C.S. Lewis’ Conversion: Part II

June 23, 8:56 AMJackson Presbyterian ExaminerDaniel Townsend

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There were a variety of factors that were significant in bringing Lewis back to the Christian faith. Shortly before entering Oxford, he’d come across Phantastes, a fantasy novel written by George MacDonald, a 19^th century Scottish minister. Lewis said the book “baptized” his imagination. It wasn’t until years later that Lewis said he was able to identify the book’s appeal being due to its “holiness.” Practically all of MacDonald’s writings, fiction and non-fiction, had spiritual themes. These had an effect on Lewis that didn’t materialize overnight. But a seed was planted in his subconscious. Later on, he came across G.K. Chesterton, whose essays he was thoroughly impressed by. “In reading Chesterton, as in reading MacDonald, I did not know what I was letting myself in for. A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. There are traps everywhere—‘Bibles laid open, millions of surprises,’ as Herbert says, ‘fine nets and stratagems.’ God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous.” (p. 191) Lewis would go on to consider Chesterton, an Anglican who converted to Roman Catholicism, “the most sensible man in England, bating, of course, his Christianity.”

2. The Road Back to Theism

When Lewis received a teaching position at Oxford, he began tutoring medieval and Renaissance literature, as well as some philosophy. In teaching philosophy Lewis came to terms with his own “philosophic idealism”, the belief that there is some kind of absolute in the universe, a “Spirit” from which everything else proceeds from. He was quick to distinguish this notion of “Spirit” from the “God of popular religion.” He though the “Spirit” to have projected reality out of itself, just as Shakespeare created Hamlet. Just as the characters in Shakespeare’s plays could never meet Shakespeare, Lewis believed no one could ever be in personal relationship with the “Spirit.”

It was unattainable and mysterious. This philosophic idealism, this vague belief in an impersonal “Spirit” not to be confused with “God” continued for quite some time, until Lewis read Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man. The effect it had on Lewis was profound. “For the first time I saw the whole Christian outline of history set out in a form that seemed to make sense.” (p.223) Chesterton’s book was written as a response to The Outline of History, written by atheist H.G. Wells.

When Lewis had arrived at the University, he said he was almost as much without a conscience as a boy could be. As he began to embrace philosophic idealism, Lewis tried harder and harder to live an ethical and moral life, to live in harmony with the “universal Spirit.” His attempts to be upright brought to the surface a side of Lewis that he himself was appalled by. “For the first time I examined myself with a seriously practical purpose. And there I found what appalled me; a zoo of lusts, a bedlam of ambitions, a nursery of fears, a harem of fondled hatreds.” (p.226) Being in such despair about the state of his own character, he sought help from the “Spirit.” Here he realized that the philosophical distinction between what he was doing and “prayer to God” couldn’t be sustained. “Idealism can be talked, and even felt; it cannot be lived,” Lewis said. “It became patently absurd to go on thinking of ‘Spirit’ as either ignorant of, or passive to, my approaches.” (p.227)

Lewis finally came to the point of realizing that this “Spirit” he’d talked of for so long could no longer be distinguished from God, so he surrendered his atheism. Here is Lewis’ own famous account of what happened:

“You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929, I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not see then what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms…The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.” (p. 228-229).

Lewis exchanged his atheism for Theism, but not Christianity. His conversion to Christ was still two years to come, in 1931. His becoming a Theist did not produce in him joy or relief, but rather more fear and panic. He was afraid that this God that he’d recently become acquainted with would start all kinds of uncomfortable “interferences” in his soul. Nevertheless, he felt it his responsibility to obey. Lewis, at this point, believed in no afterlife. His obedience to God had no basis in an expectation of heaven or a dread of hell. “I had been brought up to believe that goodness was goodness only if it was disinterested, and that any hope of reward or fear of punishment contaminated the will…God was to be obeyed simply because he was God.” (p. 231)

Lewis felt like he should make his conversion to Theism public, so he began to assemble with other religious people. “As soon as I became a Theist I started attending my parish church on Sundays and my college chapel on weekdays; not because I believed in Christianity, nor because I thought the difference between it and simple Theism a small one, but because I thought one ought to ‘fly one’s flag’ by some unmistakable overt sign.” (p. 233) This was hard for Lewis, who by nature was a shy man. He couldn’t see the point of getting together with crowds of religious people. Meeting privately by twos or threes to talk of spiritual matters seemed much more practical.

Lewis hated hymns and he hated organs. In retrospect, Lewis said he didn’t think his attending chapel and church had much to do with helping convert to Christ. It was, on the whole, an unpleasant experience, one he did out of a sense of duty, and for no other reason.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. C.S. Lewis, Surprised By Joy: The Shape of My Early Life (Orlando, Florida: Harcourt Books, 1955).