Christians: Does anyone else find C.S Lewis somewhat annoying and overbearing?

Question

I am a huge fan of much of his theology, and I think he has an interesting view of the world in many ways. However, it seems that he is somewhat overzealous for my tastes. I'm not sure he fully understands the meaning of free will, and the beauty of it. He regards atheism as the greatest and most absolute "anti-theism" in the world while I find that the nature of relating to the real problem of evil is a more interpersonal one. Presuming we know everything about a whole group of people and why they believe or disbelieve what they do just seems like there is little hope in trusting the goodness that exists in everyone's will, for its own sake. Anyway, what is your opinion on C.S Lewis?

Answer 1

Occasionally, yes, he's a bit annoying and overbearing. (Reportedly, some of his students found him so as well.) But he spent most of his life as a bachelor scholar, and annoying and overbearing were pretty much the way his social group tended to be.



I've never seen anything in his writing that raised any questions in my mind about his understanding of free will, and I'm curious what you've found.



His attitude towards atheism was undoubtedly influenced by two things:

(1) His own long history as an atheist.

(2) The behavior and rhetoric of atheists with whom he was familiar, from social encounters and from their speeches and writings.



These experiences were probably quite different from ours, except when we read material written by atheists some time ago. And from his personal history, he seems to have spent some time in a "new convert" phase as a Christian, during which he attempted to justify his conversion by arguing (publicly) that Christianity was a more logical choice than atheism. Humphrey Carpenter's book, "The Inklings," addresses this phase in detail--though I cannot claim any certainty that Carpenter's point of view isn't slanted, too.



Where I find Lewis most valuable is in his exposures of both sloppy and self-justifying thought patterns. He (along with other Inklings, Tolkien and Williams) were very good at exposing the roots of error.

Answer 2

I love Lewis, his non-fiction that is. What you find hard to take in Lewis is explained, I think , by the fact that he saw WW II and the Nazis and Stalin and he knew that the goodness in a soul (if there is such a thing) is always under the malevolence of the mind. Stalin thought he was holy and helping everybody but his own daughter had to be secretly baptized for fear he would murder her.



In our times, power is way more concentrated, people are more 'educated' and there is no real place for a 'good will' that isn't coupled with a good mind. That's my reading of it.

Answer 3

I think he has a lot of interesting and intelligent things to say and is a great writer. Beyond that I don't really follow his personal philosophies or opinions.

Answer 4

I read his "Mere Christianity".



Frankly, I think he's a better novelist than theologian.

It was all right. He expresses what Christianity means to him and that's fine. I found nothing particularly new or original in there, and didn't think it was particularly deep either.

Answer 5

CSL was a fully programmed xian who called himself an atheist while dabbled in doubting for a little and wrote a book about how he came to believe and sold it... of course he missed out hi-lighting he was already fully programmed.



Ron L Hubbard and Joe Smith at least invented a new religions.

~

Answer 6

C.S.Lewis believed in intelligent design, which has been shown to be fallacious--an argument from ignorance. The purpose of free will is to blame humans for doing things and make the god blameless for doing nothing. C.S.Lewis assumed an intelligent, creative Christian god and ignored evolution. That is irrational thinking.

Answer 7

Im reading the screwtape letters right now, and I am enjoying it. I have tried to read Mere Christianity a few times, and cant help but fall asleep...

Answer 8

I find his theological arguments a rehashing of previous arguments and fundamentally flawed.

Answer 9

I think he has more insight than many when it comes to those who refuse to believe. He was once one of them.

Answer 10

No. I don't pay attention to him much.

Answer 11

He should have stuck to writing literature for children. Oh, wait...he did.

Answer 12

CS had a few screws loose. (twirls paw by ear)

Answer 13

I kind of like his politics and his morality, which in later years seems to have inclined in the direction of Christian Socialism, as he indicates in his last "Screwtape" letter.



I also liked most of the "Narnia Chronicles" except for two, One -- Prince Caspian's Chair, I think it was -- seems to sacrifice the plot and replace it with an argument for the existence of a supernatural world, based on analogy. Even when I was reading it as a Christian, this plot felt to me like cheating.



Another Narnia tale, "A Horse and His Boy," to me seems "Eurocenturic" and in fact excessively "English" in denouncing another culture for building its literature around aphorisms, whereas the culture of the story's good guys is based on epic adventures, the sagas of heroes, etc.



When I read this as a young Christian, it looked to me like a repudiation of Oriental literary styles -- even though the Hebrew parts of the Bible are based on them -- and an endorsement of Germanic warrior sagas, even though they were originally pagan.



In "A Horse and His Boy," I think Lewis -- the great defender of Christianity -- shows a preference for pagan Germanic tales to the Hebrew Psalms and Proverbs, as well as the Aramaic parables of Jesus. From the perspective of English culture and the Norse sagas that Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien both loved, that's understandable. But from a Christian viewpoint, that's unfortunate. There's NO evidence that Jesus really was an Englishman, or thought like one.



Theologically, I no longer accept Lewis's arguments. I am heavily influenced by Christianity, and maybe in some ways I'm still Christian, but I'm quite materialistic about it. I believe the Kingdom of God needs to be established "on earth," not just in heaven.



And I don't think one needs to believe in a lot of supernatural stuff to follow God's alleged command as related by the Prophet Micah: "He has shown you, O man, what is good -- and what is that, but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?"



I do find as I get older that accepting one's own "sins" and one's need for forgiveness -- accepting that God somehow has forgiven us for all our imperfections, and that we can forgive ourselves -- is essential to me in terms of retaining my belief that I can go on and try to build a decent life.



I can't believe that Jesus literally died for our sins -- this only makes sense if God is a God who still requires human sacrifice, I think, and that's barbaric. But if we accept what Hegel said, and Boltman later echoed, about "picture thinking" in religion, I think it's possible to see the story of the Crucifixion as an imaginative "picture" or symbol of the kind of forgiveness that Jesus rightly promised his followers in the Gospels. Which is needed to save all of us from OCD.



Beyond that, I look on Jesus much more as a prophet and a social reformer and maybe an enlightened mystic than I do as the "Son of God," and anyway the words of the Lord's Prayer and those of the Sermon on the Mount suggest we're ALL potentially "children of God."



Lewis often goes out of his way to argue for a much more orthodox, literalist interpretation which, rightly or wrongly, I just can't believe. OTOH, in many of his novelistic portraits of people in need of "salvation" and stuck in destructive ways of relating to themselves and the world, Lewis is very acute, not simply overbearing.