Christianity and Literature

Christianity and Literature

Lewis here writes about Christianity and literature, specifically what is Christian literature and how does it differ with secular literature. He read this paper to a religious society at Oxford fairly early in his Christian walk. The question he seems to be answering is, "What is Christian literature?" His main argument is that the rules for good literature are the same for both Christian and non-Christian. He writes, "The rules for writing a good passion play or a good devotional lyric are simply the rules for writing tragedy or lyric in general;" He goes on to use a typical Lewisian styly argument by discussing a Christian cook book, "Boiling an egg is the same process whether you are a Christian or a Pagan."

He then adds to his argument a very important point, that the Christian view of literature must be that attitude of excellence. He uses two points, "I admit freely that to believe in the Incarnation at all is to believe that every mode of human excellence is implicity in His historical human character: poethood, of course, included." His second point goes with this one, "Applying this principle to literature, in its greatest generality, we should get as the basis of all critical theory the maxim that an author should never conceive himself as bringing into existence beauty or wisdom which did nor exist before, but simply and solely as trying to embody in terms of his own art some reflection of eternal Beauty and Wisdom." As we look at both of these points his argument becomes clear, we are to reflect the image of Christ's character and beauty in the literature we write.

Lewis wrote about this concept in Letters of C. S. Lewis "Creation as applied to human authorship seems to me to be an entirely misleading term. We rearrange elements He has provided. There is not a vestige of real creativity de novo in us."

Lewis' argument is quite sound here. It works well with the intended audience. I found his insights to be helpful in understanding true creativity. That which flows from us is truly creative when we reflect Christ's image best.

Christianity and Culture

What is the value of culture? This is the question that Lewis is addressing in this essay. He wrote this collection of papers for a periodical called Theology. They were published in March 1940. He seems to have wrestled with the amount of attention he should be giving to culture because of his faith. Was culture a means of salvation? That is to say is the more cultured person more able to understand the claims of the gospel and come to faith in Christ? Or is the other way around? The cultural minded person is less able to come to Christ and he must lay down all of his cultural understanding to come to Christ?

The argument he is putting forward goes something like this, culture is a reflection of Christian values. These values are not explicitly the same as Christian virtues, they are shadows or remembrances of the real thing. The illustrations he uses are very good. He says, "They resemble the regenerate life only as affection resembles charity, or honour resembles virtue, or the moon the sun. But though the 'like is not the same', it is better than unlike." In this sense culture can be an instrument of salvation for some, though not all. This will also give a good reason for the pursuit of a better cultural understanding, through the understanding of culture we better understand how the biblical truths become relevant in society.

His argument seems to me to be sound. He is addressing people who are interested in theology and he is making a strong theological argument. As far as problems or weaknesses in it I would say I wished he held to the total depravity of man because from my own perspective I don't see that as a contradiction to what he is saying. We from a reformed perspective do believe that man still shows forth in some degree the Glory of God. This doesn't mean the same thing as total depravity which I think Lewis assumes it does. In Lewis' mind I think he would say that if man was totally depraved there would not be any of the image of God left in him. I just think Lewis didn't completely understand the reformed position.

Religion: Reality of Substitute

What is real and what is the substitute? That is the question Lewis is trying to answer here. He isn't really dealing with the issue of communion versus the Jewish sacrificial system, what he is dealing with is the spiritual realm and the physical realm of life in general. He is speaking about our Christian faith. Is what we believe real or what we perceive the real thing.

He uses several good illustrations to make his point that perception has more to do with our own introspection than with reality. We perceive things a certain way because we have a philosophy of life apart from faith through which we interpret feelings. Lewis puts it this way, "I am only trying to put the whole problem the right way round, to make it clear that the value given to the testimony of any feeling must depend on our whole philosophy, not our whole philosophy on a feeling." The real problem then according to Lewis is we may have the wrong philosophy. Lewis goes on to point out the real issue is faith. Any philosophy that doesn't begin with faith as a central position is a bad philosophy.

He also states the reason, authority, and experience are things that faith can use to bring us the truth. Only through a philosophical view based on faith can we correctly perceive the feelings that are inevitable in our lives. He sees faith as a gift and one that we should ask God for.

His argument is biblical, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast."

Ephesians 2:8-9 NKJV Note in these verses that faith is the gift of God. We don't earn faith nor do we inherently have faith within ourselves. Faith is something God provides for us in order for us to be saved.

On Ethics

The question Lewis addresses in this essay is whether the world needs to return to explicitly Christian ethics to stop the decay of society or whether the puritanical ethics of Christianity are really the scourge of society and has been the cause of all the problems. Both of these ideas were present in Lewis' time as they are now in our time. Lewis' main argument is that they are asking the wrong question. He is not going to side with either one