Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: The C.S. lewis Institute presents an interview with Dr. Art Lindsley based on his book C.S. lewis Case for Christ, with Lisa Donner.
[00:00:28] Speaker B: Joining us today is Dr. Art Lindsley, author of the book CS Lewis Case for Christ.
Welcome and thanks for joining us, Art.
[00:00:36] Speaker A: Thank you, Lisa.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: Well, here we are, 50 years practically or more since CS Lewis has died. We're still talking about him, we're still writing about him. Why?
[00:00:47] Speaker A: Well, I think it was because he was able to state the perennial issues that people struggle with in a way that many pastors and theologians are not able to do. He was able to get at the heart of issues, perhaps because he'd been an unbeliever for quite a while and struggled with the real issues himself. He's able to get in touch with the intellectual questions and maybe the emotional feelings that are associated with atheism or unbelief.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: What does Lewis still bring to the table in terms of dealing with believers and unbelievers, and what does he really have to say to us today in the 21st century?
[00:01:24] Speaker A: Well, with regard to believers, he still states things in ways that are very persuasive. I know that Christianity Today, for instance, did a survey of the books that have most influenced Christianity Today leaders, and number one, other than the Bible, was mere Christianity by Lewis. So he's still very influential. And with non believers, we have more and more people that are aware of CS Lewis because of the films, the Narnia Chronicles that have come out and Shadowlands before that. And many people have started to read Lewis. They want to know more about him in every area.
So there's been a real exposure, continued exposure to Lewis, which Lewis felt that his books might go out of print immediately after he died. But and now even more of Narnia Chronicles and even more, the rest of his books are selling than ever.
[00:02:17] Speaker B: Is he better known for his children's works or his Christian literature?
[00:02:22] Speaker A: I would say it used to be that the Christian literature was best known by believers, of course, but now because of the Narnia films, many people, not only throughout the US but throughout the world.
It's interesting that people in Russia or China, South America, Africa, have seen the Narnia Chronicles and are now asking about this one. CS Lewis, he used to be pretty much limited to an English audience or English speaking audience, but now many other people know about him and are hungry to know more about him.
[00:02:53] Speaker B: As someone who studied Lewis writings and in depth for years, what can you tell us about him as a person? What shaped him? What formed him?
[00:03:05] Speaker A: Well, I'LL start with a picture from the end of who he was, something that exemplified his character. A few years ago, had a chance to be at Oxford for a few months, and we had two different days that we spent with Walter Hooper at the kilns with different groups of people and the kilns. The kilns is C.S. lewis's house that's now been turned into a place where people can go and visit or stay, actually, for a while if there's space available.
But in any case, Hooper was saying that he was so impressed by Lewis and he was the most godly person he'd ever met. And one of the examples he gave was that Lewis and Warren that lived together, lived on a very sparse budget. He never traveled overseas and he never bought new clothes. He didn't buy new cars, he didn't even fix up his house.
And they lived on a very low budget. And that's despite the fact that he got lots of royalties. Lewis gave away everything that he got from his royalties, and he also gave away about half of his salary and lived on a very meager budget.
And one time Hooper asked him, why do you give away so much? And he said, jesus has given so much to me. How can I not give everything to him? And that's something of his character. He became a very godly person. But of course, he didn't start out that way. It was a lifelong journey in terms of his growth.
[00:04:37] Speaker B: What were some of his early childhood experiences that maybe formed his character and his faith?
[00:04:44] Speaker A: Well, one of the things that was most devastating to him, born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, couple, very intelligent parents with many books in the house. In fact, there are books all along the hallways, books stacked very high in the attic. And so he would often read.
Both brothers were readers, and they would read on the many rainy days there in Ireland.
And later on, his mother came down with cancer and she died. Died when he was about 9 years old.
And he lost his mother and really, in essence, lost his father as well. His father was very withdrawn then, emotionally and perhaps dealing with his grief, and sent away both boys to a boarding school. And after his long research, and I'm sure, careful, carefully looking at these different schools, he sent them to exactly the wrong school, to a school that was with a headmaster who was declared very soon afterwards certifiably insane.
So it was a rather disastrous decision. It took a long time for Lewis to get over it or even come to terms with what had happened in those years, because it was very difficult and abusive environment in which to live. Later on he went and studied in some other boarding schools, and then later with a tutorial whose nickname is Kirk, later fought in the First World War and was wounded there, and afterwards went to Oxford.
And that's where he met J.R.R. tolkien. And Tolkien was part of the means that God used to bring him back to Christ. He wasn't too impressed with Tolkien when he started.
In fact, he said that Tolkien was a. He wrote in his journal, was a pale, fluent chapter, only needing a smack or so.
Later, though, he developed a very close relationship with Tolkien. They started out just having an occasional breakfast or lunch or dinner together, but gradually they became very fast friends.
[00:06:48] Speaker B: So you mentioned this fellow Kirk, who was a tutor. Was he a Christian?
[00:06:52] Speaker A: No, he was an atheist. And he didn't really argue his atheism, but it was quite obvious what he held.
He interrogated Lewis ruthlessly to clarify everything that he said, and really he took over a lot of Kirk's atheism. And that's one of the things that he had to get over, was a kind of rationalism or atheism that he held at that point.
[00:07:17] Speaker B: Can you outline a little bit how Lewis's journey from atheist to ardent Christian?
[00:07:25] Speaker A: Well, it's described in surprise by joy, but it started in inklings of joy or feelings that he had in reality. It really went through doubts that he had about mythology as he was coming up through his educational process.
The problem of evil, the idea that Christianity wasn't historical, or many other ideas that he picked up through his educational studies had to be overcome before he could come to faith. He eventually, though, addressed his imagination, and we'll talk about that later, I believe, and also his rational objections. And he ended up coming to believe in God first, and then two years later, believe in Christ. But his coming to believe in God was not a very dramatic or emotional conversion.
He said he felt the unrelenting approach of the one whom he desperately desired not to meet.
And finally, after a while, knelt in his rooms at Magdalen College, Oxford, he said, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all of England.
So it wasn't an emotional conversion. It was a yielding of his will. It started first with his imagination being impacted, his reason satisfied, and his will then submitted.
[00:08:57] Speaker B: In the first chapter of your book, you write, a person comes to be convinced not when one thing seems to prove faith is credible, but when everything confirms the teaching of that faith. Can you elaborate on that thought a little bit for us?
[00:09:12] Speaker A: Well, that was a paraphrase of something that G.K. chesterton had said and many other Believers since then have come to understand that people like Francis Schaeffer and others. But CS Lewis made a similar comment where he said, I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not because I see it clearly, but because by it I see everything else. There's a sense in which faith in Christ, through faith in Christ you're able to explain, or everything fits within the cosmos. It's like a puzzle where you have various pieces of the puzzle. But faith in Christ allows you to see that Chesterton and Lewis and Schaeffer and others realized that it was not only reason that led you to Christ and history, but your experience, your aspirations, your desires, your practice, living out your faith in your own personal life and then within social life.
You find that at every point that faith in Christ fits reality. And I think throughout Lewis works from various angles. Reason, imagination, experience and all these areas. He shows how faith in Christ fits from many different angles and directions. Not all just a direct linear argument, but from many different perspectives.
[00:10:30] Speaker B: Lewis encounter with unbelief is that which is really common to man. I mean, he struggled with a lot of the same issues that most people have when they come to faith. Can you outline a few of those for us on Lewis spiritual journey?
[00:10:45] Speaker A: Some of those I've already alluded to, but would be the idea of mythology, parallels between, say, ancient mythology and Christianity, the problem of evil, problems with prayer, and other specific topics that I address in the book there. Chronological snobbery was another one.
[00:11:06] Speaker B: Chronological snobbery, yes. We're going to get into it later.
[00:11:09] Speaker A: And we'll get into that later.
[00:11:10] Speaker B: All right. All right, let's spend a minute on the subject of prayer.
Most people are familiar with the atheist who says, I prayed to God, he didn't give me what I want, therefore there is no God. God does not exist.
Does it essentially sum up Lewis's difficulties with prayer and.
[00:11:30] Speaker A: Well, I would say not exactly.
He might have been impacted by praying for his mother's healing when he was about age 9 from cancer and perhaps was discouraged by God's not answering. But he doesn't allude to that really in his writings. I think the most specific problem that he addresses that during this time at the boarding school with the insane headmaster, he tried to put. But he had what he calls a false conscience about prayer. He'd been taught that when you pray, you need to mean what you said.
[00:12:04] Speaker B: Always a good idea.
[00:12:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
But he took it to the highest degree in that he'd always ask himself after he prayed, did I really mean what I said. And inevitably the question was, well, not fully. And so he'd try it again, and he'd ask himself again, did I mean what I said? And the answer was always, well, not 100%.
And so he would do it over and over again and stay up till all hours of the night trying to get his prayers right. And so that led to insomnia.
And he said he would have gone crazy if he hadn't stopped praying.
So it's interesting how false understandings of faith or overly scrupulous understandings can really discourage people from following the real thing.
[00:12:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
Thank you very much, Art. This has been a very enlightening time, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.
[00:12:51] Speaker A: Thank you, Lisa.
