C. S. Lewis

[[File:Statue_of_C.S._Lewis,_Belfast.jpg|thumb|165px|A statue of Lewis, getting ready to go to Narnia.]]{{Christianity|1}}
{{cquote|Nothing I can say will prevent some people from des­cribing this lecture as an [[war on science|attack on science]]. I deny the charge, of course: and real Natural Philosophers (there are some now alive) will per­ceive that in defending value I defend ''inter alia'' the value of [[knowledge]], which must die like every other when its roots in the ''[[Tao]]'' are cut.|||C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man<ref>{{cite book |last= Lewis |first= Clive Staples|date= 1947|title=The Abolition of Man:Or, Reflections on Education with Special Reference to the Teaching of English in the Upper Forms of Schools |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/l947AAAAIAAJ |publisher= Macmillan|page=47 |isbn=9780020662303}}</ref>}} 
'''Clive Staples Lewis''' {{lived|1898|1963}}, usually known as '''C. S. Lewis''' ("Jack" to his friends), was an [[Ireland|Irish]]-born [[British]] [[Author|writer]], scholar of English [[Middle Ages|medieval]] and [[renaissance]] [[literature]], and [[Christian apologetics|Christian apologist]]. He was a fellow of University of Oxford from 1925 to 1954, the first Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at University of Cambridge from 1954 until his death.

Lewis spent his younger life as an [[atheist]], but converted to [[Church of England|Anglicanism]] in his late twenties under the influence of 
acid
 his friend J. R. R. Tolkien (though Tolkien was a devout [[Roman Catholic]]). Lewis was also friends with Alec Vidler, until Lewis found out that Vidler had aligned himself with the [[Labour Party]].<ref>{{cite book |author=<!--Not stated--> |editor-last1= Johnson|editor-first1=Bruce R. |date=2020 |title= Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal|url=  |publisher=Wipf & Stock Publishers |page=59 |isbn=9781725255081}}</ref> Lewis' daftness is not entirely meritless, as he had driven [[Ayn Rand]] to a total meltdown for having read his work.<ref>https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2013/03/ayn-rand-really-really-hated-c-s-lewis</ref>

And ''by God'', he ''hates'' [[car]]s.<ref>{{cite book |author=<!--Not stated--> |editor-last1= Johnson|editor-first1=Bruce R. |date=2020 |title= Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal|url=  |publisher=Wipf & Stock Publishers |page=58 |isbn=9781725255081}}</ref><ref>
{{cite book |last= Lewis|first=  Clive Staples  |date= 1960|title=  Mere Christianity|url= |quote=God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there.|publisher= Macmillan|page= 39|isbn=9780020869405}}</ref>

==Religious beliefs==
===Christianity===
{{main|Lewis Trilemma}}
Lewis was a member of the Anglo-Catholic tendency<ref>
{{wpa | Anglo-Catholicism}}
</ref>
within the Anglican church. His best-known work of apologetics, ''Mere Christianity'' (1952), attempts to isolate the core of Christianity independent of particular [[denomination]]s.

In this work (the chapter ''The Perfect Penitent''), Lewis hints that he does not believe in the standard Western Christian understanding of Jesus' death as a substitutionary sacrifice for sin, a notion also eschewed in his Christian allegorical fiction. Lewis seems to opt for the ancient notion that Jesus' death is a ransom paid to the devil rather than a sacrifice to God.<ref group=note>This is certainly implicit in both ''The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe'' and ''Perelandra''</ref> [[Satire|Something sensible at last]].

In his autobiography ''Surprised by Joy'' (1955), Lewis states that obtaining life after death is a rather crass motive for becoming Christian and actually spoils what is good in Christianity.  (No wait, that idea ''does'' make sense.)

Like many Anglo-Catholics, Lewis accepted [[theistic evolution]], and, like many Anglo-Catholics, believed in a [[purgatory]]. Although Article XXII of the Anglican Thirty-nine Articles<ref>
{{wpa | Thirty-nine Articles}}
</ref>
rejects "the Romish doctrine concerning purgatory", Lewis construed this to mean Catholic beliefs ''about'' purgatory, rather than belief ''in'' purgatory ''per se''.

===Taoism!?===
Though strangely, Lewis is also very keen on the [[Taoist]] concept of "Tao". [[Relativist fallacy|Which to Lewis means]] that “the belief that certain attitudes are really true, and others really false, to the kind of thing the universe is and the kind of things we are.”<ref name="BritannicaAbolition1"/> ... despite Taoism (i.e. [[Tao Te Ching]], the foundational text of the belief) stating that Tao cannot be characterized; "what one may name as Tao is not ''the actual Tao''."<ref>[https://ctext.org/dao-de-jing Dao De Jing], Laozi</ref><ref group=note>In Chinese, 道可道，非常道。It's literally the first passage of Tao Te Ching and every English translation of it ever.</ref>

Lewis' interpretation of Tao, disparagingly referred to as "Taovangelism", is believed to be an interpretation of Taoism through a very [[Calvinist]] reading.

==Fiction and other written works==
Lewis is better known for his fiction writing than his academic work. His best-known work consists of the "Chronicles of Narnia", a series of [[fantasy|fantasies]] in which English schoolchildren are transported to a [[magic]]al land, where they are involved in various heroic (and otherwise) roles. The Narnia books have a great deal of Christian allegory and assumptions, although many readers don't immediately perceive this. Particularly strongly Christian are ''The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe''; ''The Magician's Nephew''; and ''The Last Battle''. In the last<!-- not latter-->, Christian allegory is wielded like a sledgehammer, presumably just to make sure ''everyone'' knew what he was getting at. For good measure he threw in a helping of Plato's theory of forms, having the characters (after death?) go to "the real England"—whatever that is.

Lewis was also a known Christian apologist. In ''Miracles'' and ''Mere Christianity'', Lewis employs a streamlined simplified version of [[Immanuel Kant|Kantian]] arguments that the simple fact that we have minds (''Miracles'') and morality (''Mere Christianity'') points to the existence of a God. In the latter, he employs his [[Lewis Trilemma|original trilemma argument]] that since Jesus claimed to be God, he must be Lord, liar, or lunatic. This argument ignores (among other thing) the possibility that this story about Jesus may be fabrication by another author, which one might expect a ''writer of fantasy'' to be aware of. Lewis is today highly popular with [[conservative]] Christians but professional theologians cite him less often.

Lewis has been criticized for [[racism]] because of his portrayal of Calormen, a country suspiciously similar to the [[Turkey|Ottoman Empire]], which is almost entirely [[evil]]. The people of Calormen, while not particularly like the real Ottomans, were very much like the [[Europe]]an [[stereotype]]s of [[Muslim]]s at the time.

In his book ''Mere Christianity'', Lewis argued that [[European witch-hunts|witch hunts]] were not wrong, only mistaken since witches do not exist—if they did, he says, the crime of witchcraft, working for the Devil to destroy people, would be deserving of death, if any crime ever deserved death.<ref>[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/questionofgod/ownwords/mere1.html In his own words]</ref>

In addition to the Narnia books, his writings include:

Christian apologetics:
*''Mere Christianity'', the aforementioned apologetic for what Lewis considered basic Christianity, independent of denominations.

Literary criticism:
*''The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature'': actually an excellent introduction to medieval ideas about the physical world.
*''An Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition'': a study of medieval romantic poetry.
*''A Preface to Paradise Lost'': A study of Milton's epic poem.

Philology:
*''Studies in Words'': An actually well researched scholarly work on how words have changed their meanings through history. This suggests his more controversial work is a case of [[ultracrepidarianism]].

Value and natural law:
*''The Abolition of Man'': A very philosophical work that some consider to be Lewis' most important (non-Narnia) book. In it, he argues that [[education]], both in the home and in school, must be based both on "[[moral]] [[laws]] and [[objective]] [[values]]". In it, Lewis raises the question of [[moral relativism]], and directly opposes the claim that there is such a thing as "absolute moral value" in this world. Among other things, he defends "[[Francis Bacon|the power of man over nature]]" as something worthy of value, but criticizes ''the use of it to deny values'', the value of science itself being among them. He defends [[science]] as something worthy, ''but criticizes using it to discredit values'' ​​- the value of science itself being among them - or defining it to ''the exclusion of other moral values''.<ref name="BritannicaAbolition1">{{cite web |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Abolition-of-Man|website= Encyclopædia Britannica|access-date=October 16, 2024 |title=The Abolition of Man}}</ref> You can deduce [[confirmation bias|its merits]] from the fact that in 1999, [[National Review]] had ranked it as the 7th best non-fiction book of 20th Century.<ref>{{Cite web|title=The 100 Best Non-Fiction Books of the Century |date=3 May 1999 |publisher=National Review |url=https://www.nationalreview.com/1999/05/non-fiction-100/}}.</ref>

Autobiography:
*''Surprised by Joy'' - An autobiography.

Fiction:
*''The Screwtape Letters'', a series of letters between an apprentice demon, Wormwood (yes, that was a reference in ''Calvin & Hobbes''), and his mentor.
*''Till We Have Faces'', a celebrated retelling of the Cupid and Psyche [[myth]] from Apuleius intertwined with many [[Existentialism|existential]] and even [[Universalist]] themes. Lewis called it the best of his novels.
*''The Space Trilogy'', somewhat obscure at the moment, but began a magnificent spat of letters with none other than [[Arthur C. Clarke]]. It was born from a dare with J.R.R. Tolkien; the two disliked what they perceived as the current dehumanizing trends in [[science fiction]] and dared each other to write a sci-fi book their own way, though Tolkien's book went unfinished.
*''The Great Divorce'', a dream-vision novel about a trip from hell to heaven.

==Critics of apologetics==
A thorough analysis of Lewis' Christian apologetics is found in John Beverslius' book ''C.S. Lewis and the Search for Rational Religion''. In the foreword, Beverslius states that Lewis is either often treated as an almost-divine [[prophet|oracle]] or with complete contempt, and neither treatment is deserved. He regards Lewis as having a sensitive and intelligent mind that is simply wrong about Christianity, and as such his arguments should be respectfully dismantled.

A chapter analyzing Lewis' apologetic arguments appears in S.T. Joshi's book ''God's Defenders: What They Believe and Why they are Wrong''.<ref>[http://stjoshi.org/intro_gods_defenders.html Introduction to God's Defenders: What They Believe and Why They Are Wrong]. S.T. Joshi. </ref>

==Secular critics of Lewis' fiction==
[[Author]] Philip Pullman is an outspoken critic of Lewis and the underlying values in his Narnian chronicles. Pullman has several times noted that his own fantasy trilogy ''[[His Dark Materials]]'' is written in part to serve as a [[humanist]] alternative to the Narnia series.

Salon.com editor Laura Miller wrote a book defending the literary value of the Narnia books for non-believing readers entitled ''The Magician's Book: A Skeptic's Guide to Narnia''. Portions of the book are autobiographical in which Miller discusses her childhood love of Narnia, her subsequent disenchantment when she discovered the Christian subtext of the books, and her later discovery of how to appreciate the books outside of the framework of Lewis' Christianity.

A more negative assessment of Lewis' fiction is in David Holbrook's psychoanalytic study of Lewis entitled ''The Skeleton in the Wardrobe'' in which he sees signs of Lewis' fear of women and sexuality reflected in the Narnia series. However, Holbrook speaks quite highly of Lewis' novels ''The Magician's Nephew'' (the 2nd to last of the Narnia series, though it's a prequel) and ''Till We Have Faces''.

A.N. Wilson's biography of Lewis is the only full-length one not written by a Christian. Wilson actually lost his Christian faith while researching his bio of Lewis and the resulting book is heavily psychoanalytic. However, Wilson returned to Christianity 20 years later.

==Lewis wars among conservative Christians over evolution==
The [[Biologos | ''BioLogos'' institute]] (a think tank promoting the compatibility of evolution and Christianity) frequently cites C.S. Lewis with approval in its literature. However, the [[Discovery Institute]] (which promotes [[intelligent design]]) also houses a [http://www.cslewisinstitute.org/ Lewis Institute], and one Discovery Institute member, {{wpl|John G. West||,}} has edited a book<ref>
{{cite book
 | editor1-last = West
 | editor1-first = John G.
 | title = The Magician's Twin: C. S. Lewis on Science, Scientism, and Society
 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=COUAuwAACAAJ
 | publisher = Discovery Institute Press
 | publication-date = 2012
 | isbn = 9781936599059
 | access-date = 29 December 2018
}}
</ref> and given several lectures contesting the view that Lewis was comfortable with evolution, in spite of very clear statements to this effect in ''Mere Christianity''. (In fact, Lewis was indeed comfortable with evolution when he wrote ''Mere Christianity'' in the early 1940s, but was later convinced to go [[Creationism|full-creationist]] when a colleague used the old "evolution is random therefore it can't produce the human eye" fallacy on him.)<ref>[https://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1996/PSCF3-96Ferngren.html C. S. Lewis on Creation and Evolution: The Acworth Letters, 1944-1960]</ref>

West's book further ropes Lewis into the battle against that conservative Christian chestnut "[[scientism]]", the belief that all truth can be obtained scientifically. Astrophysicist [[Sean Carroll]] has observed that religious opponents of modern science often use the term "scientism" over-flexibly to mean a wide range of things, depending on the polemical needs of the moment.<ref>[https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2013/08/14/lets-stop-using-the-word-scientism/ ''Let's Stop Using the Word "Scientism"'', from Sean Carroll's blog</ref>

==See also==
*[[Lewis Trilemma]]

==External links==
*[http://www.cslewisinstitute.org/ The C.S. Lewis Institute]
*[http://www.rogermwilcox.com/Hnakra.html Hnakra Wars], the wargame based on C.S. Lewis's ''Out of the Silent Planet''

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note}}

==References==
* {{cite book |last1=Dyer |first1= Justin Buckley |last2= Watson|first2=   Micah J.|date= 2016|title=C. S. Lewis on Politics and the Natural Law|publisher=Cambridge University Press |url= https://www.google.com/books/edition/C_S_Lewis_on_Politics_and_the_Natural_La/pEueDAAAQBAJ |isbn=9781107108240}}

{{reflist|2|80%}}

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[[Category:Christian apologists]]
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Categories: Authors, Christian apologists, Protestants, Ireland