Apologists and the History of Apologetics - Article Example

«Apologists and the History of Apologetics» Clives Staples Lewis was born on 29th November 1898 and died on 22nd November, 1963, which happens to be the same day that John F. Kennedy was assassinated. His background is Irish Anglican, with strong ties to the British mainland. He had an older brother and at the age of eight the boys suffered the death of their mother, a psychological blow which was later to affect Jack, as C. S. Lewis was known to friends and family. He was subjected to intensive home tuition in preparation for an academic career, and showed an aptitude for languages and literatures from the very beginning. As a student he specialised in classics and medieval literatures, writing celebrated critical works on Milton and linguistics. While at university as a postgraduate and later as a teacher, Lewis came into contact with many Christians, both Anglican and Roman Catholic, and he debated all of his objections to organised religion with the likes of Tolkein (a Roman Catholic) and others who were atheist, agnostic or members of other faiths. He relates in Surprised by Joy how he tried to resist any conversion and first accepted, very reluctuantly, the existence of a God, without really knowing who or what this God was or what this commitment was going to mean. Later he describes going to a zoo, with his brother, and sitting in the sidecar of his brother’s motorbike, deciding that yes, after all, he would commit to a belief in the personal God of evangelical Christians. He was plagued by doubts, however, and dealt with this in works like The Screwtape Letters where he invents dialogues with a devil figure and supplies answers to the main objections to Christian belief that were circulating at the time. His main claim to fame then came to be his contribution to Christian apologetics, and his uniquely broad appeal through serious theology, children’s literature, personal biographical accounts, and many letters and discussions that he carried on throughout his life. He also wrote poetry, often with metaphysical themes, but it has largely been ignored by critics. The reluctant convert became the faith’s most successful proponent, arguably reaching more people through more decades than any official priest or theologian has ever done in the 20th century. As the films of his Narnia books continue to break records in new media like computer games and dvds there is every sign that this influence will continue well into the 21st century. Many contemporary Christians devoured his deceptively simple texts like Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain because they dealt with the big moral and spiritual issues of the day without descending into denominational controversies or very technical definitions. Lewis wears his knowledge lightly, preferring to explore deep truths through allegory and fiction, and debate theology through practical examples and dialogues. For many years he remained a bachelor, attracting some speculation about his sexual orientation, but in the end he married a Jewish divorcee with two young children, partly in order to secure her livelihood as an American citizen in post war Britain. Her death some years later from cancer prompted Lewis to write from a personal perspective on fundamental issues of human life on this earth and in the hereafter. C.S. Lewis was a very prolific writer and he has a large following in America and in Europe, reaching people who have long since left the established church and providing committed Christians with excellent theological sustenance in a language that almost everyone can understand. The article in question is that of Peter Kreeft entitled “Lewis’s Philosophy of Truth, Goodness and Beauty” published in 2008, and it is chosen because it highlights not only some of the contents of C.S. Lewis’ vast store of apologetic writings, but also because it illustrates the style that Lewis uses to get his deep ideas across to a very wide audience. Kreeft proposes that these three abstract notions of Truth, Goodness and Beauty are universally desired and that human cultures may specialize in one or the other of them, but that all human cultures desire them. Kreeft maintains without preamble that God revealed truth “especially through the philosophers”, good “especially through the prophets and moralists” and beauty “through the poets, artists, musicians, and mythmakers.” (p. 24). After this astonishing claim he identifies C. S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton as “the two greatest Christian writers and thinkers of the twentieth century” and notes with approval that both perceive the ancient pagan mythology as special carriers of beauty into the modern world. This line of thinking treads on dangerous ground, reviving an old argument which debates whether or not there can be absolute or universal truths outside the revelation of the Christian scriptures. The point of Augustine’s whole treatise De Doctrina Christiana, for example, was to remind Christians that the knowledge and eloquence of the classical poets and philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome may have been appropriate for them, but that they rest on a morally neutral basis of rhetoric. One needs only to think of the Socratic dialogues to realise that these thinkers could deliberately lead young minds to believe whatever proposition was put to them, so long as it could be persuasively communicated. The orthodoxy of Augustine maintains that Christian doctrine, on the other hand comes in simple, ordinary language and does not need the flamboyant style and finely wrought arguments that the ancient scholars used as a matter of course. Theologically, then, Kreeft is somewhat adrift of what C.S. Lewis himself believed but the connection with myth and storytelling is important for a different reason. The value of these texts is in their role as textbooks and primers in the field of education. In the first Christian schools and monasteries young learners had access to extracts from pagan writers only in the presence of a guiding schoolmaster. Learning to read and write is the first step to learning how to approach God’s revelation, and this is the message that Lewis brings via his stories for children. From this pedagogic perspective the hidden allegorical meanings and the power of symbolism are literary devices which underpin the way that God communicates with mankind. Kreeft correctly identifies one of C.S. Lewis’ major achievements, which was to take modern thinkers back to a time before the huge edifice of the medieval church had constructed its labyrinthine doctrines. There is a sense in which C.S. Lewis could think in the way that the ancients thought: in terms of classical philosophy worked out through dialectic method, and in terms of ancient myths that had deep moral resonance. Kreeft explains how C.S. Lewis used stories and myths to bypass modern scepticism so that the “gleams of celestial strength” could reach people’s hearts and minds. This is not to say that Lewis ever intended his stories to replace proper theology or divine revelation, but it merely points out that he used his literary talents to awaken his readers, receptiveness to spiritual and moral messages. The structures that Kreeft highlights are the triads which abound in the Bible such as prophet, priest and king or Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Perfection of these threes is always found in God, and the human soul, according to Kreeft seeks to reflect these three aspects from God . There are quotations from Lewis regarding the way goodness is relative to God, in other words that we should define what is good in terms of what God is like, rather than try to describe God in some abstract idea of goodness from some other source. Unfortunately, Kreeft’s effusive prose pushes these analogies beyond any reasonable limit, resulting in some trite analogies with contemporary popular culture: “Within Christ’s inner circle, we find John as the philosophical mystic; Peter as the rock, the leader; and James as the practical psychologist. The starship Soul, like the starship Enterprise, needs a science officer, a captain and a doctor.” (Kreef, 2008, p. 24) The structure of Kreef’s article follows a seven point checklist which he maintains Lewis follows in his treatment of Truth, Goodness and Beauty: namely logic, metaphysics, theology, epistemology, psychology, axiology and eschatology. This rather mixed bag of labels seems rather arbitrary, and Kreef cherry picks quotations from the whole Lewis oeuvre to back up this observation. Quoting from Letters to Malcolm, Kreef points out that Lewis expresses some impatience with conventional theology because of its dryness “like sawdust to me” (Kreef, 2008, p. 28) and its constant twisting and turning to fit whatever issue seems to affect contemporary society the most. Lewis himself brings theology back to the key point of relationship with a real and present divine being. The effect of reading this article is to bring the reader more firmly back to the work of C. S. Lewis, and this is because critics and theologians struggle to find an adequate framework in which to evaluate and categorize his achievements. Apologetics traditionally seeks to bring order and system into the vast accretion of materials over two millennia. C. S. Lewis cuts through all of this and returns to more instinctive ways of apprehending the numinous. Throughout his life Lewis found an avenue for defence of the faith in every discipline that he investigated, which shows that he lived out the theories that he promulgates in his religious texts. His personal journey through life exemplifies, in a way, the journey of mankind into the chaos of the twenty first century. Lewis started his investigation of Christian ideas long before he was ever convinced of their validity and relevance to himself. As a child subjected to intense home tuition in preparation for an academic career he engaged deeply in the “heathen” classics of the Greek and Roman world. At university he was enthralled by Milton’s and Dante’s fascinating portrayal of evil and lukewarm depiction of virtue. As a young lecturer he delved into myth and language, as if he would find there the meanings that he could not locate in society, until finally he submitted to the overwhelming pull of Christian belief. The long resistance, and the pursuit of stories and myths is a typical religious avoidance strategy, and leaves Lewis well placed to counter the objections of a twentieth century society that has lost contact with organized religion. What is interesting is that the establishment has to date not caught up with the potential of his apologetic style. The scholarly journals are full of Tillich and Kung, laying out intellectual arguments for a church-educated audience but they are distinctly silent on the seductive power of an apologist for the faith who transcends the usual boundaries and makes his case using multiple media. Lewis practices literary criticism in the way that the encyclopaedic commentators of the Dark Ages did, discerning the hand of God through etymology. In The Four Loves the Greek of the New Testament is interpreted in the context of Christian doctrine. Psychologists find in his more personal books like A Grief Observed a linkage between modern theories of the self and New Testament teachings on the afterlife. The allegorical method, a staple of the early patriarchs, is alive and well in Lewis’s fictional works providing an avenue for outreach that traditional congregations can only dream of. Kreeft’s article would not pass muster in more systematic theological circles, but in terms of identification of key issues and avenues for deeper research, it is exactly right. If the reader can tolerate a rather overblown and effusive style of writing, there are useful insights to be gained in terms of a simple, layman’s theology which rests on the earliest stages of the Church’s history and by-passes schisms and relativisms of modern and post-modern theological thinking. Literature Augustine. De Doctrina Christiana. Edited by R.P.H. Green. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. Codling, James L. Forgotten Foundations of Education. 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Foster, Brett. “An estimation of an admonition: The nature of value, the value of nature, and the Abolition of Man” Christian Scholar’s Review, 27. 4, 1998, 416-35. Hamilton, Mark. “C.S. Lewis on ‘Christian Apologetics’ ” Ashland Theological Journal 35 2003: 84 ff. Holmer, Paul L. C. S. Lewis: The Shape of His Faith and Thought. New York: Harper and Row, 1976. Holyer, Robert. “C.S. Lewis on the Epistemic Significance of Imagination.” Soundings 74 no 1 1991: 215-41. Hooper, Walter. Of This and Other Worlds. London: Collins, 1982. Linzy, Andrew. “C. S. Lewis’s Theology of Animals.” Anglican Theological Review 80, no 1, pp. 60 ff. Mackay, P. “The Role of Metaphor in Christian Thought and Experience as Understood by G. C. Clark and C. S. Lewis.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 24, 1981: 239-250. Kreeft, Peter. “Lewis’s Philosophy of Truth, Goodness and Beauty” in D. Baggert, G. Habermas et al (eds) C. S. Lewis as Philosopher: Truth, Goodness and Beauty. Downers Grove IL: Intervarsity Press, 2008, pp. 23-36. Taliaferro, Charles. “A Narnian Theory of Atonement” Scottish Journal of Theology 41, 1988: pp. 75ff. Walker, Andrew. “Scripture, Revelation and Platonism in C.S. Lewis” Scottish Journal of Theology 55 no 1, 2002: 19-35. Walker Andrew, and Patrick, James (eds). Rumours of Heaven: Essays in Celebration of C. S. Lewis. Guildford: Inter Publishing Service Ltd, 1998. Read More