Two of my friends have written to me that Agatha Christie was a Christian. I believe her fictional detective Hercule Poirot does give a Christian some interesting food for thought.
The Hercule Poirot DVD containing the episodes the case of the missing will, and the adventure of the Italian nobleman, makes me think of Christian apologetics. Don't laugh. Christie may not have heard of Thomas Kuhn's book STRUCTURES IN SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS or paradigm shifts. But I think she had an intuitive grasp of the subject, if not a cognitive grasp. I don't know if Mr. Kuhn was a Christian. I know I would have points of disagreements with him. But I do think he did make a contribution to the philosophy of science, illustrating the limitations of the scientific method, basically the issue of interpretation of evidence in the context of a paradigm.
In "the case of the missing will," Poirot, in his investigation, realizes they were working on the ASSUMPTION (paradigm?) that the heir of the deceased was a SON. In the second episode about the Italian Nobleman, Poirot uses the illustration of a mirror saying they were looking at the case from the wrong viewpoint I think these two episodes show the limitations of the scientific method and how we can be locked into a "box" or paradigm. It is interesting to see how apologetics can be illustrated in literature.
I am sure you know of that old Professor's comment about Lucy in THE LION THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE: either Lucy was lying or a lunatic or telling the truth; the same truth test Lewis used in MERE CHRISTIANITY when addressing the claims of Christ.
# posted by GuyTak @ 11:38 AM
