C.S. Lewis on Christianity

C.S. Lewis’s work reveals how Christianity fulfills and answers the philosophical questions about justice and the good. This ability to demonstrate the reasons for the faith, in clear and beautiful language, makes C.S. Lewis the best teacher of Christianity in the modern world.

Lewis argues that morality is not only objective, but also that it is universally understood as such. He explains that the awareness of these axiomatic moral truths—what he calls “the Tao” in The Abolition of Man—is what makes us human, and thus our very humanity is threatened by the rise of subjectivism in the West.

The universal human experiences of shame and guilt attest not only to the existence of an objective moral law, but also a moral law giver. Christian conversion calls believers to live according to the moral law by first dying to their old life and then rising to a place higher than before. C.S. Lewis illustrates this bittersweet, downward-then-upward pattern of conversion in several of his fictional and philosophical works.

C.S. Lewis’s account of his conversion in Surprised by Joy makes a crucial distinction between contemplation and enjoyment. While Lewis understood the place for theoretical knowledge in the Christian life, he believed it was secondary to the enjoyment of participating fully in the experience of the faith.

C.S. Lewis’s distinction between contemplation and enjoyment extended to his practice of the Christian faith through prayer and reading the Bible. Lewis viewed prayer as a challenge—a task to be completed—until he recognized prayer as our participation in the cycle of God talking to and for creation. Moreover, Lewis recognized that the Bible is best understood and enjoyed by focusing on Christ as the interpretive key that unites the written Word.

The Problem of Pain and A Grief Observed offer two very different approaches to suffering. In the former, Lewis addresses the intellectual problem raised by the existence of pain in a world created by a good and all-powerful God; and, in the latter, he presents a deeply personal account of his own suffering.

C.S. Lewis writes that “we know much more about heaven than hell, for heaven is the home of humanity.” The Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce vividly illustrate the meaning of this statement, as Lewis shows that heaven was prepared for humans to become most fully themselves, while hell is a place for those who have abolished their humanity.