The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. – Psalm 19:1
Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” – John 6:68-69
C. S. Lewis: Basic Facts
- Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963) was one of the greatest Christian writers and thinkers of the 20th century. He became a prominent defender of Christian faith against the skepticism of the age, and his books have taught and inspired generations of Christians.
- Lewis was a confirmed atheist until he was nearly 30 years old. While studying and teaching medieval literature at Oxford University, he came under the influence of several Christian friends. Through their friendship, and through the exercise of reason and imagination, he came to embrace the Christian faith.
- He is best known now through his books. His most popular are his apologetics and theology books—Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Abolition of Man, The Four Loves, and The Great Divorce—and his fiction: The Chronicles of Narnia and The Space Trilogy.
Notable Themes of Lewis' Thought:
- The Existence of God: the Arguments from Desire and Morality – Lewis argued that because we have a desire for ultimate perfection in beauty, eternality, and joy, something must exist to meet that desire (i.e., a God who manifests all those things). He also argued that the fact of universal human morality was a sign of the existence of an ultimate standard of morality.
- Respect for the Past – Lewis opposed what he called “chronological snobbery,” and showed that previous generations had as much (if not more) wisdom and depth of thought than modern culture did.
- The Christian Life as a Godward Life – Christian faith is not a matter merely of the individual’s happiness, but of getting close to and being transformed by God.
- The Meaning of Suffering/Grief – Lewis wrestled with the problem of pain both before and after his con-version; ultimately coming not to answers, but to trust.
Quotes & Extracts:
“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”
“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
“If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them. They are not a sort of prize which God could, if He chose, just hand out to anyone. They are a great fountain of energy and beauty spurting up at the very center of reality. If you are close to it, the spray will wet you: if you are not, you will remain dry. Once a man is united to God, how could he not live forever?”
“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”
“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never met a mere mortal….Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.”
“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
“Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.”
“There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, ‘All right, then, have it your way.’”
“The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.”
“Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person's ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.”
“To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”
“I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.”
“Joy is the serious business of heaven.”
“You must realize from the outset that the goal towards which He is beginning to guide you is absolute perfection; and no power in the whole universe, except you yourself, can prevent Him from taking you to that goal.”
“The one really adequate instrument for learning about God is the whole Christian community, waiting for Him together.”
“The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water.”
C. S. Lewis: Basic Facts
- Lewis was a confirmed atheist until he was nearly 30 years old. While studying and teaching medieval literature at Oxford University, he came under the influence of several Christian friends. Through their friendship, and through the exercise of reason and imagination, he came to embrace the Christian faith.
- He is best known now through his books. His most popular are his apologetics and theology books—Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Abolition of Man, The Four Loves, and The Great Divorce—and his fiction: The Chronicles of Narnia and The Space Trilogy.
Notable Themes of Lewis' Thought:
- The Existence of God: the Arguments from Desire and Morality – Lewis argued that because we have a desire for ultimate perfection in beauty, eternality, and joy, something must exist to meet that desire (i.e., a God who manifests all those things). He also argued that the fact of universal human morality was a sign of the existence of an ultimate standard of morality.
- Respect for the Past – Lewis opposed what he called “chronological snobbery,” and showed that previous generations had as much (if not more) wisdom and depth of thought than modern culture did.
- The Christian Life as a Godward Life – Christian faith is not a matter merely of the individual’s happiness, but of getting close to and being transformed by God.
- The Meaning of Suffering/Grief – Lewis wrestled with the problem of pain both before and after his con-version; ultimately coming not to answers, but to trust.
Quotes & Extracts:
“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”
“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”
“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never met a mere mortal….Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.”
“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
“Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.”
“There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, ‘All right, then, have it your way.’”
“The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.”
“Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person's ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.”
“To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”
“I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.”
“Joy is the serious business of heaven.”
“You must realize from the outset that the goal towards which He is beginning to guide you is absolute perfection; and no power in the whole universe, except you yourself, can prevent Him from taking you to that goal.”
“The one really adequate instrument for learning about God is the whole Christian community, waiting for Him together.”
“The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water.”
“Enemy-occupied territory—that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.”
From The Silver Chair:
Puddleglum’s answer to the Queen’s suggestion that they were living in a
fantasy, and that there was no real world other than her dark
underground empire: “Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all
those things—trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan
himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the
made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones.
Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it
strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you
come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're
right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks
your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play world.
I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going
to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So,
thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young
lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the
dark to spend our lives looking for Overland.”