He definitely objected to the modern practice of thinking very deeply about all the details but never about what a thing was and did or should do. I mean, seriously; how many philosophers today actually think about the great Greeks? Or even the early American leaders? Or how their ideas might actually help us figure things out? But everyones too busy trying to publish “new” ideas that they forget that there are no new ideas, only variations.
Lewis did say at times things that might strike us as implying that he was a relativist. For instance, at the beginning of the last chapter of The Discarded Image, he says:
> I have made no serious effort to hide the fact that the old Model delights me as
> I believe it delighted our ancestors. Few constructions of the imagination seem
> to me to have combined splendor, sobriety, and coherence in the same degree.
> It is possible that some readers have long been itching to remind me that it had
> a serious defect; it was not true.
>
> I agree. It was not true. But I would like to end by saying that the charge can
> no longer have exactly the same sort of weight for us that it would have had in
> the nineteenth century. We then claimed, as we still claim, to know much more
> about the real universe than the medievals did; and hoped, as we still hope, to
> discover yet more truths about it in the future. But the meaning of the words
> “know” and “truth” in this context has begun to undergo a certain change.
For those of you without access to this book, there’s a little about it at this webpage (the only one I could find quickly):
Lewis was willing to say that we no longer expect to completely understand the world, as scientists in the nineteenth century were willing to claim. He was willing to say that we can’t be certain that our present models of the world are absolute fact. I’m bothered by certain Lewis fans today who claim that Lewis was completely against reading ideas in historical and theoretical context. I have met such fans who’ve decided that they can use Lewis as a rock to bash the literary theorist types that they have to put up with in their departments. Lewis was not opposed to the idea of reading things in historical and theoretical context, just against the idea that this was the ultimate purpose of any such understanding of ideas.
Screwtape would have been more palatable to me if it wasn’t so bound up in silly, dogmatic religious moralism. Yes, it’s keen on human nature and observes how people tend to be evil in subtle ways rather than dramatic ones, but to me the whole thing is poisoned by his asinine and ethically contradictory beliefs in damnation and his smug assumptions about Christian salvation. Like most all of Lewis’ religious writings, I ultimately find Screwtape to be insufferably self-satisfied and shot through with fallacious assumptions even though it has some insight into human nature (I also think it betrays some self-loathing on Lewis’ part and a propensity to massively overblown self-flagellation for the most petty of perceived “sins”).
His acceptance in evangelical circles has always been a little shaky… factors which spring immediately to mind are
-
his apparent acceptance that evangelical faith is not the only route to salvation (cf. The Last Battle where the Calormen soldier is accepted by Aslan despite worshipping Tash(
-
his frank discussions of doubt in faith
The first is doctrinal, and may be reading too much into a kids’ book!
The second strikes deeper - there’s often no room for genuine doubt in evangelical circles, and one wobbly tenet of faith is (the feeling goes) enough to bring the whole edifice down.
I’m currently reading a collection called Faith, Christianity and the Church which contains lectures, papers and interviews all focussed on his religious thought… and there’s much in there to make a modern “mainstream” evangelical slightly uncomfortable.
Diogenes the Cynic writes:
> Like most all of Lewis’ religious writings, I ultimately find Screwtape to be
> insufferably self-satisfied and shot through with fallacious assumptions even
> though it has some insight into human nature (I also think it betrays some self-
> loathing on Lewis’ part and a propensity to massively overblown self-
> flagellation for the most petty of perceived “sins”).
Could you give us some examples of his self-satisfaction, fallacious assumptions, self-loathing, and propensity to overblown self-flagellation for petty sins (at least one example for each of those, I mean)?
e-logic writes:
> I’m currently reading a collection called Faith, Christianity and the Church which
> contains lectures, papers and interviews all focussed on his religious thought…
> and there’s much in there to make a modern “mainstream” evangelical slightly
> uncomfortable.
In case people have problems finding this volume, it’s half of something published as Essay Collection. The two halves are published separately as Essay Collection: Faith, Christianity, and the Church and Essay Collection: Literature, Philosopy, and Short Stories_. For those of you who, like me, have been reading Lewis for decades, this collections include all the essays published in shorter collections in the past.
Screwtape attributes this great line to a “popular writer”: “She’s the sort of woman who lives for others—you can always tell the others by their hunted expression.”
One problem for some evangelicals is that Lewis drank and smoked!
An example of both self-satisfaction and a fallacious assumption is the way that Screwtape reacts to the “patient” becoming a Christian. Lerwis smugly (and fallaciously) takes it for granted that Christian faith is somehow virtuous and anathema to devils. He expects the reader to share this feeling but does not earn it. He also ininuates that atheists are damned and at one point makes the idiotic statement that atheists should be prevented from thinking things through lest they really how absurd and how perilous their position is. He disparages “mere logic.” All of his attitudes towards rationalism and “materialism” are insulting, childish, wishful, sanctimonous and fallacious.
As for petty sins, the entire book is a rumination on how easily people are led into evil by being cross with their mothers or not praying correctly or becoming distracted by petty self-interest. It all comes as across as projection to me and smacks of the kind of self-abasement and “we’re not worthy” self-loathing that I’ve seen a lot among Evangelical Christians. I’ve never understood that attitude at all. In my opinion, It’s God that has to prove himself worthy to humans, not the other way around.
Screwtape is more tolerable than usual for Lewis. Some of his insights are accurate, it’s just the religious significance he attaches to everything which is silly. Screwtape is not as smug as Mere Christianity, nor is it as inept as a defense of Christianity but it’s still tainted by nonsensical and contradictory theological assumptions (like how the demons’ inability to understand “love” is undermined by a theology which calls for God (who presumably DOES understand love) to be as merciless and cruel as they are.
Due respect, Dio, but that’s a whole lot of words that don’t say much — other than you don’t like Christianity (nonsensical, contradictory, even poisonous). I mean, you’re just giving your interpretations about sanctimonious this and virtuous that. If you think that God should have to prove Himself to me, doesn’t it stand to reason that you should too? Why would I give even passing credence to a position that holds me in roughly the same esteem as a dung beetle?
Why the heck is the John Cleese audiobook of The Screwtape Letters not available on iTunes?
Diogenes the Cynic is, to some extent at least, completely right – The Screwtape Letters is about Christianity from start to finish, and it certainly does propose that “Christian faith is somehow virtuous and anathema to devils” (DtC, above), and Screwtape is certainly cynical about why people belief what they believe and, indeed, how people work in general. Truth be told, I was surprised to read so much admiration from athiests in this thread. I guess it speaks to CS Lewis’s observational skills and abilities as a writer.
That said, Diogenes, the only “sanctimonious” about The Screwtape Letters is that they’re Christian. I’m not sure how you can qualitatively assess Christian writings without taking their premises into consideration.
ETA: I’ve only read a few of CS Lewis’s writings, but of those, The Screwtape Letters most targets Christian readers. Hence my surprise at all the love.
In one of the letters, Screwtape says “I note with great displeasure that the Enemy has, for the time being, put a forcible end to your direct attacks on the patient’s chastity. You ought to have known that He always does in the end . . .”
I can’t figure out what the hell he’s talking about. The temptations of lust are always ended after a brief period? Say what?
Diogenes Those letters which are explicitly Christian stand out to me. There’s talk of the Incarnation, Redemption, and The Sacrifice. Lewis doesn’t attempt to prove Christianity is the true religion here. He just proceeds from the assumption that it is. One letter also gives authority to the Apostles. Screwtape mentions that “The man they called Paul did not confine it to married couples.” Obviously, for Christians, Jesus words are the word of G-d. But, how is it that Paul speaking on his own has the same authority?
I also disagree with Lewis on the issue of love. He says it can’t be expected to last and only intelectual commitment to preserving a marriage can keep one going. I believe that while romantic love may dim slightly it can last a lifetime.
Being Jewish, I also disagree on the idea that a marriage is forever. So the letter focusing on how marriage, or even just sex make a man and woman one flesh forever get’s a sarcastic “Yeah, right” from me.
Yes, but I was able to view that as, well, background colour, really. That Christian faith is anathema to devils kind of comes with the territory, doesn’t it? When Peter Cushing repels a vampire with a cross I don’t get pissed because the movie assumes Christianity is anathema to vampires, that’s just part of the conventions. Same here - of course Christianity is anathema to devils in Lewis’s world. That Lewis believed it and Cushing didn’t doesn’t really make a difference to me.
Priceguy, that’s essentially my point (except that I’m a Christian, so I see the background colour but it fits me anyway.) I guess I was trying too hard to be polite. :smack:
Actually, I was responding more to Diogenes than to you. I thought we were in agreement all along. Since I am one of the admiring atheists, I wanted to add my view.
None other than Bob Jones Sr. reportedly said of Lewis “The man drinks beers and smokes a pipe, and yet I believe he is a Christian.”
Just as an aside, I’ve read enough quotes from Cushing indicating that he did have some level of Christian faith.
That’s what I’ve been trying to express for quite some time. Thanks for putting the words together.
I doubt he believed in vampires and forcing them back with the power of the crucifix, though.
I’ve never hidden the fact that I think Christian theology (especially salvation theology) is logical and ethical nonsense. That makes it difficult for me to accept those premises as given in a work of fiction, but don’t mistake my view of the theology as a view of Christians themselves (at least not all of them. I do think C.S. Lewis was a bigot but I don’t think you are).
I disagree with that. What’s sanctimonious about the book is Lewis’ smug assumption that Christians are better than everybody else, that Christianity is the only way to be saved, his literal belief that anyone who wasn’t a Christian would be tortured forever in a literal Hell, his hatred of atheists (and his false, self-comforting assertions that atheists don’t really think things through). etc. This is not just Christianity, it’s a particular bigoted (and morally contradictory) brand of Christianity.
These assumptions are not the main thrust of The Screwtape Letters, but they are assumptions which pervade the book and which intrude on his own insights.