Anyone read CS Lewis Adult works?

W

Wulaw Horn

1,000+ Posts
I love his chronicle's of Narnia, which is a chidren's work, grew up as one of the first books ever read to me.

Anyway, got a set of his adult readings and it's awesome.

I would like to challenge Ryan and other extreme athiests to read his work "mere christianity" and still hold the same viewpoint. I don't know that it's possible.

I'm not saying it will make a believer or christian out of you, but it will make you see why someone else isn't stupid for so believing and make you rightly feel like an *** for comparing christianity to the flying spaghetti monster.

The Screwtape letters had me rolling and then crying and then on my knees praying Tuesday night when I read them. It's basically, for those who haven't read it, a letter from a senior deamon to a junior deamon about how to get an individual man off track and turn him away from God.

I don't know that I fully understand CS Lewis christian philosophy yet. The Screwtape letters and the Great Divorce implies something other than what I grew up being taught which is once saved always saved. He talks specifically in the begginning about the man becoming a christian and tells how the other demon can win his soul back to their side. And in the Great Divorce he presents an interesting type view of purgatory I'd never heard before.

I think my two favorite points (so far- I haven't read the entire collection, more like 3.5 of the 7 books/essays) are as follows:

1) he describes christianity as a hall with different denominations as rooms within the hall. The Hall has its own governing rules that apply to all and that the individual rooms have individual rules that you have to follow, but the great unifying rule in the hall at large is do nothing to hurt nor discourage the other occupants, even if you disagree. He said it's our job as christians to hang out in the Hall until we find an individual room to our liking, and we should wait there until we find oen, but we should by no means ever camp out there. I just thought it was a really beautiful picture and we'd be so much better off if people stuck to it.

2) His arguments against modern theory of scientific conquest of man, or man without a general, unifying moral principle were spot on. This wasn't in any way an anti-science rant, more a defense of ultimate truth and reason. I don't know that I can do it justice, but it was a great article.

I'd love for some other input and I would LOVE to see an atheist read it and tell me what he/she thinks. I'm already in the converted so it's hard for me to judge, but I really think he has the winning argument against those who believe in no absolute truth.

For you Atheist missonaries- I'll make you a deal. PM me and if you'll read Mere Christianity I'll read whatever has formed your mind and we can converse. A book exchange program if you will. I'm not a skeptic but I'd like to see how a skeptic veiwed it. I'm not trying to proseletyze, just interested.
 
WuLaw,

I highly recommend the Space Trilogy. These are more adult reading than Narnia. It is actually interesting to see the difference in the writing. I didn't read Narnia until I was an adult and I still enjoyed them.
Also, I don't know if you know how the Space Trilogy and LOTR came into being, but the story goes that Tolkien and Lewis were talking about the lack of good Christian literature. They decided one would write a time trilogy and one would write a space trilogy. They flipped a coin or some such to decide who would write which. Tolkien got the time trilogy and wrote TLOTR, and Lewis got the Space trilogy and wrote that series. Great books though.
 
Another point I really liked, and am trying to apply to my life, is his idea of time

There are only 2 modes of time worth worrying about as christian-

1) The eternal
2) The present

The present is the only point in time that affects the eternal at all, it's the only mode where they can interact and overlap b/c it touches eternity and the conception there.

The past is fixed and done and can enslave you to improper actions now, stealing your joy and contentment about the present and forcing you away from thinking about the eternal.

Future is cause of stress and worry- and overdone can lead to sin/problems in the present. focused really on the difference between give us this day our daily bread- IOW we should pray for the specific courage to deal wtih the fear we face at the present, not courage to deal with a future problem that might or might not manifest itself. I'm probably getting this somewhat muddled as I'm trying to break down a lot of thought.

Also, I feared the reading might be a bit dry or boring, but although theologically and philisophically deep, imo, it is also entertaining and easy enough reading imo.

I'm confused, who wrote the time triology, CS Lewis or Tolkein?

Also, it was funny to me when he was arguing in favor of universal truth that he said he disliked children but it was a character flaw in him, hard for me to imagine someone that dislikes children writing the Chronicles of Narnia.

And I have read them again as an adult and they hold up and expand on a deeper level and appreciation and still resonate, as well as being a fun adventure story.

I really like LWW (was surprirsed Disney made it that well) and am looking forward to seeing Prince Caspian here soon as unemployment sweetly beckons next month.
 
WuLaw,
My understanding was muddled. I had thought that LOTR was considered a time trilogy. Evidently, Tolkien was going to write a time travel trilogy, but never got around to it. see the link in my last post.
 
From the bottom of the first page from the Christianity Today article:

Early in their relationship, in 1936, after Tolkien had written the children's story The Hobbit, the two men had a momentous conversation about their desire to bring such stories to a wider audience. They actually decided to divide the territory—Lewis would take "space travel," Tolkien "time travel." Tolkien never got around to finishing his time-travel story, concentrating instead on his more "adult" trilogy, in which he placed hobbits in the context of his Silmarillion stories. But Lewis did write his space books: Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength.
 
Love C.S. Lewis.

His transformation from hard-boiled atheist to one of the greatest defenders of spiritualism is well documented and compelling.

He description of the decision to "open his mind" and examine spirituality was momentous, but "strangely unemotional." His "Adversary" - the One he so desperately wanted not to exist - closed in on him, hounded his mind and he let Him in.

"I chose to open. . . . I felt as if I were a man of snow at long last beginning to melt." He began with the simple acceptance that there was intelligence beyond the universe.

I highly recommend "The Question of God" by Harvard's Armand Nicholi. He presents a debate between Freud and Lewis, based on their collective works. It doesn't start with a conclusion on the question of God, but instead paints the paths followed by both men in choosing whether to believe.
 
washpark, PBS did a documentary based on Nicholi's class at Harvard. It is available in DVD form. I own a copy, but I am sure one could rent it. Great video
 
no no, you aren't 61. I thought I had admitted my muddled understanding of what happened. My understanding was that LOTR was the time trilogy that Tolkien was going to write when in actuality it is not related. While Lewis did write a space trilogy, Tolkien never wrote a time trilogy. I was wrong in my understanding of that.
 
I read Mere Christianity and the Screwtape Letters about 24 years ago. I found SL entertaining. I appreciated the logic in MC, but ultimately logic wasn't enough to make the leap to faith.
 
Lewis was the first author I read that put real teeth in my faith.

Lee strobel is another good one... but not in the same league as Lewis.
 
OC-

Agreed completely, I like Stobel and veiw his book, the Case for Christ as a less compelling version of Mere Christianity.

Calling Ryan or any other hard core athiests- anyone willing to do a book swap with me.

ZZZZZ- appreciate your opinion on the matter- but 24 years later I'm guessing it's not really fresh in your mind, but I appreciate whatever you could remember.

Any particular reason you can remember why it did not convince you? And what compelled you to read it in the first place if you remember?
 
zzzzz, have you read any Soren Kierkegaard? Francis Schaeffer? If you are at familiar with Kierkegaard, he is the philosopher (Xian) who basically introduced the idea of a 'leap of faith' into the concept of faith. He talks about it specifically with regards to Abraham and his believing God. (please realise I am writing this off the top of my head before LOST begins). Schaeffer essential refutes Kierkagaard and says that faith does not require a 'leap of faith' but is actually reasonable. Schaeffer talks about the reasonableness of faith.

I would recommend Schaeffer's Trilogy (I don't know why there seem to be so many Trilogies.. but oh well. The 3 in Schaeffer's are The God Who Is There, Escape from Reason, and He Is There and He Is Not Silent. I will confess to have only had read the third of the three. I do know that Crossway books has all 3 in a single volume.

If anyone is interested I would be willing to loan some books out. I have a fairly good collection so far (at least at the age of 31 I think I do) at least a few hundred volumes.
 
Lot of great books by Lewis... Mere Christianity, the Screwtape Letters, Letters to Malcolm, The Great Divorce...
 
If you really want to get the best out of "That Hideous Strength", read The Abolition of Man first. I really love That Hideous Strength, but it's vastly different from the other books in the space trilogy. It's also confusing as all get out the first time you read it, so persevere- it will eventually make sense.

I think he really put his finger on the pulse of where post-modern thought can take you. It still amazes me he saw this so clearly 70 years ago.
 
SPOILER ALERT FOR "That Hideous Strength"


SPOILER; SPOILER; SPOILER
George Orwell said that "That Hideous Strength" was one of his primary motivations for writing his book "1984". Not that they are very alike, but Lewis description of the N.I.C.E. (National Institute of Co-ordinated Experiments), with its world-wide ramifications, its private army, its secret torture chambers, and its inner ring of adepts ruled over by a mysterious personage known as The Head, inspired 1984. Orwell basically wanted.a That Hideous Strength without any supernatural aspects.
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
 
I'm in. I usually only read non-fiction.

I just finished a philosophy class which I had some mixed feelings about. The syllabus stated that we could not apply religion in any shape or form to our responses and/or papers. The problem I had with this is that the entire course seemed to be an attack on religion. Of course we studied every atheist philosopher throughout history but we be damned if we tried to defend our beliefs or use religion in a positive way. It turned out to be one of the first times that I actually felt a class was genuinely biased to a certain point of view. I didn't back off and got the first "C" I've had since I returned to school. (I carried a 3.91 into this past semester.)
Hence the thread I started in Quackenbush's a few weeks ago about disputing a grade.

Nevertheless, I'm extremely interested in what you've posted and will look for the book(s) this weekend. Maybe this is what I need to help straighten me out on my views. I'm kind of weird in that I was brought up as a religious mutt. (Baptized Episcopal, confirmed Anglican, attended a Methodist church the most and felt that I fit into the Catholic Church out of all those I attended.) This amalgam of experiences has left me really confused in that I'm completely of the belief in God but my experiences, reasoning, thoughts, etc.. are kind of - to use a word above - muddled.

Back to my original point. I'm definitely interested in some philosophy that might expand my view on religion and what I truly believe in.
 
A.E. Wilder-Smith will change your life. Difficult to read, but worth the effort. The Link If you read this and still believe Darwin 100% you are simply deluded. Dude is a triple Ph.D. and knows his stuff.

Lewis is my favorite and has enriched my life beyond compare. Hideous Strength was very difficult for me to get in to. I thought the book company sent me the wrong book at first. Glad I continued. Parts of it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. First time that happened through mere reading.


The Link Actually, this is the book by Wilder-Smith to start with.
 
I actually just bought mere christianity today. Can anybody recommend good books that have the opposite view of mere christianity? I would like to read both sides.
 
A good opposite might be Bertrand Russell's "why I am not a christian" I of course found flaws throughout his works... but i'm biased.
smile.gif


BR seems to be a fave amongst many atheists I've known.
 
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