) are sheer bunk, but this strikes me as a de facto *materialist* supposition!

Most of Johnson's Neo-Deist tract is heavily dependent on the kind of Bible difficulties which atheists thrive on. On this point, he may be excused, since Deists presumably thrived on them earlier (and the last pagan emperor of Rome, Julian the Apostate, long before that). Since Lewis claims to represent “mere Christianity”, I suppose Johnson might also be excused for quoting mere Scripture against him. It should be noted, however, that Lewis wasn't really a run-of-the-mill traditionalist Christian at all, let alone an evangelical. He had inclusivist, semi-universalist, “pro-pagan” and even esoteric traits. For a Protestant, he also sounded surprisingly Catholic. Some see him as a Christian Neo-Platonist, and he implies at several points in his published work that the Old Testament might be mythological. Johnson actually senses at several points that Lewis may not be what he seems, since he believes that the author of “Mere Christianity” occasionally sounds Deist!

Under usual conditions, I would have given “An Answer to C S Lewis' Mere Christianity” two stars, mostly due to the bad writing, but the Nazi and anti-Semitic traits (which are strongly present throughout the presentation) annoyed me sufficiently to only give it one.