Book II: Chapter 1 The Rival Conceptions of God Summary and Analysis

The three rival concepts of God are pantheism (God is the universe), Jewish/Christian/Islamic (God made the universe) and atheism (God does not exist). Lewis observes that the greatest division on the God issue is whether people believe God exists or not. The majority of humans believe in the existence of one or more deities. Lewis admits to at one time being an atheist, but after accepting the existence of God, he discovered a form of liberalism which allowed all religions to have some truth to them, rather than trying to demonstrate that all religions are wrong in their promotion of spiritualism.

Having defined these three rival concepts, Lewis moves on to explain that Christians believe in a God who takes sides, who complains that things...