The Question of God, Answered in the Lives of Two Great Men

Two scholars with great minds, and remarkably similar backgrounds, become famous and write books that influence millions. But one became a Christian and devoted his life to serving Christ, while the other remained an atheist all his life.

Who were they, and why did their lives and careers diverge so dramatically?

One was Sigmund Freud, the father of modern psychiatry. The other, some 50 years younger, was C.S. Lewis, a brilliant professor at Oxford University and one of the most influential Christians of the last century.

Their contrasting ideas and their lives are the focus of a fascinating book entitled, The Question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life. The author, Dr. Armand M. Nicholi, Jr., is a Christian on the faculty at Harvard Medical School and editor and coauthor of The Harvard Guide to Psychiatry.

For more than 25 years Dr. Nicholi has taught a course at Harvard on Freud and C.S. Lewis. The substance of that course is in this book.

What it does is show what these two brilliant men believed and taught about the great issues of life (the existence of God, whether there is a universal moral law, what sex and love are all about, and how to deal with suffering and death) and how their lives reflected, or failed to reflect, their stated views.

These are heavy subjects, but don't be scared off. The book is well-written and very readable, full of interesting quotes from the letters and writings of these two men and excerpts from their biographies.

Although the author is very fair in discussing the differences between Freud and Lewis, he leaves no doubt about where he thinks the truth lies. He does this by letting the words and actions of his two subjects speak for themselves.

Take the question of death, for example. Freud died when, at his request, his personal physician gave him an overdose of morphine. This took place after Freud, who was 83 and in poor health, said about his life, "Now it's nothing but torture and makes no sense any more."

C.S. Lewis, also in poor health although only 64, wrote to a friend about three weeks before his death that he was happy to have the leisure time to do what he enjoyed doing all of his life - read good literature. Two weeks later, when Lewis knew he was dying, he said to his brother, "I have done all that I was sent into the world to do, and I am ready to go."

Read this book if you have any interest at all in the world of ideas, and especially in the great clash between the kingdom of God and the kingdoms of man.

And then give it to a friend! It would make a great gift for a college student, especially one in a secular university, or for anyone who thinks Christianity is a bunch of myths for simpletons who don't realize that science has all the answers.