C.S. Lewis: Life and Work Joy Through Reason, Imagination and Faith

1. C.S. Lewis: Life and Work Joy Through Reason, Imagination and Faith Oct 17 ‑ The Formative Years: Longing for Joy Nov 14 ‑ The Pilgrim's Regress:In Search of Joy Nov 28 ‑ Story Telling: Living in Joy Dec 12 ‑ The Christian Knight: The Apologetics of Joy (Suffering and The Shadowlands) The joy of the Lord is our strength. Neh. 8:10 Compiled by Dr. Paulo F. Ribeiro Shawnee Park CRC WOW Fall 2001, AD I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it but because by it I see everything else.

2. Prayer is either a sheer illusion or a personal contact between embryonic, incomplete persons (ourselves) and the utterly concrete Person. Prayer in the sense of petition, asking for things, is a small part of it; confession and penitence are its threshold, adoration its sanctuary, the presence and vision and enjoyment of God its wine. In it God shows himself to us. That He answers prayers is a corollary—not necessarily the most important one. What He does is learned from what He is.”C.S. Lewis

3. All that is not eternal is eternally out of date.“ "Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and, if true, of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important" ___________________________________________________________________________ "Is--is he a man?" asked Lucy. "Aslan a man!" said Mr. Beaver sternly. "Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. Don't you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion--the Lion, the great Lion." "Ooh!" said Susan, "I'd thought he was a man. Is he--quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion." "That you will, dearie, and no mistake,' said Mrs. Beaver, 'if there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or else just silly." "Then he isn't safe?" said Lucy. "Safe?" said Mr. Beaver. "Don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King I tell you." "I'm longing to see him," said Peter, "even if I do feel frightened when it comes to the point." The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe) ____________________________________________________ Who is this man, who can write so clearly, convincingly, inspiring, and profoundly …? Scholar, children’s story, adult fiction… In this next four WOWs I hope to share with you some insights into the life and writings of this incredible Christian I hope you will be inspired, blessed, encouraged by Lewis’s imagination, writings, honesty, and faith in our Savior Jesus Christ.

4. Why Lewis: The most important Christian writer of the 20th century. I encountered Lewis 27 years ago. Thanks for the opportunity Style – Participation – facilitator …. Share your insights etc.

5. Footnote to All PrayersHe whom I bow to only knows to whom I bowWhen I attempt the ineffable Name, murmuring Thou,And dream of Pheidian fancies and embrace in heartSymbols (I know) which cannot be the thing Thou art.Thus always, taken at their word, all prayers blasphemeWorshipping with frail images a folk-lore dream,And all men in their praying, self-deceived, addressThe coinage of their own unquiet thoughts, unlessThou in magnetic mercy to Thyself divertOur arrows, aimed unskilfully, beyond desert;And all men are idolators, crying unheardTo a deaf idol, if Thou take them at their word.Take not, O Lord, our literal sense.  Lord, in thy greatUnbroken speech our limping metaphor translate.

6. The Apologist's Evening PrayerFrom all my lame defeats and oh! much moreFrom all the victories that I seemed to score;From cleverness shot forth on Thy behalfAt which, while angels weep, the audience laugh;From all my proofs of Thy divinity,Thou, who wouldst give no sign, deliver me.Thoughts are but coins.  Let me not trust, insteadof Thee, their thin-worn image of Thy head.From all my thoughts, even from my thoughts of Thee,O thou fair Silence, fall, and set me free.Lord of the narrow gate and needle's eye,Take from me all my trumpery lest I die.

7. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are noordinarypeople. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization--these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit--immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. [C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1965), pp. 14–15; emphasis in original]

8. In one way, of course, God has given us the Morning Star already: you can go and enjoy the gift on many fine mornings if you get up early enough. What more, you may ask, do we want? Ah, but we want so much more--something the books on aesthetics take little notice of. But the poets and the mythologies know all about it. We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words--to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. ….. That is why the poets tell us such lovely falsehoods. They talk as if the west wind could really sweep into a human soul; but it can't. They tell us that "beauty born of murmuring sound" will pass into a human face; but it won't. Or not yet. For if we take the imagery of Scripture seriously, if we believe that God will one day give us the Morning Star and cause us to put on the splendor of the sun, then we may surmise that both the ancient myths and the modern poetry, so false as history, may be very near the truth as prophecy. At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendors we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumor that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.

9. "When Christianity says that God loves man, it means that God loves man: not that He has some concern for our welfare, but that we are the objects of His love. You asked for a loving God: you have one. The great spirit you so lightly invoked, is present: not a senile benevolence that drowsily wishes you to be happy in your own way, not the cold philanthropy of a conscientious magistrate, not the care of a host who feels responsible for the comfort of his guests, but the consuming fire Himself, the Love that made the worlds, persistent as the artist's love for his work and despotic as a man's love for a dog, provident and venerable as a father's love for a child, jealous, inexorable, exacting as love between the sexes. How should this be, I do not know: it passes reason to explain why creatures, not to say creatures such as we, should have a value so prodigious in their Creator’s eyes.” CS Lewis, The Problem of Pain

10. I think it important to try to see the present calamity in a true perspective. The war [terrorism] creates no absolutely new situation: it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice. Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would have never begun. We are mistaken when we compare war to "normal life." Life has never been normal. Even those periods we think most tranquil, like the nineteenth century, turn out on closer inspection, to be full of crises, alarms, difficulties, emergencies. Plausible reasons have never been lacking for putting off all merely cultural activities until some imminent danger has been averted or some crying injustice put right. But humanity long ago chose to neglect those plausible reasons.… They propound theorems in beleaguered cities, conduct metaphysical arguments in condemned cells, make jokes on scaffolds, discuss poetry while advancing on the walls of Quebec …This is not panache; it is our nature. C.S. Lewis, "Learning in War-Time," in The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses

11. A Solid Man Thoroughly Converted Marvelous and Seductive Writer A Romantic A Christian Knight (Apologist) Scholar Fiction Writer Novel Writer Tutor (Not a Sir Just Jack) A Prophet Children’s Literature Poetry Wrote with Authority, Mere Christianity, Powerful mind, Fresh Perspective, Wrote Well, Wrote with Authority The Purpose and Content of the Study This study is designed to introduce you to the life, thought and works of C. S. Lewis. C. S. Lewis never claimed to be a theologian. He approached Christianity from a very intellectual, academic, but honest way – not theological. " Mere Christianity” is the core set of beliefs held by the majority of Christians throughout the ages. Lewis believed what Jesus claimed to be: the unique Son of God. He believed that Jesus was literally born of a virgin, crucified, buried, and that He physically rose again never to die again. Mere Christianity teaches the doctrine of the Trinity: that Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are all three God, and that God is one. C. S. Lewis tried to demonstrate that the supernatural does exist and that miracles did occur. Mere Christianity teaches that Christ died for our sins, that He was resurrected to prove that He conquered death and that to receive forgiveness of sin one must respond in faith to Him. The Theme This study covers the major issues that C. S. Lewis struggled with in his own life and subsequently addressed in his writings: the problem of suffering and pain, the existence of the supernatural or the miraculous, and how Christianity is the only world-view that consistently explains the nature of man and the universe.

12. Timeline 1898 Clive Staples Lewis born in Belfast, Ireland 1908 Lewis's mother dies 1917 Lewis begins studies at University College, Oxford 1925 Awarded a fellowship in English at Oxford's Magdalen College; publication of G.K. Chesterton's The Everlasting Man 1929 Converts to theism and, in 1931, Christianity 1933 The first members of the Inklings meet in Lewis's chambers 1937 J. R. R. Tolkien publishes The Hobbit 1939 Author Charles Williams moves to Oxford, joins the Inklings 1941 Publication of The Screwtape Letters gains Lewis worldwide fame; Dorothy Sayers, Lewis's friend and a 22-year member of his Socratic Club at Oxford, publishes her best- known work, The Man Born to Be King 1948 Lewis loses debate to British philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe 1950-56 Writes seven volumes of The Chronicles of Narnia 1952 Mere Christianity, a collection of radio broadcasts Lewis delivered during World War II, is published 1954-55 Publication of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings 1956 Lewis marries Joy Davidman Gresham in a civil ceremony (a Christian ceremony followed in 1957) 1960 Joy dies; to deal with his emotions, Lewis writes A Grief Observed 1963 Lewis dies at his home, The Kilns.

13. 1898 (November 29) Born Clive Staples in Belfast, Ireland, to Albert James Lewis and Flora Augusta Hamilton Lewis.1905 Lewis family moves to "Little Lea".1908 (August 23) Mother died of cancer; Clive Staples (Jack), and older brother Warren sent to Wynyard School in England.1910 Attends Campbell College, Belfast for one term due to sickness and father's dissatisfaction with the school.1911-13 Studied at Cherbourg School, Malvern England, following his brother Warren.1914-16 Extensive literary and philosophical studies under the private teaching of W.T. Kirkpatrick.1916 Won scholarship to University College, Oxford.1917 (April 28) Began studies at Oxford; interrupted by serving in WWI; Commisioned as second lieutenant in Somerset light infantry.1918 Hospitalized for "trench fever"; rejoined his battalion, wounded in Battle of Arras, France, and hospitalized again.1919 Resumed studies at Oxford. Moves in with Mrs. Moore and begins their relationship.1925 (May) Elected Fellow of English Language and Literature at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he remained until 1954.

14. 1929 (Trinity Term) Becomes a practicing Theist. (September) Lewis' father dies.1930 (October) Lewis and Mrs. Moore settle at The Kilns.1931 (28 September) Becomes a practicing Christian.1939 Began meeting with the Inklings.1941 (6 August) Began first of twenty-five talks about religion over the BBC. Formed the Socratic Club at Oxford.1946 Passed over for Merton professorship of English Literature at Oxford. Awarded the Doctorate of Divinity by St. Andrews University.1951 Offered the honor of Commander of the Order of the British Empire by the Prime Minister but cordially refused. Mrs. Jane King Moore died. 1955 (1 January) Elected Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Literature Magdalen College, Cambridge.1956 (23 April) Married Joy Davidman Gresham in secret civil ceremony.1957 (21 March) Married Joy in church ceremony at her hospital bed.1960 (13 July) Joy Davidman Lewis died.1963 (July) Lewis goes into a coma and is expected to die. (22 November) Lewis dies at the Kilns. American President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas and on the same day author Aldous Huxley died in California.

15. Lewis' life was one of change. • He lost both of his parents during his life. • He had to move to England. • He had to go to war. • He went back to school after the war. • He left Christianity and then came back to it. • He came back to his father after disliking him. • Lewis had a varied educational life. • Lewis had a private tutor as a child. • Lewis first school was a bad experience. • Kirkpatrick taught Lewis literature. • Lewis went to University College which is in Oxford. • He became a second lieutenant in the Somerset Infantry. • In 1954 he was elected professor of medieval and Renaissance English literature for Cambridge. • Lewis is commonly thought of as a Christian, though at one time he was an atheist. • Lewis was raised Anglican, but Surprised By Joy hints that he grew up in a religiously unstable household. • He became and atheist because of his personal and philosophical ideas. • He returned to Christianity in his thirties. • Hugo Dyson played a role in convincing Lewis to drop atheism and come back to Christianity. • He was surrounded by those who where Christians (including Tolkien). • He had a mystical experience wherein he realized that he was not allowing something to be released. • In the summer of 1929 he admitted that God was indeed God. • He didn't at that point become a Christian, though. • He became became a Christian in 1931.

16. C. S. (Clive Staples) Lewis wrote books about religion in two ways. • One way Lewis wrote was with imagery. • His most famous book is The Screwtape Letters. • Lewis’ series of books in Narnia are children’s books and are less familiar to the public in general. • The Narnia series tells the story of Jesus in a fairy-tale. • The model for Lewis' Narnia series comes from his mother's childhood experience of seeing a dead saint open her eyes. • He wrote a three novel trilogy that was science fiction and concerning good and evil. • His book Till We Have Faces, is the story of Cupid and Psyche. • The other way Lewis wrote was non-fiction. • Mere Christianity explained his basic thoughts on doctrine. (The British Broadcasting Corporation talks were published in this book.) • Surprised by Joy is a self-authored book describing how he left atheism for Christianity. • His other works include The Great Divorce, The Problem of Pain and Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition. • Certain loved ones had affects on Lewis' life. • Lewis’ mother died when he was nine years old. • Lewis’ first two works were published under the pen name Clive Hamilton; Hamilton was his mother's maiden name. • Lewis' father's death affected him more that he admitted. • He feared that critics would attribute his theological thought could be explained in terms of the Oedipus complex. • Lewis' wrote that his father's death "does not really come into the story I am telling." • Lewis loved Mrs. Moore. • He denied that his falling in love with her affected him very much. • She would interrupt him as he was writing his books for five minutes to a half an hour. • Arthur Greeves helped Lewis define who he was. • The became close friends as teenagers when they found they had similar interests. • Lewis learned to write to an audience through his correspondence with Greeves.

17. Introductory Remarks • Champion of Basic / Mere Christianity • Born into a bookish family of Protestants in Belfast, Ireland. • "There were books in the study, books in the dining room, books in the cloakroom, books (two deep) in the great bookcase on the landing, books in a bedroom, books piled as high as my shoulder in the cistern attic, books of all kinds," • A Life of Problems and Moments of Delight (Joy) • Lewis mother's death from cancer came just three months before Jack's tenth birthday, and the young man was hurt deeply by her passing. On top of that, his father never fully recovered from her death, and both boys felt increasingly estranged from him; home life was never warm and satisfying again. • Transition From Christianity to Atheism • His mother's death convinced young Jack that the God he encountered in the Bible his mother gave him didn't always answer prayers. This early doubt, coupled with an unduly harsh, self-directed spiritual regimen and the influence of a mildly occultist boarding school matron a few years later, caused Lewis to reject Christianity and become an avowed atheist. • University Life • Lewis entered Oxford in 1917 as a student and never really left. "The place has surpassed my wildest dreams," he wrote to his father after spending his first day there. "I never saw anything so beautiful." Despite an interruption to fight in World War I (in which he was wounded by a bursting shell), he always maintained his home and friends in Oxford.

18. Introductory Remarks Marvelous and Seductive Writer (Chronicles of Narnia set, for example, is among Amazon.com's top 200 titles) Time Magazine 1947: “Having lured his reader onto the the straight highway of logic, Lewis then inveigles him down the garden paths of orthodox theology.” The implication: Could such a clever man be sincere about the Christianity he was proclaiming? That was the first beauty I ever knew. What a real garden had failed to do, the toy garden did. It made me aware of nature--not indeed, as a storehouse of forms and colors but as something cool, dewy, fresh, exuberant. Intense Experiences From His Childhood: Longing For Joy (Inconsolable secrete … the secrete we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both.) The Search For Joy Becomes The Unifying Theme of C.S. Lewis’ Life = The Search for the inexpressible "In speaking of this desire for our own far-off country, . . . I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you - the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both . . . The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them . . . Here, then, is the desire, still wandering and uncertain of its object and still largely unable to see that object in the direction where it really lies . . . Heaven is, by definition, outside our experience, but all intelligible descriptions must be of things within our experience. The scriptural picture of heaven is therefore just as symbolical as the picture which our desire, unaided, invents for itself . . . " Sehnsucht – Longing, Joy , Beauty It was not until his Christian Conversion that Lewis understood what he was seeking Lewis found joy in Greek and Nordic Mythology, Music, Literature, Nature, Friends...

19. C.S. Lewis: Early Years • First nine Years - Mother Dies, Boys Sent to Boarding School (England) • Books, Books, and Books • Growing Up: Loving and Intellectual Mother, Unstable Father, Vile Boarding School • Became Serious About Christianity - But A Distorted Christianity Led Him To Reject It All Together • Reads G.K. Chesterton (greatly influences Lewis) • (“A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading.” • Preparatory School: He Lost His Faith and His Simplicity • Became Serious About His Studies, His Imaginative Life Flourished • New Tutor: Kirkpatrick (atheist, ruthless rational) - New Environment: Surrey Country Side • Kirkpatrick: Lewis is Qualified for Nothing Else, But The Academic Life • Becomes Fascinated With Poetry, Romance and Mythology • (He later wondered if his near adoration of false gods whom he did not believe was the true God’s way of developing within him a keen capacity for sincere worship.) • Start To Develop a Priggish Sense of Superiority • (He Maintained that God did not exist. He was angry with God for not existing, and was equally angry with Him for creating the world) • Arrives At Oxford • Goes To War (on his 19th birthday he arrived in the frontline trenches in France) • Meets Paddy Moore (Fellow Soldier) - Takes Care of Paddy’s Mother Until she died 1951

20. Longing for Joy • Reading, Reading - Especially enjoyed Christian author George MacDonald. Phantastes, powerfully challenged his atheism. • "What it actually did to me," wrote Lewis, "was to convert, even to baptize…my imagination." G. K. Chesterton's books - The Everlasting Man, raised serious questions about the young intellectual's materialism. • "A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading," Lewis later wrote in the autobiographical Surprised by Joy. "God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous." • Logic - Close friend Owen Barfield pounced on the logic of Lewis's atheism. Barfield had converted from atheism to theism, then finally to Christianity, and he frequently badgered Lewis about his materialism. So did Nevill Coghill, a brilliant fellow student and lifelong friend who, to Lewis's amazement, was "a Christian and a thoroughgoing supernaturalist." • Soon after joining the English faculty at Oxford's Magdalen College, Lewis met two more Christians, Hugo Dyson and J. R. R. Tolkien. These men became close friends of Lewis. He admired their brilliance and their logic. Soon Lewis recognized that most of his friends, like his favorite authors—MacDonald, Chesterton, Johnson, Spenser, and Milton—held to this Christianity. • In 1929 these roads met, and Lewis surrendered, admitting "God was God, and knelt and prayed." Within two years the reluctant convert also moved from theism to Christianity and joined the Church of England. • Almost immediately, Lewis set out in a new direction, most demonstrably in his writing. Earlier efforts to become a poet were laid to rest. The new Christian devoted his talent and energy to writing prose that reflected his recently found faith. Within two years of his conversion, Lewis published The Pilgrim's Regress: An Allegorical Apology for Christianity, Reason and Romanticism (1933). This little volume opened a 30-year stream of books on • Christian apologetics and discipleship that became a lifelong avocation. • Not everyone approved of his new interest in apologetics. Lewis frequently received criticism from members of his closest circle of friends, the Inklings (the nickname for the group of intellectuals and writers who met regularly to exchange ideas). Even close Christian friends like Tolkien and Owen Barfield openly disapproved of Lewis's evangelistic speaking and writing. • In fact, Lewis's "Christian" books caused so much disapproval that he was more than once passed over for a professorship at Oxford, with the honors going to men of lesser reputation. It was Magdalene College at Cambridge University that finally honored Lewis with a chair in 1955.

21. 1 - The Formative Years: Longing for Joy • Ref. Books • Surprised by Joy • They Stand Together (letters to Arthur Grieves) • Letters • CS Lewis: A Biography • Top Ten Books That Influenced C.S Lewis • In 1962, The Christian Century magazine published C.S. Lewis's answer to the question, "What books did most to shape your vocational attitude and your philosophy of life?" Here is C.S. Lewis's list, annotated with hyperlinks to e-text versions of the works (where available) and to additional information about the authors. • Phantastes by George MacDonald • The Everlasting Man by G. K. Chesterton. • The Aeneid by Virgil • The Temple by George Herbert • The Prelude by William Wordsworth • The Idea of the Holy by Rudolf Otto • The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius  • Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell • Descent into Hell by Charles Williams • Theism and Humanism by Arthur James Balfour

22. Top Ten Books That Influenced C.S Lewis • In 1962, The Christian Century magazine published C.S. Lewis's answer to the question, "What books did most to shape your vocational attitude and your philosophy of life?" Here is C.S. Lewis's list, annotated with hyperlinks to e-text versions of the works (where available) and to additional information about the authors. • Phantastes by George MacDonald • The Everlasting Man by G. K. Chesterton. • The Aeneid by Virgil • The Temple by George Herbert • The Prelude by William Wordsworth • The Idea of the Holy by Rudolf Otto • The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius  • Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell • Descent into Hell by Charles Williams • Theism and Humanism by Arthur James Balfour

23. The Pilgrim's Regress:In Search of Joy • Toy garden made him aware of the beauties of nature for the first time • That was the first beauty I ever knew. What a real garden had failed to do, the toy garden did. It made me aware of nature--not indeed, as a storehouse of forms and colors but as something cool, dewy, fresh, exuberant. • Flowering Currant Bush on a Summer Day - The Beauty of Nature • Beatrix Potter book Squirrel Nutkin - Fell In Love With Autumn • Poetry from the Norse god Balder • Longing - Joy as an unsatisfied desire which is better than any satisfaction - The Stab of Joy • April 1914 - Meets Arthur Grieves (likes Norse Mythology - 47 years of friendship) • March 1916 - Phantastes by George McDonald: Imagination was baptized • Rejected Christianity • Philosophical Progression: • Popular Realism - Philosophical Idealism - Pantheism - Theism - Christianity • “All joy (as distinct from mere pleasure, still more amusement) emphasizes our pilgrim status: always reminds, beckons, awakens desire. Our best havings are wantings.”

24. That was the first beauty I ever knew. What a real garden had failed to do, the toy garden did. It made me aware of nature--not indeed, as a storehouse of forms and colors but as something cool, dewy, fresh, exuberant. Intense Experiences From His Childhood: Longing For Joy (Inconsolable secrete … the secrete we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both.) The Search For Joy Becomes The Unifying Theme of C.S. Lewis’ Life = The Search for the inexpressible Sehnsucht – Longing, Joy , Beauty It was not until his Christian Conversion that Lewis understood what he was seeking Lewis found joy in Greek and Nordic Mythology, Music, Literature, Nature, Friends...

25. Joy (Sehnsucht) Myth and Joy (Sehnsucht) played a central role in C. S. Lewis' pilgrimage to Christian truth and in shaping his apologetics, particularly his argument from desire. Far from being separate themes, myth and joy were convergent streams in Lewis' thinking and experience that he so effectively presented in his work to help people see the meaning and sweetness of life in Jesus Christ. For Lewis, real Joy found its uncommon expression in the true Myth which became Incarnate and explains how everything (experience, reason and desire) fits together. Human imagination illumined by the Holy Spirit brings real Joy and true Myth together to picture Reality, which Lewis said is that about which truth is . Lewis reached that stage in his journey when imagination (the organ of meaning) and reason (the organ of truth) were no longer at loggerheads but became divinely given pointers to something and Someone outside natural experience.

26. Joy (Sehnsucht) In Surprised by Joy Lewis recounted an event which profoundly affected him with a superabundance of mercy. He purchased a copy MacDonald's Phantastes, a faerie Romance, and began to read it on a train ride. Lewis wrote: "I did not yet know (and I was long in learning) the name of the new quality, the bright shadow, that rested on the travels of Anodos. I do now. It was holiness. For the first time the song of the sirens sounded like the voice of my mother or my nurse...It was as though the voices which had called to me from the world s end were now speaking at my side...never had the wind of Joy blowing through any story been less separable from the story itself...That night my imagination was, in a certain sense, baptized; the rest of me, not unnaturally, took longer. I had not the faintest notion what I had let myself in for by buying Phantastes."

27. "In speaking of this desire for our own far-off country, . . . I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you - the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both . . . The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them . . . Here, then, is the desire, still wandering and uncertain of its object and still largely unable to see that object in the direction where it really lies . . . Heaven is, by definition, outside our experience, but all intelligible descriptions must be of things within our experience. The scriptural picture of heaven is therefore just as symbolical as the picture which our desire, unaided, invents for itself . . . "

28. "Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food . A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for something else of which they are only a kind of a copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same."

29. "A man's physical hunger does not prove that the man will get any bread; he may die of starvation in a raft in the Atlantic. But surely a man s hunger does prove that he comes of a race which repairs its body by eating and inhabits a world where eatable substances exist. In the same way, though I do not believe (I wish I did) that my desire for Paradise proves that I shall enjoy it, I think it a pretty good indication that such a thing exists and that some men will. A man may love a woman and not win her; but it would be very odd if the phenomenon called falling in love occurred in a sexless world."

30. "If we take the imagery of Scripture seriously, if we believe that God will one day give us the Morning Star and cause us to put on the splendor of the sun, then we may surmise that both the ancient myths and the modern poetry, so false as history, may be very near the truth as prophecy. At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendors we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumor that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in. When human souls have become as perfect in voluntary obedience as the inanimate creation is in its lifeless obedience, then they will put on its glory or rather that greater glory of which nature is only the first sketch."

31. "It was valuable only as a pointer to something other and outer. While that other was in doubt, the pointer naturally loomed large in my thoughts. When we are lost in the woods the sight of a signpost is a great matter. He who first sees it cries, Look! The whole party gathers round and stares. But when we have found the road and are passing signposts every few miles, we shall not stop and stare. They will encourage us and we shall be grateful to the authority that set them up. But we shall not stop and stare, or not much; not on this road, though their pillars are of silver and their lettering of gold. We would be at Jerusalem.'"

32. Conclusion Lewis insisted that both true Myth and real Joy are cosmic pointers to God. He saw the work of apologetics as making use of what innately we know about ourselves and the Reality that is outside ourselves and then bringing them together by reasoned argument and metaphorical appeal. There is a goal and there is a way. It is work that constantly points outside itself and above itself to the Object of true religious affections. Lewis works were not so much concerned with the voyage but the landfall. Like Lewis we too must address and balance appeals to both head and heart in our defense of our faith and present it in terms best understandable and identifiable to our audience. As a point of contact to many unregenerate, therefore, we could approach the presentation of Scriptural truth as the story of the Real Joy in the True Myth. Lewis summed up what we constantly must be mindful of when we are asked to give a defense for the hope we have in Christ, yet with gentleness and respect.

33. The Apologist's Evening PrayerFrom all my lame defeats and oh! much moreFrom all the victories that I seemed to score;From cleverness shot forth on Thy behalfAt which, while angels weep, the audience laugh;From all my proofs of Thy divinity,Thou, who wouldst give no sign, deliver me.Thoughts are but coins.  Let me not trust, insteadof Thee, their thin-worn image of Thy head.From all my thoughts, even from my thoughts of Thee,O thou fair Silence, fall, and set me free.Lord of the narrow gate and needle's eye,Take from me all my trumpery lest I die.

34. 2 - The Pilgrim's Regress:In Search of Joy • Ref. Books: • Pilgrim' s Regress • An Experiment In Criticism • English Literature • Surprised by Joy

35. C.S. Lewis: Life and Work • Joy Through Reason, • Imagination and Faith • Part 3 • Story Telling: Living in Joy • (What to read while you wait for the nextHarry Potter book…) • Reference. Books: • Narnia Chronicles • (Adult Fiction - The Space Trilogy) • Out of the Silent Planet • Perelandra • That Hideous Strength • Till We Have Faces • The Great Divorce • Screwtape Letters “They say Aslan is on the Move Perhaps has already landed”

36. C.S. Lewis: Making Pictures To forbid the making of pictures about God would be to forbid thinking a about God at all, for man is so made that he has no way to think except in pictures. Dorothy Sayers ". . . When [people] try to get rid of man-like, or, as they are called, 'anthropomorphic,' images, they merely succeed in substituting images of some other kinds. 'I don't believe in a personal God,' says one, 'but I do believe in a great spiritual force.' What he has not noticed is that the word 'force' has let in all sorts of images about winds and tides and electricity and gravitation. 'I don't believe in a personal God,' says another, 'but I do believe we are all parts of one great Being which moves and works through us all' -not noticing that he has merely exchanged the image of a fatherly and royal-looking man for the image of some widely extended gas or fluid. A girl I knew was brought up by 'higher thinking' parents to regard God as perfect 'substance.' In later life she realized that this had actually led her to think of Him as something like a vast tapioca pudding. (To make matters worse, she disliked tapioca.) We may feel ourselves quite safe from this degree of absurdity but we are mistaken. If a man watches his own mind, I believe he will find that what profess to be specially advanced or philosophic conceptions of God, are, in his thinking, always accompanied by vague images which, if inspected, would turn out to be even more absurd than the manlike images aroused by Christian theology. Miracles

37. Lewis’s Concept of Nature: Spoiled Goodness • Lewis’s Response to Nature: • 1 – Romantic Appreciation and Idealization • 2 – Acceptance of the Supernatural • The Experience with the supernatural • Lucy’s tale - several hours in Narnia - less than a minute • 3 – Moral Awareness of the force of evil in nature and the temporal • transient quality of our world. • Nature is more than a background setting for the action of his characters • “Either there is significance in the whole process of things as well as in human activities, or there is no significance in human activity itself.” C.S. Lewis, The Personal Heresy, 1939. • Fresh exuberance of nature (This is no thaw; this is spring) - Glimpses of Redeemed Creation • Creation, Fall, Redemption • “They say Aslan is on the Move - Perhaps has already landed”

38. Lewis’s Concept of God: The Coming of the Lion "Do not weep. Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed.Rev. 5:5 “’They say Aslan is on the move – perhaps has already landed’ And now a very curious thing happened. None of the children knew who Aslan was any more than you do; but the moment the Beaver had spoken these words everyone felt quite different. Perhaps it has sometimes happened to you in a dream that someone says something which you don’t understand but in the dream it feels as if it had some enormous meaning – either a terrifying one which turns the whole dream into a nightmare or else a lovely meaning too lovely to put into words, which makes the dream so beautiful that you remember it all your life and are always wishing you could get into that dream again. It was like that now. At the name of Aslan each one of the children felt something jump inside. Edmund felt a sensation of mysterious horror. Peter felt suddenly brave and adventurous. Susan felt as if some delicious smell or some delightful strain of music had just floated by her. And Lucy got the feeling you have when you wake up in the morning and and realize that its the beginning of the holidays or the beginning of summer.” The LWW

39. Lewis’s Concept of Humanity: Possible Gods and Goddesses It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are noordinarypeople. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization--these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit--immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses

40. Narnia • Many Christian doctrines (Classical Christianity) • Doctrines fall into three categories: • Nature, God, Man’s Relationship to Nature, God and his fellow man. • Animal-Land (7-8 years old) • The Narnia Series: Different from other Stories - Magic, Fantasy … the Glimpsing of Other-Worlds • Stories • -(1-4)London Children being evacuated to the country during WW II. Children Transported from this world into a world faire-tale creatures belonging to a great lion (four books on this scheme). The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe, • - (5)The tale of two native children of that world who are also chosen by the great lion to serve the land of Narnia and to know him in a special way. • - (6)The beginning of the world of Narnia - the intrusion of two Victorian children into the newborn world begins the complications which give rise to all the later adventures. (The Magician’s Nephew) • -(7)The end of Narnia (Last Battle) • Each story complete in itself - George MacDonald stile. • Fragmented - Strong unity of philosophy and consistency of doctrine.

41. Narnia: Myth Made Truth: The Origins of the Chronicles of Narnia In the process of writing the Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis gradually expanded the breadth and scope of his literary ambitions. What was foreseen from the outset as a collection of stories for children developed into a complex depiction of an entire moral universe. As the seven books progress, Lewis unfolds the whole Divine plan for this universe from its creation to its apocalypse. However, the uniqueness of Lewis' literary achievement stems from the fact that Lewis manages to do two things at once. That is, he remains faithful to his original intention to write stories for children while adding in subtle moral and spiritual complexities. These complexities do not seem like authorial intrusions or editorializing. They are instead woven into the very fabric of Lewis’s creative universe. Thus, the Chronicles of Narnia are a series of books that can delight the senses as they challenge and stir the soul. (Mark Bane)

42. Narnia

43. Narnia

44. The Magician's Nephew • Digory Kirke (12) and Polly Plumber (11) are children living in London. After Digory moves in with his Aunt Letty and crazy Uncle Andrew, he meets Polly and they do some exploring. They make their way to Narnia, the new world created by the Great Lion, Aslan. They must save it from the evil witch, Jadis. The book is usually numbered either first or sixth, but some people recommend reading it second • The Main Theme: Weakness to Power • Key Symbol: Fruit of the Tree of Life • Favorite Quotes • The Magician’s Nephew and The Bible (Colossians 1:9-17) – Christ created and redeemed the world. Paul prays for power in their lives. • When and Where in The Magician’s Nephew • Chapter 1,2 – London • Chapters 3,4,5 – Trip to Charn • Chapters 6,7,8 – London • Chapters 9,10,11 – Narnia • Chapters 12, 13 – Western Wild • Chapters 14 – Narnia • Chapters 15 – London

45. The Magician's Nephew The Lion, whose eyes never blinked, stared at the animals as hard as if he was going to burn them up with his mere stare. And gradually a change came over them. The smaller ones - the rabbits, moles, and such-like - grew a good deal larger. The very big ones - you noticed it most with the elephants - grew a little smaller. Many animals sat p on their hind legs. Most put their heads on one side as if they were trying very hard to understand. The Lion opened his mouth, but no sound came from it; he was breathing out, a long, warm breath; it seemed to sway all the beasts as the wind sways a line of trees. Far overhead from beyond the veil of blue sky which hid them the stars sang again; a pure, cold, difficult music. Then there came a swift flash like fire (but it burnt nobody) either from the sky or from the Lion itself, and every drop of blood tingled in the children's bodies, and the deepest, wildest voice they had ever heard was saying: "Narnia, Narnia, Narnia, awake. Love. Think. Speak. Be walking trees. Be talking beasts. Be divine waters." (The founding of Narnia)

46. The Magician's Nephew "Child," he (Aslan) replied, "that is why all the rest are now a horror to her. That is what happens to those who pluck and eat fruits at the wrong time and in the wrong way. The fruit is good, but they loath it ever after." "Oh I see," said Polly. "And I suppose because she took it in the wrong way it won't work for her. I mean it won't make her always young and all that?" "Alas," said Aslan, shaking his head. "It will. Things always work according to their nature. She has won her heart's desire; she has un-wearing strength and endless days like a goddess. But length of days with an evil heart is only length of misery and already she begins to know it. All get what they want; they do not always like it." (The Planting of the Tree)

47. The Magician's Nephew They looked and saw a little hollow in the grass, with a grassy bottom, warm and dry."When you were last here," said Aslan, "that hollow was a pool, and when you jumped into it you came to the world where a dying sun shone over the ruins of Charn. There is no pool now. That world is ended, as if it had never been. Let the race of Adam and Eve take warning." "Yes, Aslan," said both the children. But Polly added, "But we're not quite as bad as that world, are we, Aslan?" "Not yet, Daughter of Eve," he said. "Not yet. But you are growing more like it. It is not certain that some wicked one of your race will not find out a secret as evil as the Deplorable Word and use it to destroy all living things. And soon, very soon, before you are an old man and an old woman, great nations in your world will be ruled by tyrants who care no more for joy and justice and mercy than the Empress Jadis. Let your world beware. That is the warning." (The End of This Story and the Beginning of All The Others) Fledge, Polly and Digory

48. WHERE IT ALL BEGAN: C.S. Lewis played in this wardrobe as a child. • The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe • The Main Theme: Frozen to Thawed • Key Symbol: The Stone Table • Favorite Quotes • LWW and the Bible • When and Where in LWW • 1. Lucy accidentally found herself in Narnia • 2. After a visit with Mr. Tumus the Faun, Lucy returned to England • 3. Edmund accidentally found himself in Narnia and met the Queen of Narnia • 4. Edmund became addicted to magic candy • 5. Peter and Susan assumed that Lucy’s Narnia was unreal and • 6. All four children found themselves in Narnia • 7. The four learned about Narnia while visiting Mr. And Mrs. Beaver • 8. Edmund sneaked away to betray the others to the White Witch • 9. Edmund made his way to the Witch’s castle and became captive there • 10. As the children and the Beavers fled, Father Christmas arrived with gifts • 11. The Witch discover that her perpetual winter was beginning to thaw • 12. Aslan appeared, greeted his friend ands knighted Peter • 13. The Witch demand her right to kill Edmund • 14. Aslan gave himself to the Witch ti die in Edmund’s place • 15. Aslan came back to life • 16. Aslan revived all victims of the Witch who had turned to statues • 17. The children ruled Narnia for many happy years before returning to England

49. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe Daughter of Eve (9,8) Romans 5:12 I should live to see this day (68, 58) Luke 2:30 Wrong will be right when. ..(74, 64) Mat. 12:18-20 At the sound of his roar. ..(74, 64 ) Hosea 11:10-11 Sorrows will be no more (74,64) Isaiah 65:19 When Adam's flesh and Adam's bone (76, 65 ) Genesis 2:23 They are tools, not toys ( 104, 87 ) Eph. 6:11-17 No need to talk about what is past ( 136, I 12) Is. 65:16 Deep Magic ( 138, I 14) I Corinthians 2:5-8 He just went on looking at Asian (138, 114) Hebrews 12:2 I should be glad of company tonight (147, 121 ) Matthew 26:38 I am sad and lonely ( 147, 121 ) Matthew 26:38 Let him first be shaved (150,124) Matthew 27:28 Jeering at him saying ( 150, 124 ) Matthew 27:29 In that knowledge, despair and die (152,126) Matthew 27:46 Warmth of his breath. ..came all over her ( 159, 132 ) John 20:22 A magic deeper still ( 159, 132 ) I Corinthians 2:7-8 Asian provided food (178, 147) John 6:1-14 He has other countries to attend to (180, 149) John 10:16

50. "Have you forgotten the Deep Magic?" asked the Witch. "Let us say I have forgotten it," answered Aslan gravely. "Tell us of this Deep Magic." "Tell you?" said the Witch, her voice growing suddenly shriller. "Tell you what is written on that very Table of Stone which stands behind us? Tell you what is written in letters deep as a spear is long on the fire-stones on the Secet Hill? Tell you what is engraved on the scepter of the Emperor-beyond the sea? You at least know the Magic which the Emperor put into Narnia at the very beginning. You know that every traitor belongs to me as my lawful prey and that for every treachery I have a right to a kill." "Oh," said Mr. Beaver. "So that's how you came to imagine yourself a queen -- because you were the Emperor's hangman. I see." (Deep Magic from The Dawn of Time) The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe "Have you forgotten the Deep Magic?" asked the Witch. "Let us say I have forgotten it," answered Aslan gravely. "Tell us of this Deep Magic." "Tell you?" said the Witch, her voice growing suddenly shriller. "Tell you what is written on that very Table of Stone which stands behind us? Tell you what is written in letters deep as a spear is long on the fire-stones on the Secet Hill? Tell you what is engraved on the scepter of the Emperor-beyond the sea? You at least know the Magic which the Emperor put into Narnia at the very beginning. You know that every traitor belongs to me as my lawful prey and that for every treachery I have a right to a kill." "Oh," said Mr. Beaver. "So that's how you came to imagine yourself a queen -- because you were the Emperor's hangman. I see." (Deep Magic from The Dawn of Time) Lucy and Mr. Tumnus Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie were sent away from their home, during the war, to the house of an old professor. To pass time, they start a game of hide and seek, because Professor Kirke didn’t mind them wandering around the enormous house. Lucy is the first to discover the secret of the wardrobe in the empty room, but soon enough, the other children follow. After they meet Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, the Pevensie children learn of the White Witch and her spell over Narnia, and they all decide to find Aslan and save Narnia- or do they all?