Discovering C. S. Lewis’s Argument from Awe against Philosophical Naturalism

Although Clive Staples Lewis’s (1898–1963) works on the intersection of philosophy and religion were aimed at a broader readership and are indeed well-known among the general public, they are also valued among professional philosophers and theologians alike, especially those focusing on the relations between theism, atheism, and naturalism. His three most popular arguments against naturalism are the Argument from Reason, the Moral Argument, and the Argument from Desire. In that context, the present article aims to show that Lewis actually made use of a fourth type of argument against philosophical naturalism that has so far escaped identification. Since this argument refers to the experience of numinous awe described by Rudolf Otto (1869–1937), one might call it the “Argument from Awe.” Lewis referred to the notion of numinous awe when arguing against naturalistic ways of explaining the origins and essence of religion. And while it is true that he used this notion in many other contexts, it seems that in order to see the argument from awe as indeed a separate category, one ought to focus on Lewis’s work in that particular area.