What’s wrong with CS Lewis?
asks Ed, and pascal disagrees with my comments. Well, pascal is often wrong about a lot of things but we won’t hold that against him.
CS Lewis is the sort of atheist-turned-christian that spends most of his life writing things that are ostensibly object lessons but are really written to try to convince himself that his conversion to Christianity has merit.
Bucketloads of people read his stuff, like Narnia and Screwtape, and shout with glee at the wonderfulness of it all, but in reality, Lewis has it so wrong he couldn’t be further from the truth of things. This is because he wants to make God in his own image, which is utter bullshit. This leads me to write a new Og’s law, and you can take this one to the bank:
Anything written by a man which purports to reveal the mind of the Creator is a humbug.
Contrast Narnia and Screwtape with Twain’s “Diary of Adam and Eve” which is intended to be humor, but which does a better job of helping us to understand the Creator and our place in the universe than Lewis ever could. Lewis took the morality of the church and wove a story around it; the outcome is much like weaving a silk purse from leather buggy-tugs. You get the idea, but it’s strained and doesn’t fit, and illustrates fairly well the nastiness of which humans are capable. On the other hand, “Adam and Eve” illustrate the innocence and also the frailties of humans, and each of us can see themselves in the words of Adam and Eve, and we realize how much like them we are, and it helps us to understand why we are charged with the moralities to which we should adhere.
This is just my personal opinion. A lot of people just think Lewis is IT. Good for them. Jehova’s witnesses and calvinists think they are IT also. Good for them. I’ve never had any use for any of it, for the reasons above. I am suspicious of anyone who writes to send a message. I’m even more suspicious of anyone who writes to send a message of their interpretation of God’s plan. They’re most often wrong.
13 comments Og | Uncategorized
This is good, Og. Nice take on CS Lewis. Though I like CS Lewis very much (a bit dry for my tastes), you seem to have a salient point that is difficult to address head on.
this is going in my Article and Quote Archives. Thanks!
I await the rebuttals from the avid fans of CS Lewis! I am hoping there veiw points will be just as interesting. Considering you have readers the likes of Pascal, I have a feeling I will not be disappointed.
You’re discounting what is right about Lewis, deliberately wearing blinders even.
His The Abolition of Man was dead on right. He revealed the perverted nature of those who aim to conditioner mankind into devaluing their own worth. He warned of this seventy years before it became as in the open as it is. And still most remain in denial.
Worse. In the novel version of Abolition, That Hideous Strength, Lewis preceded even Orwell in expressing how monstrous they could be.
You have told me you have no need to read either of these. That’s fine for you. Given your dismissal of Lewis on other grounds, I now understand your persistent, er, whatever.
Nevertheless, there are still too many people who will consistently deny to themselves that such monsters are on the verge of ruling the world. I already know your answer to the sleeping “tough, you’re too stupid to live.”
That’s clearly where you and I differ greatly. Reading Abolition — the most dry of Lewis’ works — might wake them up.
Here’s part of my own efforts of making it readable: Highlights from “The Abolition of Man.”
Lewis published that in a hostile environment. His warning was prescient. Can you give credit where credit is due?
When I was in fifth grade I read his Ransom Trilogy and quite enjoyed it. I tried reading the Narnia series after that, but never could maintain interest in it long enough to finish.
Conditioners, post-humanity world, the process of rendering man to mere bits of flesh and instinct (human cattle).
Yes. Very thought evoking quotes you presented, Pascal.
Thanks.
BobG: I hope you recall that the last of the Ransom trilogy was titled That Hideous Strength.
In it, the scientist who had brought back to life the head of the executed man said something you may have discounted at the time. Do you recall it? “We can keep him alive indefinitely; one cannot deny our little gift.” That is a sinister, bone-chilling thought; literally a Hell on Earth.
You’re welcome Cond. But thanks too to Og for prodding me to bring it to your attention.
“You’re discounting what is right about Lewis, deliberately wearing blinders even. ”
That is precisely what you’re doing. Project much?
Let me say one thing to you, P:
If you meet the Buddha on the road, Kill him.
Pascal: Believe me, I didn’t discount it at the time. I’ve re-read it a couple of times since, it still has the same effect on me.
In sixth grade, I read Stranger in A Strange Land; that also had an influence on me at that time.
Well, I read Screwtape in High School and liked it.
I’ve tried Narnia a couple times and stalled out, but I know people who strongly identify with scenes in it.
You guys have answered my question to some degree and I’ll probably read Ransom now. Thanks.
I have, however, enjoyed each screen adaptation of Narnia I’ve seen. The BBC and the Walden Media.
And I don’t believe Mere Christianity, at the risk of riling our host, was so much an attempt to convince himself as explain himself. But I’m no expert on the matter.
My next question (do I get two?) is, “What is the ‘kill Buddha’ reference?
@ Ed B:
The Kill Buddha reference is a book.
http://www.amazon.com/Meet-Buddha-Pilgrimage-Psychotherapy-Patients/dp/0553278320
BobG, then you probably agree with me that Og under appreciates Lewis. I could be wrong, but I know of no other author who predated Lewis with that one chilling line.
And let me share something even more revealing about that line and Og.
On more than one occasion Og has said to me something like “I’d resurrect Ayn Rand and CSLewis just so I could beat them senseless.” LOL
He’s probably sore at me for failing to ask him how he came to phrase his wistful musing that way. ;)
Ed: The “Kill Buddha” refers to a koan by Linji.
The point is, like Buddhists on the road to enlightenment, Christians on their journey through life are often distracted by people purporting to have a solid handle on the truth.
the fact is, CS lewis was on his journey. You’re on yours. If you accept CS Lewis (or Calvin, or Luther, or Mahomet, or ANYONE) as your guru on your journey, you have allowed yourself to be distracted from your true path.
Was CS Lewis wrong, or bad, or whatever? Surely not. Was he still searching for the identity of his own soul as he wrote? Most certainly, he was. Why in searching for the identity of your soul, should you follow the example of someone who has not found theirs yet?
I have personal issues with Lewis because the people who follow him tend to do so blindly, as if everything he said was some new sort of gospel, when it clearly is not.
This is at the core of evil today: the idea that you read something in a book that resonates with your personal beliefs, and you latch onto that book as if it were a life preserver in a storm. This is how Mao and Trotsky and Lenin acheived so many followers, people read their bullshit and found a piece here or there that resonated, and took the whole thing as The New Truth. Followers of CS Lewis in that respect are just as uninformed as followers of Lenin, or Marx, or Mahomet.
If you want to read Lewis, and learn something from him, that’s great! lewis doesn’t have a thing to teach me, and i suspect that the majority of readers here are more than clever enough that they can’t learn anything from him either. Want to learn something about what it is like to be a Christian?
pray, and go out into the world and live, and then pray some more. that’s how it’s done. It doesn’t come from any book written by man.
“Want to learn something about what it is like to be a Christian?”
Recently, I read a neat little anecdote that ‘You can’t be bitter and thankful at the same time’.
I do know that emotions can be vectoral (you can have mixed emotions – you know – simultaneously happy and sad about a certain issue), but to present those two emotions as having a scalar quality I found it rather intriguing and have given it much thought.
‘cannot be bitter and thankful at the same time’…
hmmm… the crazy stuff ones thinks about… :)