I was given God in the Dock by my uncle and aunt a few years ago when they were giving away a lot of their old books. I had very little desire to read it, but as it was so short I decided to just get it over with. God in the Dock is made up of a series of short articles written by Lewis mostly in the 1940s. The back of the book advertizes it as being great to "put in the hands of an intellectual doubter," but I would disagree. Every one of the essays gave off a very strong vibe of "preaching to the choir," by skipping over major contradictory points and structuring hypothetical arguments to heavily favour the Christian side.
He devotes a number of essays to the idea of miracles, but his arguments are all based on the idea that the bible gave a verified account of events. That is, that what the bible says actually did happen, so how can it be explained other than through miracles. He generally claims that there can be no scientific explanation for the miracles of the bible. This is true. However, this argument is only actually valid if there is a consensus that the events spoken of in the bible actually did happen, rather than having been the exaggerations or fabrications of people writing decades later in order to gain followers and bolster the reputation of their leader. This can be seen particularly where Lewis discusses the birth of Jesus. He constructs a hypothetical discussion in which he and an atheist debate the idea of whether or not the birth of Jesus was a divine event or not. Interestingly, his hypothetical atheist does not seem to think of the rather obvious argument that perhaps the story cannot be explained by science because the entire supernatural element was fabricated decades later in order to give an added sense of legitimacy to Jesus' teachings, and that the historical Jesus was born in the regular way to regular parents. Lewis does address this point in a general way, when he argues that it is unlikely that the followers of Jesus would have attributed divinity to his actions after his death because they were Jewish, and to do so without it actually having happened would have gone against their traditions. This ignores the rather obvious fact that throughout history people have been both misled by leaders to go against their own traditions, and that people have told lies that go against their traditions in order to gain influence or power.
Lewis also makes the interesting argument that the laws of nature only explain the constraints of an action (if A, then B), but not the origin of the action itself. He argues that if you follow each action back to its origins, you find another action. Each of these is constrained by the laws of nature, but is not caused by them. He then goes on to say that if you follow these actions back far enough, you arrive at God. Therefore, he argues, it is God who causes actions, and he who has put constraints on them in the form of the laws of nature. He does not seem to want to take his own line of reasoning back one step further and look at God as another action. In other words, God may have caused the tides (as an example), but what caused God?
In what was my least favourite of all his articles, Lewis also argued against allowing women to serve as priests. He makes it clear that this is not because he thinks that they are less intelligent or less able to be pious, but then almost immediately says that the idea of female priests makes him uncomfortable. He can dress it up all he wants, but using the fact that he is simply "uncomfortable" with the idea is still sexist. His main argument is that while he believes that women can represent humanity to God, they cannot represent (or speak for) God to humanity. He argues that this is because God is masculine and requires a masculine representative. Indeed, he goes on to say that those men who inadequately represent God are in fact not masculine enough, and so women should certainly not be allowed. This argument has no real merit, just a number of rather sexist talking points not based in facts. It also reminded me of the discomfort I felt years ago (as a child years before I became an atheist) when reading The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe when Peter is given a sword, but Lucy is given a healing cordial and dagger and Susan a horn to call for help and a bow and arrows. Both girls are told that they are to use their weapons only as a last resort, and not in battle. When Lucy protests, saying that she could be brave enough, Father Christmas replies that bravery is not the problem, but that "battles are ugly when women fight." No explanation, no reasoning given, just a casual sexist comment thrown out in order to tell girls that their bravery (and other qualities) do not matter, they are arbitrarily still not allowed to do what the boys can. Instead, they are constrained to act either as healers or to run and call for help rather than acting in their own power and standing up for themselves.
Overall, I found Lewis' arguments to be largely lacking in logic and not properly addressing the opposing side's main points. If you are a Christian who would like to read a pleasantly self-affirming book, then I would recommend God in the Dock. If you are a doubter or atheist looking for a solidly constructed Christian argument on the existence of God and miracles in order to challenge yourself or make you think, look elsewhere.
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