Journey Towards Home: The Christian Life According to C. S. Lewis

By S. Steve Park and William Edgar

Clives Staples Lewis (1898-1963) called his theological writings as that "of a layman and an amateur" who merely attempted to restate "ancient and orthodox doctrines." However, S. Steve Park argues that Lewis's theological reflections are well-informed, thoughtful and weighty. For instance, Lewis's notion of "mere Christianity" consistently shows his commitment to "supernaturalism" (vs. naturalism) and "eucatastrophic salvationism" (vs. ethical developmentalism) in sharp contrast to many prevailing theologians of his time.

In this book, the author expounded Lewis's theological writings rather comprehensively and organized the results according to Lewis's signature literary motif of the journey towards home, in four stages: "Away from Home," "Homeward Turning," "Home Away from Home," and "The Final Home." Under these headings, Lewis's major theological and literary themes find illuminating treatments with rich contents and penetrating analyses. In so doing, the author presents to the readers, probably for the first time, a systematic theology of C. S. Lewis. It turns out that Lewis, more than just a storyteller, was a significant participant in the world of theological reflections, demonstrating himself to be a rather formidable theological mind to be reckoned with.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Release date: Mar 14, 2017
• ISBN: 9781498288378

S. Steve Park

S. Steve Park is the Senior Pastor of Jubilee Presbyterian Church in West Norriton, Pennsylvania, and an Adjunct Professor of Apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He studied at the University of British Columbia (BA), Westminster Seminary in California (MAR), and Westminster Theological Seminary (MDiv, PhD). His recent passion includes promoting theological education for current and future pastors in China and other international settings.

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Journey Towards Home

The Christian Life According to C. S. Lewis

S. Steve Park

Foreword by William Edgar

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Journey Towards Home

The Christian Life According to C. S. Lewis

Copyright © 2017 S. Steve Park. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

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March 27, 2017

Table of Contents

Title Page

Foreword

Preface

Chapter 1: Introduction

The Main Ideas

An Overview

Chapter 2: The Origin of Mere Christianity

The Major Influences on Lewis’s Mere Christianity

The Main Motives behind Mere Christianity

The Main Distinctive of Mere Christianity

Chapter 3: Away From Home

Signs from the Landlord

The Shepherd People and the Pagans

The Appearance of the Landlord’s Son

Conclusion

Chapter 4: Homeward Turning

Repentance as Dying to Self

Faith as Trust

Active and Passive Dimensions of Conversion

Conclusion

Chapter 5: Home Away From Home

The Church

The Guide

Prayer

The Tempters and Temptations

Conclusion

Chapter 6: The Final Home

Crossing the Final Brook: What Physical Death Means

Lewis on Eschatology: Real or Fictional?

The Great Divorce: Personal Eschatology

The Last Battle: Cosmic Eschatology

Conclusion

Chapter 7: Mere Christianity

Evaluation

Selected Bibliography

Foreword

Many Christians have had a romance with the writings of C. S. Lewis, both in his own day and ever since. And for good reason. He was, and is, a powerful voice for the Christian faith, one able to herald our religion with enviable clarity. They have also tried to package him in their own giftwrap. Evangelicals see him as an articulate, creative evangelical. Conservatives want to own him as the herald of civilization. Thomists see him as belonging to the tradition of Plato, Aristotle, and Thomas Aquinas. Even unbelievers who have discovered some of Lewis’s fiction claim him as their favorite children’s author or their favorite science fiction writer. There are ministers who scarcely let a Sunday sermon go by without a quote or two from C. S. Lewis. Not everyone is inclined to embrace him. Some have detected unorthodox doctrines in Lewis, such as universalism and theistic evolution. Others find him a less-than-genial literary critic. Still others fault him for his traditionalist views of women.

Who was the real C. S. Lewis? More than fifty years after his death, that issue is still being debated. We are now well-served by a number of excellent biographies and a good number of quality research tools. Walter Hooper, his personal secretary, has given us C. S. Lewis: A Complete Guide to His Life and Works. Several articles by Lewis’s long-time friend and solicitor, Owen Barfield, have been collected by G. B. Tennyson in Owen Barfield on C. S. Lewis. There is even a Cambridge Companion to C. S. Lewis, which contains a cache of valuable articles. Though the biography by Roger Lancelyn Green and Walter Hooper (C. S. Lewis: A Biography) is a classic, my favorite account is by Alister McGrath, C. S. Lewis—A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet. McGrath breaks considerable new ground, including an argument for a new date for Lewis’s conversion. Besides all these there are hundreds, if not thousands of books and articles on some aspect of Lewis’s work.

Still, the best way to understand him and assess his contributions, is by reading him. This should include not only the classics, such as Mere Christianity, Miracles, and The Chronicles of Narnia, but also the lesser-known texts, including numerous articles, his literary criticism, and of course his correspondence. There are still many riches to discover and reward the seeker. The book you hold in your hand is full of treasures, old and new.

Journey Towards Home: The Christian Life According to C. S. Lewis will plunge the reader into the depths of Lewis’s world and his thought. The title is well-chosen, since Lewis himself often conceived his work and his life as a pilgrimage. Indeed, some of his best fiction is from the tradition of the quest. The Pilgrim’s Regress, his fantasy works, and, crucially, his own account of his life, Surprised by Joy, which describes his quest for God as longing, the famous Sehnsucht, a journey which ends in a surprise: he did not find God; God found him. Man’s search for God, he once remarked, is as absurd as the mouse’s search for the cat.

Perhaps J. I. Packer summarized Lewis’s contributions best, when he said (as our author notes):

[He] was a Christian thinker and communicator without peer on three themes: the reasonableness and humanity of Christian faith; the moral demands of discipleship; and heaven as home, the place of all value and all contentment.

These three emphases are certainly drawn-out in the present volume. And Steve Park does so with great expertise. He also is careful to display the background for some of Lewis’s work, including his favorite authors. And Park looks at related subjects: Lewis’s guidance for those living in a fallen world, his free-will apologetics, and even such topics as Satan, temptation, and practical demonology. Three of Park’s most original contributions, it seems to me, are: first, the manner in which Lewis does theology, or the framework within which he does his theological thinking; second, his profound exploration of his view of the last things, or eschatology; and third, an examination of Lewis’s thoughts on prayer.

As most people know, the heart of Lewis’s theology was mere Christianity, or the very basics of the Christian confession. As Lewis put it, he offers the hallway from which we may then enter a particular room with furniture and meals. Park looks carefully into the possible influence of Greek philosophy in general and Boethius in particular on Lewis’s theologizing. He concludes that while these may be factors, they are not decisive. Closer to home is romantic literature. Lewis argued that Joy was a key to the meaning of life, and thus to doing theology. Park looks thoroughly at the writers who express the longing that issues in Joy, and shows their influence on Lewis. He shows the way Lewis successfully argued for the universality of the longing for the supernatural or the numinous. Following the enigmatic George MacDonald, Lewis celebrated the goodness of God and the dignity of the human person. Still, romanticism is not the ultimate framework for Lewis. As Park points out, the romantics too often attempted to derive their theology from nature, or naturism. Lewis does the very opposite.

Lewis’s emphasis on mere Christianity bears two kinds of fruit, as Steve Park argues. The first is constructive. That is, it seeks to find the commonality between all adherents to the historic Christian position. It was, after a fashion, ecumenical, though not in the modern sense of a movement uniting different denominations. And it is evangelistic in the best sense, trying to persuade his generation of the truth and plausibility of the Christian worldview. He bases it on revelation, a special gift, first to the Hebrews and then to Christians. Some elements of it are shared with other traditions, owing to the power of their myths. (Park dismisses the canard about myth being something untrue.)

Second, Lewis meant to demolish weak or watered-down versions of the Gospel. The chief enemy of sound theology for him is moralism. To reduce Jesus to a great moral teacher is to ignore the very heart of his message, which is renovative. Lewis was a vigorous critic of modern theology, finding it lifeless and arrogant. He was also staunchly opposed to various aspects of modern education, and to modern aesthetics theory, which shy away from tried and true absolutes.

Park’s second original emphasis is nestled within a larger study of the particulars of Lewis’s doctrines. It is his view of going home, or the final destination of the journey of converted people. Here we explore a range of illustrations and convictions about the end of our human pilgrimage. I do not know of any treatment of these subjects so thorough and so compelling as this one. Because he had a sacramental view of the universe, the reality of the final things can be experienced both now and at the very end. Lewis was not a typically Thomistic sacramentalist. His views are much less formal. But he endearingly saw heaven as a place where things are more real than their shadows on earth. The church plays a central role for Lewis. Although sharply critical of ritualism, he saw the church (at its best) as a fellowship of pilgrims, living in the light of sound teaching, provided by wise guides. This is why The Screwtape Letters’ Wormwood is so intent on destroying the credibility and effectiveness of the church. If he could succeed, it would bar people from their awareness of the divine presence. At the highest level, the church brings people to live in Christ, to be his body.

Park helpfully draws out Lewis’s views about judgment and hell. The Christian life is not one of self-improvement, but of catharsis. Why should there be a final judgment and a final destination for the unconverted? Who can forget the scene in Voyage of the Dawn Treader, when the stuck-up Eustace becomes a dragon, and has his scales painfully peeled off by Aslan, the Christ-figure? Without that cathartic transformation, that is, conversion, we wallow in our mediocrity when left to ourselves. Hell is when, finally, God says to the sinner, Not my will be done, but yours. Even for believers, homecoming is not without the wrenching nature of death and grief over loss. Still, Jesus Christ tasted death for every one of us, and thus removed the power of death to keep us from the one thing that matters most, the glory of God.

One of the most refreshing sections in the book looks closely at Lewis’s approach to prayer. Interestingly, and convincingly, prayer is treated along with various means of grace, such as the church, the guides we need, and Scripture. Also of interest is Park finding Lewis’s theology of the Holy Spirit most thoroughly developed in his considerations on prayer. It is of interest because many commentators have found him deficient in highlighting the Third Person of the Trinity. Prayer for Lewis is not only effective, but takes the Christian up into the bosom of the Almighty. While it is right to ask, thy will be done, that can become an easy escape in case our prayers go unanswered. Most unanswered prayers are short on faith­—faith in a God able to move mountains, simply because he made the mountains. In prayer, we are most vulnerable, and yet most at home.

Steve Park does not gloss over some of the problems, even the inadequacies of Lewis’s views. Evangelicals have been disappointed in his theology of the Bible, and Park shares some of their concerns. They detect a certain diffidence regarding the normative quality of the Bible. Still, Park defends Lewis’s high view of biblical language, putting it in the context of his considerable knowledge of linguistics and literary criticism. His insights into reading literature are enormously helpful in avoiding the regrettable fundamentalist hermeneutic, who looks only for facts and propositions.

The book you are holding in your hands is a feast. And it winsomely accomplishes what any good study of an author should, making us want to read C. S. Lewis. As someone who has spent his life trying to commend the Christian faith, and as a huge admirer of C. S. Lewis, Steve Park’s lively, in-depth study has become a great inspiration. More, it has made me want to go back over and over again to this remarkable author. Even more, it has made me want to understand Lewis’s God, the Christian God, as he is in all his splendor.

William Edgar

Philadelphia

2016

Preface

C. S. Lewis came to rescue at several crucial moments in my life. It would be unnecessary to retrace them all—my stories will not come across as unique to many readers—but at least a few of these moments I feel obligated to mention at the outset of this book. The first of these was my encounter with Mere Christianity as a freshman in college. Unlike many who were first acquainted to Lewis through the Narnia series during their childhood years, I discovered him in my college days through his most famous apologetic piece. At the time, I was an intellectually vulnerable Christian student on a secular university campus dealing with my first crisis of faith.

Looking back, I was blessed with a devout Christian home, anchored by my mother, a woman of prayer. As a child, I would wake up to the sound of her praying by my bedside. The day would often end with an evening family devotion. Practically every day began and ended in prayers. This regular presence of Christian piety at home was the source of warmth and security in my childhood. Also, I enjoyed church life throughout my growing years. I remember a kind of conversion experience while in high school. At a Bible conference, my heart responded to a sermon on the merit of Christ’s death as the atonement for my sins. I was deeply moved by the message of forgiveness and justifying grace. But for a long time, my understanding of Christian faith remained there. I was immersed in strong Christian piety but not matched by substantive theological contents. Tender at heart, yet I was not well prepared to think with a trained Christian mind.

Being at the university, I was isolated from the familiar Christian community that served as my safety net. In the lecture hall, I was exposed to a kind of humanities education that shook my religious security. Many professors were uncompromising atheists and ruthlessly attacked my softly formed religious commitment. My freshman humanities tutor, Father B., was a Roman Catholic priest, a kind man but a rigorous academician, and his brand of Christianity was very unfamiliar to me. Father B. challenged me to explain what I believe, wanting to know the Christian tradition that shaped my faith, but I could not give him a clear answer. After a few conversations, he labeled me as an evangelical, but it wasn’t until much later that I grasped what that label really meant. Father B. was extremely passionate about existentialist philosophy. With him, I read authors like James Joyce, Albert Camus, and Friedrich Nietzsche for the first time. It exposed me to a different kind of thinking that was unsettling, but after some time, I mustered up the courage to question the merit of my religious upbringing and whether I had any good reason to hold on to my simple, untested faith.

It was during that time I came across a copy of Mere Christianity, almost as if by accident. The book was a plain light blue covered Macmillan edition at a local bookstore. I did not know much about the author, only that he was an Oxford professor of English literature who wrote to defend Christianity. Looking back, my initial delight in the book was less about being persuaded by the logic of his arguments, and more about the relief of having someone on my side to speak up and argue on my behalf. The more I read the book, the more his words seemed to assure me that I had good, rational ground for my faith. C. S. Lewis showed me first that Christianity was intellectually defensible. This was a major turning point in my Christian formation.

More than a decade after my initial encounter with Lewis, I had another experience that would multiply exponentially my indebtedness to him. The dissertation phase of my doctoral program in theology saw more than a few frustrating changes in research direction. What began with an interest in Eucharistic controversy in nineteenth century America gave way to intrigue in religious experiences, with yet another turn to a more recent phenomenon of narrative theology. Somehow, my distracted thoughts converged on a desire to reconnect with Lewis. To my amazement, reading Lewis offered so much satisfaction on a number of issues in which I had already developed interest. To this day, I am amazed at the breadth of Lewis’s writings; he addressed so many diverse issues that faced the church and Christians in his day. Lewis was indeed a substantial Christian thinker. It was only natural for me to have a desire to research his theological writings in depth for a dissertation. Encouraged by my advisors, I embarked on a journey into the Christian mind of C. S. Lewis. Rarely does anyone who survives the rigor of writing a dissertation say it was enjoyable. Rewarding, yes, but hardly joy-filled. I, on the other hand, can say in all sincerity that spending years thinking alongside Lewis was enormously entertaining and stimulating. Not only was it beneficial for my mind, but also for my heart and soul. I am deeply indebted to Lewis. At the same time, I wanted to make sure that it was an academic project for a dissertation, not a hagiographical commemoration of his life and accomplishments. I carefully endeavored to test his ideas against logical consistency and Christian orthodoxy, both of which I believe Lewis himself so desired to promote in his own ways.

This book is a result of that journey. Much of the content originates from that dissertation, but I have made several modifications to make it more suitable for a published book. Inevitably, there are vestiges of its original academic intent, and some readers in deep admiration of Lewis may find my critical comments irritating. But I left them for the sake of the integrity of this work as a whole. To all the readers, however, I offer something more than just a critical work of academic scholarship. What I tried to do in this book, to my best ability, is to exegete Lewis’s theological writings and present the results in thematic organization. If you would, it is a systematic theology of C. S. Lewis. To those who find it odd that Lewis, a man of literature, would be treated systematically, I must explain that my intention is not to present him and his works themselves as a kind of systematic theology. But rather, it is similar to what systematic theologians do with Scripture. The Bible is not at all an encyclopedic book of doctrines. It is a combination of various types of literature from historical narrative to poems, practical wisdom to apocalyptic visions, and biography to personal letters. In the same way, Lewis offers literatures of various genres, from poetry to sermons, apologetic treatises to fantasy novels, and biblical reflections to imaginative letters. To understand Lewis’s insights and ideas, one needs to begin with a careful exposition of his works within the context of their literary genres. It is my sincere hope that I have accomplished that with integrity.

Moreover, I have attempted to organize Lewis’s theological ideas thematically to prove that his thinking was neither random nor without coherence. In doing so, readers of C. S. Lewis are aided to gain a more comprehensive view of his Christian mind. Having done this, it is my hope that I am able to do something positive in return for the debt of gratitude that I have for Lewis. But, of course, in the similar manner that a systematic theologian would never say that they have done the Bible a favor by producing a doctrinal treatise, I could never assume that I have in any way helped the cause of Lewis. His lasting legacy holds its own ground securely without any help from others, and, of course, I am the least of these.

I extend my sincere gratitude to my teachers to whom I owe everything that may be counted good in my work. All the blemishes are, on the other hand, mine and mine alone. Thank you, Dr. Sinclair Ferguson, for being an example of godly scholarship and commitment to preaching and teaching the Word. Thank you, Dr. John Frame, for showing me the truth and helping me to see it in different angles and perspectives. I have followed you from a distance like Peter (sorry for not keeping in touch), but your writings have been, over the years, my theological bread and butter. Thank you, Dr. William Edgar for your willingness to be both my teacher and colleague, always encouraging beyond measure, and never saying no to my overindulgence of your kindness.

Finally, I want to express my gratitude to my family. Mona, my loving fellow pilgrim in our journey towards home, for almost three decades, has been a constant source of friendship, healing, and inspiration. She is to me an evidence that the doctrine of sanctification is not a theological imagination but an actuality. My three boys, who are no longer boys—Justin, Austin and Chrysen—are my strength and delight; my daughter-in-law, Agnes, is the daughter I always dreamed of. My grandson, just a few months beyond his first birthday, is showing so much promise in every way. To you, Owen SungHyun Park, I dedicate this book.

Soli Deo Gloria!

S. Steve Park

Glenside, PA

2016

1

Introduction

Why C. S. Lewis?

On November 22 , 1963 , Clive Staples Lewis—an Oxford don, recognized literary critic, writer of fantasy novels, and popular Christian apologist—passed away in his Oxford home. His quiet departure was unnoticed by the world, disquieted by the news of John F. Kennedy’s violent death in Dallas. Perhaps to cynics of Lewis, this coincidental masking of his death signaled what was to be the fate of Lewis’s legacy. The truth is, despite his huge success as a communicator of the Christian faith, Lewis often faced severe oppositions: Alistair Cooke, for example, mocked him as a very unremarkable minor prophet, whose memory would not last more than World War II itself. ¹ A booklet, circulated in London during Lewis’s active literary career, criticized his defense of Christianity as an attempt to convince by shock tactics rather than by the use of reason, ² and he was not expected to have any longevity. We are told that even Lewis himself had taken the view that his writings would fade into obscurity within five years of his death, and had no expectations of remaining a long-term presence on the literary or religious scene. ³ Then, it seemed for a time, Lewis’s own self-deprecating prophecy proved to be true: McGrath observed, Following Lewis’s death, his popularity and influence declined, partly reflecting the rapid changes in western culture during the 1960s, which relegated many of Lewis’s approaches and attitudes to the margins of culture. ⁴

Then we have seen a remarkable surge of interest in Lewis and his works since the 1980s.⁵ By the mid-nineties and approaching the year 1998, which marked the centenary of Lewis’s birth, his books had an average reported sale of six million copies a year in the United States and Britain alone.⁶ The release of a Hollywood film Shadowlands, which features his unusual love story with Joy Davidman, turned Lewis into a household name. His famous series of children’s fantasy novels, The Chronicles of Narnia, began to appear as major motion pictures since 2005, along with the enormously popular The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings series based on the fantasy literatures of his personal friend and a fellow Oxford don, J. R. R. Tolkien. His influence as a winsome and credible spokesperson for Christianity has been widening beyond the West to a world audience.⁷ Lewis’s popularity soared into the twenty-first century, even as many of his admirers remembered 2013 as the fiftieth year since his passing. He continues to be a mind- and culture-shaping voice in the new millennium.

The ongoing phenomenal success of Lewis as a communicator of Christianity, in terms of his popularity, size of readership, and effect, often made people ask, Why?⁸ The right response is probably a multifaceted one, which takes into account his circumstances as well as his personal accomplishments.

Lewis’s active service for the Christian cause began during World War II, when people had developed a heightened interest in seeking transcendental answers to the questions raised by their ravaged lives. In addition, as Time magazine noted, Lewis is writing about religion for a generation of religion-hungry readers brought up on a diet of ‘scientific’ jargon and Freudian clichés.⁹ During World War II, Lewis’s twenty-nine radio broadcasts on religious subjects were heard by an average of six hundred thousand listeners.¹⁰

Mary Michael, on one hand, notes that Lewis’s popularity in the United States has much to do with the reshaping of American evangelicalism, which sought to distance itself from the anti-intellectual aspects of fundamentalism on the one hand and from the liberalism of the mainline denominations on the other, and that Lewis’s intellectual, articulate defenses of the Christian faith made him an ideal spokesperson.¹¹ These are noteworthy circumstantial explanations.

On the other hand, his success must also be attributed to what he was personally capable of accomplishing. First of all, the effectiveness of his style is frequently highlighted. Time noted his talent for putting old-fashioned truths into a modern idiom.¹² John Wilson praises the fact that he was a good communicator: He used common language, and his arguments always appealed to commonsense.¹³ J. I. Packer recalls, "As an unbeliever, I enjoyed The Screwtape Letters and Mere Christianity more for their manner than for their matter, for Lewis’s writing style made him seem both a fellow schoolboy and a wise old uncle simultaneously, and that was fascinating.¹⁴ Focusing on Lewis’s apologetical value, Graham Cole notes, Part of Lewis’s genius was his ability to discern core Christian beliefs and values and then give them fresh expression."¹⁵

More importantly, however, Lewis’s success points to the fact that he was not only an effective communicator but also a Christian thinker of substance. Doubtless, Lewis was more than a stylistic popularizer of Christianity or a craftsman of religious propaganda, as some have accused him of.¹⁶ As John Wilson observes, not only was he a translator of Christian doctrines into ordinary language and enjoyed talking theology, but he had a theology of his own.¹⁷ J. I. Packer also expresses his appreciation of Lewis’s unique contributions to theological discourse.

[He] was a Christian thinker and communicator without peer on three themes: the reasonableness and humanity of Christian faith; the moral demands of discipleship; and heaven as home, the place of all value and all contentment.¹⁸

There has been a steady rise of Lewis scholarship, which has brought to light the substantive character of Lewis’s thought. Especially in the field of English literature, an extensive amount of academic research has advanced in recent years. However, still many agree with a statement issued by Adam Schwartz: Despite a steady stream of articles and monographs, satisfactory in-depth studies of Lewis’s ideas remain rare, and thought as complex and rich as his demands such careful analysis.¹⁹ In view of the fact that Lewis’s main ideas were theological in nature and that he truly enjoyed theological reasoning and discussions,²⁰ a relatively comprehensive analysis of Lewis’s theology is a great desideratum.²¹ This present volume is an attempt to fill the need.

It is true that Lewis called himself a very ordinary layman of the Church of England,²² and that his work was that of a layman and an amateur who merely attempted to restate ancient and orthodox doctrines.²³ If so, is it really valid to deal extensively with the theology of C. S. Lewis? For several reasons, yes! First, Lewis was not really an amateur. He had read very widely and accumulated an amazing quantity of knowledge