C.S.Lewis:
A Christian Objectivist--His Pursuit and Participation in Reality (Summary)
Mineko Honda
The following is a summary of gC. S.
Lewis: A Christian Objectivist—His Pursuit and Participation in Reality,h which
is a dissertation submitted in June 2005 to the faculty of the department of English
and American Literature of Gakushuin University in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of doctor of philosophy.
* * *
Preface
Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963) remains one of the most
popular and influential Christian authors and lay advocates in this century in
England. @He taught English as a fellow
at
Introduction
Lewis
believes in God as the supernatural, absolute Reality, a being who transcends
our spatio-temporal world. He also believes in heaven as the world of objective
reality, or the Real World. The world of Reality is, for Lewis, the world of
meanings and therefore important. He
is a objectivist and in
all his writings, we can see he is assuming the logos and intelligibility of
the universe. This assumption is in
fact a belief in the rationality of both man and the universe, since it assumes
not only the logos of the universe but also the validity of human reason as a
means of logically knowing that logos.
This belief was one of the most important fundamental presuppositions in
Western philosophy until modern times, and
Lewis regards himself to belong to that gOld Westernh traditions.
He sees the
twentieth century as an age of relativism, and shows his misgivings as he finds
that even in the field of ethics, where there used to be a belief in objective
standards of good and evil, many people now only find some relative standards. Against that relativism,
he
argues for Christianity not because he finds it good but because he finds it
objectively true. He argues for the
moral law and other standards of values as well because he believes they are
also objective reality. In literary
criticism, he insists on the value of allegory and myth which he regards as
objective expressions of reality.
Though
he finds that God is supernatural and transcends our world of ordinary
experience, he believes that God reveals Himself as well as ultimate Reality
through our imagination, reason and
moral consciousness.
What
is especially characteristic of Lewis is the fact that he not only believes in
the world of objective reality but also loves it, yearns for it, and thinks
that human beings can actually attain that reality in heaven as Real men or
women, becoming a part of the reality.
This attainment of Reality is always his first concern.
Chapter 1@Imagination
Lewis
regards himself to be intrinsically an imaginative man. The imagination he sees in himself means
a lot more than gcreativityh that we expect of good writers and artists. For
Lewis, it is also a power of intuition into the metaphysical reality of this
world and heaven, and a power of communication of that reality. It perceives the meaning of the world,
expresses that meaning, and enables us to participate in the metaphysical
Reality.
He attributes such intuitive power to the human
imagination because what convinced him of the existence of heaven is mainly his
recurrent aesthetic experiences that he calls gJoyh that he tells us in his
autography Surprised by Joy.
Since he was a child, he had occasionally been struck by an aesthetic sensation
which seemed extremely meaningful.
It was a sensation of an extraordinary, indescribable longing caused by
quite ordinary things in life. It
is numinous, too.
He
says, gJoyh has always been gunsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable
than any other satisfaction.h
The main characteristics of gJoyh can be summarised as follows: 1) that
it is a sensation of keen desire; 2) that one cannot know or control when and
where it comes or vanishes away; 3) that it suggests some incalculable importance
especially when remembered afterwards; 4) that the object of the desire is
other than the immediate cause of it and can never be specified by anything on
earth; 5) that the desire is never satisfied; and 6) that the desire itself
turns out to be the object of the desire.
It becomes ga longing for the longing.h
The pursuit of Joy became such
a special significance for the young Lewis that, he distinguishes his inner
life which is concerned with gJoyh from every other aspect of life and calls it
the gimaginative life.h In his imaginative life, he was always seeking for the
source and satisfaction of gJoyh.
He believed that if he found something that satisfied the desire, it
must be the real object of gJoyh. He tried one thing after another, calling
the process the gdialectic of Desireh.
False objects, when experienced, turn out to be false, even if at first
it seemed to be the real object of gJoyh.
This gdialectic of Desireh is, as the dialectic is usually expected to
be, logical, though proofs that are employed in it are empirical and may make
it seem nonlogical. For, although
the faculty in a man which feels gJoyh and acquires the empirical proofs to use
as data is not reason but imagination, the dialectic process itself, in which
Lewis eliminates wrong objects one by one, is systematic and, in that sense,
quite logical. The important fact
here is that Lewis thinks that imagination as well as reason has the capacity
to examine the truth.
By
that dialectic process, Lewis realized that neither sexual pleasure nor occultism
nor even gJoyh itself was the object of gJoyh. After that, mainly by rational thinking, he
came to believe in an Absolute existence.
And then, he had Godfs revelation where God demanded him a total
surrender. That moment, he came to
believe in the Christian God who is the Creator and Lord of the world. And after that, he came to believe in
Jesus. Strangely, then, after his
conversion, gJoyh has lost nearly all interest for him; and he somehow finds
this to be a proof that, after all, gJoyh has been a pointer to heaven. Now that he has started walking on the
right way to the destination, the pointer, gJoyh, is naturally of little
importance. Then, he came to regard
gJoyh also as a foretaste of pleasures to be enjoyed in heaven. For Lewis, thus,
imagination is, first of all, a faculty that leads man to God through the ever
unsatisfied desire.
What
is also important is the fact that Lewis finds gJoyh to be not merely a pointer
to heaven but also as a sort of proof of its existence. For, he infers, if nothing on earth
seemed to satisfy gJoyh, then it must be because it is the desire for something
beyond this natural world, that is, for heaven, and therefore heaven must
exist.
Experiences
similar to Lewisfs gJoyh are common to many English Romantics. However, it is
probably most similar to the madeleine experience in Proustfs Á la Recherche
du Temps Perdu. In both cases,
the sensation is one of strong joy, coming very suddenly without any warning as
if it were from another world. In
both cases it is incomprehensible and elusive. And though the sensation has lasted only
a moment it leaves such a strong impression of profound meaning on the mind
that the pursuit of its meaning becomes the greatest concern afterwards. Among English poets and novelists,
Wordsworthfs gspots of timeh, Coleridgefs gJoyh, and James Joycefs gepiphanyh
are similar to Lewisfs experience.
However, the important difference is that though in all four writers,
Proust, Wordsworth, Joyce, and Lewis, the moment of revelation of hidden
meaning becomes a matter of greatest importance--it is Lewis alone that has
come to interpret the sense of revelation as something that is given by the
supernatural God to lead man to Christianity. Their ideas are man-centred, while
Lewisfs idea of gJoyh is God-centred.
Here, Lewis is nearer to Eliot in Four Quartets or to
Lewisfs
theory of imagination can be classified as Romantic also because it has a lot
in common with Coleridgefs, which is a representative of English Romantic
theory of imagination in the 19th century.
Lewisfs idea of imagination as intuitive power is similar to Coleridgefs
idea of gprimary imaginationh, though there are also differences between them: Coleridge
sees imago Dei even in manfs perceptive imagination, which he thinks to
be active and creative, while for Lewis the intuitive imagination is not Godfs
image, but rather the passive medium through which God reveals Himself to man. This lack of the idea of imago Dei
in Lewis comes from his consciousness of radical difference between manfs life
and divine life. Then, Lewis and
Coleridge are different also in their idea of relation between reason and
imagination. In Coleridgefs system,
imagination does not perceive the spiritual truth directly but receives it
through reason, while Lewis thinks that imagination itself has direct access to
divine revelation. Lewisfs
imagination is not opposite of reason nor in a lower position than it, but
works side by side with reason, showing Godfs reality to man. Then, Lewisfs idea of imagination as
creative power is similar to Coleridgefs idea of the gsecondary imaginationh
which is mimetic and inferior to Godfs creativity.
Lewis calls the
imagination to be the organ of meaning.
In his gJoyh experience, he finds our imagination to be a faculty to
show us Reality. Then, he finds aesthetic
experiences to be initiations to Christian life, teaching us adoration and
disinterested self-abandonment. Then he also finds that Nature shows him the
meaning of ggloryh through imagination. His appreciation of northern
mythology, which was long a catalyst of gJoyh, has also made it easier for him
to accept Christian myth. And above
all, aesthetic pleasures are, for him, a concrete objectivity which comes from
God and shows us His magnificence through our sensibility. Though Kant, who uses the word gästhetischh,
holds aesthetic perception to be a matter of subjectivity, Lewis holds that
aesthetic sensation is given directly from God, and therefore it has an
objectivity derived from the real objectivity of its source.
Then Lewis calls imagination
gthe organ of meaningh also as a means of communication of Reality. This is based on his view that metaphor,
which is attained by imagination, are fundamental to all linguistic activities
without which even no logical thinking can stand. In this he is under the influence of Owen
Barfield, and with him he is also conscious of the limitation of pure reason
even in the field of logic. Reason
draws conclusions from already acquired data, but it does not obtain the data
by itself. It is our empirical
senses and intuitive imagination or some trustworthy authorities that gain the
data for reason to work on.
Lewis sees that religious matters
especially need imaginative language. For instance, because man cannot know God
as He really is, who is beyond the human senses, all that man can do is imagine
by analogies what God is like. Though today, the general validity
of metaphor as an objective expression of reality is not a universally accepted
truth, Lewisfs belief in the validity of metaphor is important for him as a
literary man.
He
believes the validity and truth of allegory, literary symbols and myth, holding
allegory as an attempt to express something immaterial in the form of
personification, and symbolism as an attempt to grasp and express things beyond
our sensual experiences. Allegory
aims at revealing the reality of things indescribable otherwise, and allegorical
figures are not arbitrary. What is
expressed by allegory is the reality and essence of things and feelings, which
are, in a sense, given to the author.
And myth is, for him, something above allegory. Though allegory is basically some
expression of what the author knows, the meanings of myth are totally out of
the authorfs control.
Lewis
saw his contemporary 20th century as an age that was dominated by a scientific
way of thinking, where ordinary people tended to believe that everything that
exists can be proved by science.
Yet, he points out, while admitting that science is important and useful
as a means to grasp physical facts about the world, the comprehensive reality
is to be approached not only with science but also with metaphysics and
theology. In that sense, Medieval
mythical model of the universe has a truth in it, expressing the meaning of the
universe, though not physically true.
And even in pagan mythology, Lewis recognizes some significant truth
foreshadowing Christianity.
In
An Experiment in Criticism, Lewis defines myths by their effect on the
reader. According to Lewis, a myth
is first of all gextra-literaryh; Secondly, it introduces the reader to a
permanent object of contemplation.
Thirdly, the story is to be preternatural, and the reader never projects
himself into the characters.
Finally, reading a myth is always a grave and awe-inspiring and numinous
experience. He says that the same
story may be a myth to one man and not to another because the effect of the
same book is various on different readers
Lewisfs
ideas of symbolism and sacramentalism are explained most clearly by the concept
of what he calls gTranspositionh. Lewis distinguishes symbolism and
sacramentalism as this: when there is complete discontinuity between the things
and the signs that denote them, it is symbolism, while when the thing signified
is really in a certain mode present in the sign, it is sacramentalism. What Lewis calls Transposition as a mode
of expression occurs whenever a thing in a richer system is expressed or
translated in a poorer system: for example, when a three-dimensional world is
drawn on a flat, two-dimensional sheet of paper, where one single shape in the
poorer medium has to express more than two forms of the richer original: A
triangle in a picture may represent an actual triangle or a duncefs cap. This idea of gTranspositionh, together
with the idea of sacramentalism, is theologically significant to Lewis, as it
concerns manfs capacity for perceiving Reality. Just as a person living in a two-dimensional
world would not be able to understand our three-dimensional world correctly
when he saw it drawn on the paper, it would be impossible for us to comprehend
God or our spiritual life in heaven, because God and heaven must necessarily be
in a higher dimension than the world we now live in. Then, he further believes that this
doctrine of Transposition gives us Hope: though we do not know what we shall be
in heaven, we would be more, not less, than we were on earth. And with the idea of sacramentalism
in the light of the idea of Transposition, he believes that our earthly life
reflects our life in heaven by already holding a part of it.
Thus, Lewis finds imagination as a necessary means of grasping
reality, apprehending its meaning and having glimpses of the Real world, or
heaven.
Chapter 2 Reason
Lewis calls himself ga
rationalisth. Reason serves Lewis in two important ways. First, it works as the organ of logic
which is indispensable in the pursuit of the objective, comprehensive Reality. Secondly, its non-materiality is a datum
from which he infers the objective existence of a God who is the supernatural
absolute Reason. In this, Reason
is, if not a direct insight into the Reality, another faculty in man which is
directly connected to the Reality.
The
faculty of intuition that provides man with a priori moral principles
such as discussed by Kant in his Kritik der practischen Vernunft is translated into English as greasonh, but Lewis does not refer to
this faculty as reason but calls it gmoralityh. What Coleridge holds as greasonh, the power of direct
insight into the religious reality, is for Lewis, a faculty of imagination.
In his argument for the existence of God and the probability of
Godfs miracles, Lewis first refutes gNaturalismh, which he defines as the
belief gthat nothing exists except Natureh. By reductio ad absurdum logic, he
argues as follows: Materialism may see even manfs reason in terms of chemical
reactions in his brains, but, if Materialism were right, it would be hard to
believe that the materialistic theory itself, which has been attained by such
chemical reactions, is right. And Naturalism is discredited for the
same reason. (One may notice here that Lewisfs gNaturalismh is reductive, or
strict Naturalism.)
He
argues that if manfs reason is caused by some natural phenomenon and is fully
explicable in naturalistic terms, namely, if reason is a part of material
nature, it should be a non-rational phenomenon and would never be able to build
a right theory about nature, even about itself. He also assumes that a part cannot
comprehend and judge the whole and therefore manfs reason is not a part of
Nature.
Then,
from the non-natural character of manfs reason, he infers the existence of an absolute
Reason: which is to be identified with God: One manfs reason has been led to
see things by aid of another manfs reason, and is none the worse for that. That other Reason might conceivably be
found to depend on a third, and so on. Then he says it is obvious that sooner
or later one must admit a Reason which exists absolutely on its own. From the
conclusion that there is a self-existent Reason, Lewis moves on to prove that
it exists incessantly from eternity: for if anything else could make it begin
to exist then it would not exist on its own but because of the other. It must also exist incessantly, because having
once ceased to be, it obviously could not recall itself to existence, and if
anything else recalled it it would then be a dependent being. He says
human reason is gGod-kindledh and gnot Godfsh, as he is conscious that manfs
reason is different from Godfs Reason because it is affected by the physical
condition and may make mistakes.
And then, he refutes some philosophies and religions which he thinks are the
rivals of Christianity: Dualism, Pantheism, Life-Force philosophy and other
mono-Theisms.
As
to Dualism, Lewis uses the word gDualismh to denote either the metaphysical
Dualism of Nature and the supernatural God, or the ethical, or ethicoreligious
Dualism of good and evil. In either
case, Lewis remarks it is impossible for both of Nature and God, or good and
evil to be absolute, all-inclusive system.
If both exists side by side, then in fact neither of them are
all-inclusive, but both are parts of a larger system. Secondly, there is what
Lewis calls gunsymmetrical character of the frontier relations.h Manfs system works well when physical
emotions and sensations are obeying rational judgments, and goes wrong when the
reason submits to the emotion. He thinks
the relation between Nature and the supernatural God should be the same as the
relation between physical and the rational elements in each human mind. And from this, he concludes that it is
reasonable to believe that God produced Nature.
As
for the Dualism of good and evil, Lewis points out that the good and evil do
not stand equal also because evil is judged to be bad from the standpoint of
righteousness and good. Lewis follows
Then, Pantheism is insufficient
because it does not tell us of such a strong personal God as he has once encountered
with. He rejects any religion that
holds impersonal or conceptual idea of a God, or gods, and Pantheism is found unacceptable. Besides, it is impossible for him to
accept Pantheism as a sufficient religion also because it does not answer such
ultimate metaphysical questions as concerning the ground and meaning of the
existence of the world and of human beings. For although many philosophers today no
longer believe that there is an answer for the meaning of the existence of the
universe, Lewis the objectivist does, and believes it is religionfs main
concern to find that answer. Then,
to Life-Force philosophy, too, Lewisfs objection is that it does not understand
Godfs vigorous personality and irresistible influence and power on man. He holds that if people ever believe some
creative mind, as they do in Life-Force philosophy, they should know that it is
in reality gGodh. Life-Force
philosophy and the similar and more popular Evolutionism are a belief in
general progress of the world. Lewis
is aware that the belief in such progress is now getting out of date but not
yet completely dead. People still
tend to regard that the newer things are better, ignoring the possibility of
degradation.
While
rejecting Naturalism, Dualism, Pantheism and Life-Force philosophy on one hand,
Lewis points out three characteristics common to all developed religions: 1)
the believerfs experience of what Rudolf Otto calls gthe Numinoush; 2) the
morality that has an absolute standard which is given a priori; 3) the
identification of the giver and guardian of the morality with the numinous
power to which men feel awe. And besides
these three characteristics, Lewis points out that Christianity has another and
unique characteristic: namely, the
historicity of Jesus Christ. He
finds that the claim of Jesus to be the Son of God must have been so shocking
among the Jews, for whom, gGodh means the absolute Creator who is transcendent
of this world and infinitely different from any human being, that only three
views of this man is possible:
either he is a lunatic, or a devil, or else he is really the Son of God.
Besides, Jesusf claim that he has the
authority to forgive other peoplefs sins is also preposterous unless he is
really the Son. Because, though a
man may rightly forgive those who have done offenses against himself, it would
be wrong for a man to forgive offences to others regardless of the opinion of
those who had actually suffered from those sins. Jesusf attitude would have tremendously
wrong unless he really was God whose laws are broken and whose love is wounded
by every sin committed by His creatures.
On this ground, too, Lewis argues that either Jesus was the Son of God
as he himself said or else a lunatic, or a Devil of hell. Then he says it seems to him obvious
that Jesus was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and so,
ghowever strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seemh, he has gto accept the
view that He was and is God.h
Now,
Lewis presents us yet another logic with which he argues for the doctrine of
the Incarnation. It is an analogy with music and literature: just as the main
theme of a symphony or the central part of a novel illuminates all the other
parts of the work, the doctrine of the Incarnation should necessarily
illuminate the whole system of nature if it is true. Because, such an event of great
importance as Godfs Incarnation cannot be but the central theme of the whole
creation. With this assumption, he finds four main characteristics of Nature
which can be regarded to have their archetypes in Godfs Incarnation: namely, gthe
composite nature of man, the pattern of descent and re-ascension, Selectiveness,
and Vicariousnessh. The composite
nature of man refers to the rational activity in every human being, which is in
a sense supernatural and yet united with a part of Nature, i. e. with a human
body. The pattern of descent and
re-ascent is the pattern of death and re-birth. Selectiveness can be found, for example,
in the smallness of the portion that matter occupies in the space, the fewness
of the planets that support organic life, and in the transmission of organic
life, how few of the countless number of seeds and spermatozoa are selected for
fertility. In Christianity, Abraham
was first chosen to follow God; the Jewish people are gchosenh people; and Mary
was selected to be the Manfs mother. The principle of Vicariousness that the
Sinless Man suffers for the sinful, which is a deep-rooted principle in
Christianity, is seen in interdependence and mutual sacrifice of things in the
whole system of Nature.
Lewis
is against Liberal Christianity which denies miracles and sees Jesus as a human
moral teacher. He reminds us that
in order to say that miracles never occur, we have first to assume absolute
uniformity of Nature. This
assumption in fact implies the belief that there is some design covering the
whole system of the universe, which in fact assumes the existence of God the
Legislator, though most people are not conscious of it. Lewis admits that the
belief in miracles is not a corollary of the belief in the supernatural God,
but he finds it necessary to choose between naturalism and Christianity, and in
the alternative, takes Christianity to be more probable. And once having accepted Christianity, he
believes the miracle of the Incarnation as the central doctrine, which he has
found also as the central event or main theme of history.
Against
the tendency of the contemporary age not to see myth and dogmas as rationally
acceptable truth, Lewis not only believes in eschatological divine elements in
the Christian myth and dogmas but also thinks them compatible with reason. Reason is the faculty of logical
thinking that infers truth from given data. The data, however, need not necessarily
be scientific. They can be given
either by experience or by authority, and can be metaphysical or
theological. Lewis is conscious
that science by nature has to neglect the religious or the supernatural since
it exclusively deals with empirical natural facts. He thinks metaphysical or theological
knowledge is supplied by myths and authorized dogmas in church. Myth is Godfs revelation to man and it
is no less true just because it cannot be logically explained, because knowledge
by revelation is more like empirical than rational knowledge.
Chapter 3 Morality
Lewisfs argument from morality takes the
form of inference of the absolute Moral Giver from moral conscience in
individual human beings. This
argument most clearly shows Lewis as the objectivist against the twentieth
century relativism, for this is not only an argument for Christianity but for
the objective reality of the moral law as well. He first argues that the moral law
is universal and objective. He says
it is beyond manfs control and it is even impossible for us to logically
explain it away. He finds the moral
law to be ga real law, which none of us made, but which we find pressing on us.h He then thinks there must be someone
behind the law who has given it to us through our conscience. He admits that this law-giver may not
necessarily be the God of Christianity. Yet, Lewis moves on to say, that
law-giver at least must be an absolute good governor, whom he identifies with God.
Lewis
says, gGod neither obeys nor creates the moral law,h because he believes that
the moral standard is itself absolute and autonomous. Unlike Kant, Lewis believes in the
objectivity of the moral law. Then
about the problem that whether good is good because God wills it or God wills
it because it is good, he answers that Godfs will is good for the very reason
that it is Godfs will but at the same time good becomes Godfs will because it
is good. Since Lewis believes in
the absolute autonomy and objectivity of the moral law while identifying God
and the goodness, to him, the two propositions are not the alternatives but two
sides of one and the same thing.
Lewis does not think that
moral conscience and reason are mutually independent. He finds moral judgments can be
rationally perceived. He is also conscious that although our ethical reactions
are not merely a matter of feelings, emotion is also important because it
influences our actual behaviours.
About
the problem of evil, he knows that the existence of evil has been one of the greatest
problems for the believers and advocates of the Divine Goodness: If God were good, He
would wish to make His creatures perfectly happy, and if God were almighty, He
would be able to do what He wished.
But creatures are not happy. Therefore God lacks either goodness, or
power, or both—To this problem, he takes
Chapter 4 Lewisfs Literary Theory
Lewis often shows
quite an apparent antipathy against the modern literary tendency. He is critical about the tendency of
man-centredness which he sees in the modern literature, seeing the modern
movement in the history of the Western thought as a gmovement of
internalization,h calling it the movement towards the guniversal black-outh. He does not think literature is to
express personality of the author or manfs real life. It exists to teach what is useful, to
honour what deserves honour, to appreciate what is delightful.@We
read books to enlarge ourselves, to get out of ourselves. Myth,
allegory and fairy tales are, then, valuable for Lewis also as literary
defenses against the gInternalization,h the process of promoting self-centredness
of man. When we read, it is
important to completely surrender to the book, and not to try to use the
work. And although the authorfs
intention is important, it is to be remembered that the meaning of the book is
not necessarily the same as what author intended it to be. The criticism of books should be
on the book, and not on the author.
Lewisfs attitude
towards the problem of originality is in sharp contrast with modern view. He
holds that the true originality is gthe prerogative of God aloneh and the highest
good of a creature must be creaturely, that is, derivative--good. He says that the older poetry, by
continually insisting on certain Stock themes--as that love is sweet, death
bitter, virtue lovely, and children or gardens delightful, ginstructed by
delightingh and shows misgivings about our abandoning such poetry.
Chapter 5@Some Criticisms of the works of Lewis and his style of rhetoric
Lewisfs critics sometimes
find some inconsistency, insufficiency, or logical flaws in his apologetic
works. For example, G. E. M.
Anscombe in 1948 criticizes him for the misleading ambiguity of some key words
in his arguments in Miracles. Kathleen Nott in The Emperorfs Clothes
(1958) criticizes Lewis for his dogmatism.
And John Beversluis in his C. S. Lewis and the Search for Rational
Religion (1985) systematically attacks Lewisfs case for Christianity by
separately criticizing his argument from Desire (that is an argument based on
Imagination), his argument from Reason and his argument from Morality, which
are the three main strands in his apology.
Some of the flaws that such
critics find in Lewis come from careless mistakes on his part. However, Lewis often employs pseudo-logic
or rhetoric which, though they are unacceptable in a strictly logical argument,
in fact come from Lewisfs understanding of human nature as well as from his view
of language. Such pseudo-logic and
rhetoric should not be regarded as mere flaws if we consider his apology as a
whole. Sometimes, his claims seem
to lack sufficient proof, but then, they are often based on the traditional
Western belief in the intelligibility and the rationality of the world, which
is simply axiomatic to him. In his logical argument, Lewis
often turns to dogmas or uses imaginative metaphors and analogies, but it is not
because he is trying to evade the difficulty in argument. As he is conscious of the limitation of
reason alone, dogmas and intuitive imagination are, for him, proper means of
attaining truth and reality.
Besides, he uses a lot of emotional terms in his argument, and it is
because he knows man is not only rational but also emotional. His argument is directed to our whole
personality, with both intellect and feelings. So, affected by his firm belief
and imaginative appeal, the reader will not only intellectually accept his
argument for the Real world, but also feel it really exist, and come to hope to
enter that world someday. This
cannot be done by such purely logical arguments as Beversluis and Knott appear
to demand of him.
PartII
Chapter
‚P@Lewisfs Works of Fiction--Participation
in Reality
In all his writings, not only
apologetics but literary criticisms and fiction as well, his main concern is
the absolute and eternal Reality. Writing stories and fantasies is, for him, a
positive way to participate in Reality.
The
most conspicuous characteristics of Lewisfs stories are, first of all, their
moral character and pleasure-giving quality which co-exist harmoniously. Secondly, the theme of Lewisfs fiction is
always the conflict or contrast between good and evil, which involves the theme
of salvation. Thirdly, except for The
Screwtape Letters, all his fiction is written in a mythopoeic form, taking
place in another world or in the world of metaphysical reality. These characteristics all come
from his desire to express Reality, since, in Lewisfs opinion, Christianity,
the moral standards of good and evil, and myth are all concerned with the
ultimate metaphysical reality. Lewis
says that every man enjoys the world picture which he accepts. The Christian mythical view of the world
is a literary stimulus for Lewis.
He enjoys writing about it. This
is why Lewisfs stories are so much concerned with morality, that is, with the
good and evil, and yet are not boringly nor strictly didactic at all. Morality is for him greatly attractive
as a part of the Real World of God for which he has been yearning. He says his writing always begins with mental
pictures, without any moral in it.
But soon the moral comes in.
He says he wants his story both pleasant and profitable, just as he
wants his food to be nourishing as well as palatable.
His fiction, without
preaching or exhorting makes the readers naturally long to be good. This is because he is convinced that the
reality is ultimately good and the good is pleasant and stronger than evil and transmits
that conviction to them through imagination. The readers are given some foretaste of the
world of reality, or of heaven, so as to share Lewisfs hope and longing for it.
Chapter 2@The Great
Divorce (1946)
This is a narrative story
written in a form of dream literature, in which, some ghosts take an omnibus
from Purgatory to the outermost part of heaven. There, Lewis, the narrator,
witnesses several encounters of other Ghosts with bright Spirits from heaven,
who have come down from deeper heaven to see the Ghost of his or her life-time
acquaintance, to tell the Ghost to join the people in heaven. However, for some reason or another, most
of the Ghosts would rather go back to the grey town than go to heaven.
In
this story, Lewis shows the importance of immediate cutting off of onefs wrong
part, and of choosing heaven instead of hell. He especially shows us that the choice
between heaven and hell is made not necessarily between any categorically definite
virtue and vice, but often between God and natural objects which in themselves
are nothing bad. Everything in
Nature is in itself neither good or evil, but becomes good or evil in relation
to God. One thing always evil is self-conceit, or pride. But such a thing, as
love and pursuit of theology, which is generally regarded as good, turns out to
be obstacle to heaven when it is considered more important than God himself. These are shown to be essential for
salvation: desire for heaven, surrender of the self with all earthly love and
attachment, repentance, and prayers for Godfs mercy.
In The Great Divorce, Lewis also expresses his image of heaven and hell. gHeaven is reality itself.h It is strong, weighty, solid, bright, large, and full of peace and happiness, while hell is weak, shadowy, almost non-existently small and full of misery and complaint. The Ghostsf shadow does not darken or weaken the Spiritsf brightness and strength but rather shows them off. The readers are impressed much more by the gloriously regenerated Ghost or by the blessed Spirit than by any of the Ghosts who are damned. Lewisfs stress in this book is not on manfs sins and damnation but on the importance of choosing heaven which is open to all those who sincerely hope to go there.
Chapter 3@The
Screwtape Letters (1942)
This is a book of imaginary epistles from a veteran devil Screwtape,
to his nephew Wormwood, giving advice how to tempt man into hell. It has some form similar to medieval
morality play, with the difference that there is no guardian angel who gives
advice to the patient. Yet because
of that lack the reader is forced to take the role of that angel and
participate in the story actively.
In this story, Lewis illustrates manfs nature and weakness seen through
the devilfs eye, betraying at the same time what the devil sees and what
he does not, showing what it is like to be a devil. Sometimes Screwtape tells Wormwood about
devilsf characteristic weaknesses, which he has to hide
from man. The relation between
devils is also revealed: for
example, Screwtapefs words show that love in hell is literally
gdevouringh love.
In all the books by Lewis, what strikes us about the nature
of evil is perversion and ultimate powerlessness before God. This is also true in The Screwtape
Letters. Screwtape cannot do
any positive harm on man. All he
could do is to pervert or hide the good which God made and to cut man away from
God. He cannot even understand
good.
About man, Lewis in this book reveals ambivalence of
human nature which has potentiality of participating in Godfs
Reality in heaven while also having possibility of becoming hellish. Reason, imagination and morality are
three important faculties that enable man to perceive Reality, but they are
also fallible and can be perverted so that it might work adversely to keep man
away from heaven. For example, when
imagination is in the wrong condition, man may have some wrong image of church
people and upon meeting them feel disappointed and then feel disappointed about
Christianity as a whole. Also, in modern
peoplefs imagination, miracles can easily be felt improbable, and can hinder
them from believing in Godfs Incarnation.
Modern relativism is one thing which can pervert manfs reason and hinder
him from attaining salvation. Morality and love between men can be
perverted, especially by self-centredness, self-conceit, or pride, which is the
essence of manfs original sin.
The best defense against pride is the sense of humour. It protects a man from
being proud because it enables him to see himself in a detached manner
and laugh at his own pride as absurdity.
If he can so laugh at his pride, he is no longer proud but rather
humble.
gScrewtape
Proposes a Toasth (1960) is the sequel to The Screwtape Letters, where Screwtape
addresses to young devils at the Temptersf
In The
Screwtape Letters and gScrewtape Proposes a Toast,h Lewis thus
criticizes such modern tendencies as relativism, materialism, and
false democracy. Yet these
are not at all mere works of didacticism. Wormwoodfs patient after all goes
through the devilfs fingers and is saved by God. Then Screwtape, condemning Wormwood, betrays
that man is essentially made for heaven and that the blessings
prepared for man cannot be understood by those in hell.
Chapter 5 Science-fiction
Trilogy (1938-1946): The
I Introduction
Out of the Silent Planet
(1938), Perelandra (1944), and That Hideous Strength (1946)
are a science-fiction series which is usually referred to as Lewisfs S. F.
trilogy or the Ransom trilogy after the name of its protagonist Elwin Ransom.
The central theme of
this trilogy is mythopoeic struggle between metaphysical good and evil. As the trilogy moves from Out of the
Silent Planet to That Hideous Strength the intrinsic nature of good
and evil becomes more and more clear.
At the same time the salvation theme, or the theme of each individualfs
attaining Reality also becomes more and more manifest.
II Out of the Silent Planet (1938)
In this story, Ransom is kidnapped and brought to Mars by his old
classmate Devine and Devinefs companion Weston. On Mars, or gMalacandrah as it is called
in this book, there are three rational species, or three kinds of ghnauh
in their language. Different from
man on the earth, they are not fallen. In this work, Lewis, by putting man among
the unfallen species on Mars, shows how much man is affected by the original
sin of self-centredness. Even such
philosophies and ways of thinking as humanism, which is generally regarded as
good on the earth is shown to be evil. On Malacandra, no inhabitant has too much
attachment for such desires as for power, possession or sexual pleasures, all
of which are often inordinately strong on the earth. Attachment to onefs own desire is
attachment to onefs self, and the absence of attachment to desire means the
absence of self-attachment. Malacandrian
people do not fear anything, even death.
Man in this story aims at colonization of Mars from his humanistic hope
for the preservation of human species.
However, it is unthinkable on Malacandra that anyone should hope for
eternal continuity of his own race.
The people of Malacandra readily accept it as Godfs way that a world is
not made to last for ever.
Since Malacandra is a paradise without any evil, its inhabitants do
not have even a word referring to gevilh or gbadh. The nearest equivalent they have for
gbadh is gbenth. This shows that
the gbenth relation with God is the essence of evil. And Lewis in this work also shows
the absurdity of evil in a farce scene.
Throughout Out of the Silent Planet,
thus, it is implied that the earth is now out of the heavenly region because
general ideas on the earth are based on the principle of hell, though most
people are not aware of it. At the
same time, however, it is also implied that such dominance of the hellish
principle will not last for ever.
III Perelandra (1944)
The
second of Lewisfs space trilogy is Perelandra.
This is a story
of gParadise protectedh or gParadise Lost preventedh based on
the story of Satanfs temptation of Eve in
Genesis and probably on Miltonfs Paradise Lost. Ransom is now called from heaven
and carried in a coffin to Venus, which is called Perelandra in
this trilogy. This Perelanda
is still a young planet, where he meets its first Queen
who is to be the first mother. He
then witnesses the first temptation on Perelandra. He fights the devil and finally succeeds
in keeping the Queen from the fall.
In this story, through the
strategy of the devil in his temptation, we are shown again the perversion of
evil. The devil first tries
to persuade the Queen by logical argument, and when he has failed
in this, tries to move her through her imagination. (This is a reflection
of Lewisfs conviction that man consists of reason and
imagination and is influenced by both elements.) And the devilfs
temptation, either logical or imaginative, always consists of perversion
of Reality. For example, he first
pretends to accept Godfs forbiddance to live a specific land and then says to
make a story about living on the land is not forbidden. In the argument, he implies that the
disobedience is a possibility and that the world is made up not only
of what is but of what might be.
He says then that God
knows both and wants us to know both. His logic is a perversion half
depending on a false proposition. After several perverted logic, he
tries to tempt the Queen by stirring her pride through her imagination, to make
her wish to be on her own, stimulating her sense of self-admiration. The temptation nearly succeeds. Yet, then Ransom stops the temptation
through a physical battle, by killing him.
In this work, Lewis portrays
evil as intrinsically miserable and ultimately weak before the
good. He also denies the doctrine
of Felix Culpa,
insisting that though
the good things may come from the bent things, things are not to be made to be
bent.
Moreover, in this book, Lewis attempts to answer the long discussed
theological problem of the relationship between Godfs will
and free will of man as His moral agent. When Ransom feels unavoidable
responsibility to protect Perelandra, he does not see the task as merely
forced upon him. In
the faith in God, his will is at one with His. Predestination and freedom
are then identical.
IV That Hideous Strength (1946)
The last of the Ransom
trilogy, That Hideous Strength, is a story of battle between evil that
is trying to dominate the earth and Godfs good force that tries to
prevent it. The protagonist of this
story is a young couple, Mark Studdock and his wife Jane. Though they are human, they are involved
in the metaphysical battle between supernatural powers and, in spite of being a
man and wife, join the opposite parties and respectively experience the evil and
the good from within. The evil
works through gthe National Institute of Co-ordinate Experiment (ironically
abbreviated as eN.I.C.E.f)h which claims to be aiming at scientific control of
the mankind so as to efficiently improve the human race as a whole. Mark joins it, actually half entrapped, and
Jane joins the opposite party, who work under Ransom, the head, at St. Annefs.
Through the battle, and with the final intervention of the heavenfs miraculous
power, the N.I.C.E.fs organization is completely demolished, and the evil is
lost. In this work, Lewis criticizes gscientismh,
which is different from true science, showing it leads to reduce even human
beings to mere objects, and so leads to gabolition of man.h The evil in this work is marked by its
nature of hideousness, powerlessness before good, deception, the loss of gthe taste for the otherh, and self-centredness. The Problem of Suffering is also
treated, especially reflecting belief in vicarious suffering.
V
Myth
The trilogy reflects much
of the medieval mythological world picture. Heaven in the trilogy is
uncorrupted, and therefore, the estrangement between the
spiritual world and Nature has never occurred. It is still a mythical world, and Lewis
is suggesting it is the original and proper state of the universe as is
intended by God.
VI Conclusion
In this trilogy, Lewis especially stresses
the perversion and powerlessness of evil. Lewis's evil in the trilogy may appear
too idealistic in that it does not show such powerful inexorability as it does
in the actual world, but this weakness of evil must be a reflection of Lewis's conviction
that in Reality, on the metaphysical, mythical level in the world of God, evil
is ultimately the loser and weaker than the good, being no more than its
perversion.
Chapter
5 The Chronicles of Narnia (1950-1956)
I introduction
From 1950 to 1956, Lewis
published a series of fairy tales for children: The Chronicles of Narnia. This series consists of seven books of The
Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (1950), Prince Caspian (1951), The
Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952), The Silver Chair (1953), The
Horse and his Boy (1954), The Magicianfs Nephew (1955), and The
Last Battle (1956), describing the history of an imaginary country, Narnia,
from its genesis to apocalypse. The Creator of the Narnian world is a lion
named gAslanh, who is said to be gthe King of the world and the son of the
great Emperor-beyond-the-sea.h He
is not only the Creator but also the Lord, the Saviour, and the Judge at the
last judgment at the end of Narnian world, being a counterpart of both the
Father and the Son in the Holy Trinity. In this world the three gTheologicalh
virtues of Christianity, Faith, Hope, and Charity are especially important.
II Faith
In the Chronicles, faith in Aslan
should be both belief in Aslanfs existence and authority as the Lord,
and commitment of the self to him. Faith in the latter sense, that is ga trust, or
confidence, in the Godh involves an attitude of will. In Narnia, people are called to have will
to believe, will to follow Aslan, and will to do
according to Aslanfs will. It is also significant that the honest believer of
another God is approved of his faith by Aslan.
III
Charity
Lewis thinks Charity, or love for God involves the will to do Godfs
will, and so in Narnia, real faith in Aslan is accompanied by charity, and vice
versa.
IV Hope--Into
Narnia and to Aslanfs Country
The third of the
theological virtue is Hope: that is, the hope for Godfs kingdom and for a
regenerated life. In Narnia, this
hope takes the form of hope for Aslanfs country.
From the genesis in The
Magicianfs Nephew to the apocalypse in The Last Battle, we see a kairoς under Aslanfs
providence leading to the coming of his kingdom. In the anno domini eras of our
world, people may know Aslan and come to live in faith, or they may drift away
from him. Aslan opens a door which
leads to another world from Narnia twice, that is, in Prince Caspian and
in The Last
V
Disbelief
In Narnia, two kinds of
disbelief are found: Open scepticism
and closed scepticism.
The scepticism of Trumpkin in Prince
Caspian, who is a dwarf and subject of Caspian, is open scepticism. Although at first he does not believe in
Aslan, or miraculous help, when he has seen some substantial proof, he comes to
believe, and when he later meets Aslan, he apprehends his authority and
surrenders at once, while other dwarfs with closed scepticism would not accept Aslan,
and by rejecting Aslan, lose the capacity of enjoying any good that comes from
Aslan.
In the Chronicles, there is also the problem about scepticism about
Aslanfs goodness, especially when people is conscious that he is not a gtameh
lion. And it is shown that Lewisfs
God is always awful as well as good.
VI Evil in The Chronicles
of Narnia
The most conspicuous characteristic of evil
in the Chronicles is pride and self-centredness. It is often illustrated together with
the alienation from anything good, including good people. Then, evil one is marked not only by
their self-alienation from anything good. Thirdly, evil ones are unable to
distinguish the right from the wrong or to understand either of them while good
people understand both. Evil is
always weak than good. And another
characteristic of evil as Lewis conceives of is the loss of speaking ability, since
Lewis uses language as something which symbolizes the proper relation between
the giver of the language, i.e.the Creator Aslan and the creatures who are
given it.
VII
The Problem of Suffering in Narnia
Lewis in The
Problem of Pain interpretes manfs suffering as Godfs gmegaphone to rouse a
deaf world, gwhich calls menfs attention back to God Himself, preventing man
from settling in earthly happiness apart from Him. This is true in the case of Eustace in The
Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Pain
makes him reflect on his self-centredness and turns him good.
It is also significant
that though Lewis follows
Chapter 6 Till We Have Faces: A myth Retold (1956)
-----Lewisfs Last Fiction: Attainment of Reality
His last novel,
Till We Have Faces (1956), is a retold version of the myth of Cupid and
Psyche in Apuleius's Metamorphoses.
Instead of Psyche, Lewis has made Psyche's eldest sister the
protagonist, whom he has named Orual.
In this work, his main concern is the salvation of fairly good-minded
ordinary people, who have both virtues and defects. As a mortal, Orual does not see
the god's palace and forces Psyche to betray her husband, thinking Psyche's
husband is some wicked man or a fiend who is making Psyche believe in an unreal
palace. When Orual is revealed that
the husband is a real god and that she has ruined Psyche's nuptial happiness,
she feels the god is unjust to have hidden the truth from her and made her
destroy Psyche, whom she has been loving deeply and disinterestedly. Yet, while she is accusing the god, as
she refrects not only what the god did but also how she has been feeing to the
god and to Psyche, she is forced to realize that her love for Psyche has been
self-centred, possessive and jealous.
Through this recognition and repentance, she is transformed into a Real
woman. She is saved despite being
hostile to the god, as she sincerely faces the god in her accusation. In the process of her salvation, Lewis
especially strongly shows his belief both in God's justice and in His love that
prevails over the justice.
Conclusion
Lewis assumes
he is addressing the readers in the post-Christian era, in which the scientism
is dominant. However, in fact, the
world today is not so averse to Christianity as he supposes. Many people want a firm foothold in life
and are ready to accept Christianity only if they are given sufficient
grounds. Lewis reassures such
readers showing that the world is not absurd but has much meanings and
foretastes of heaven, which is the concrete Reality. And he appeals not only to Christians but
to all those who are seeking ultimate Reality.
In both his apologetics
and his fictions, he moves the readers by addressing all of their imagination,
emotions, will and reason. The reader may not only intellectually accept his
case for the Real world, but also feel it really exists, and comes to hope to
enter it someday. The power of moving
the reader so far as to the hope for heaven is one of the greatest reasons of
Lewis's success.