This is a collection of comments and quotes by CS Lewis I have found over the years. I took a class in the writings of CS Lewis when I was in college where we read 12 more of his books, not including the Chronicles of Narnia and discussed them. I also read and debated more of them in a Christian Literature Class, so I am quite familiar with what he wrote and claimed to believe or be open to. Our professor knew him personally.

Most people who hold to the beliefs sited below would be considered heretics by the church and the person’s state of grace questioned. The blanket acceptance of Lewis by many as a useful author or even Christian scholar is evidence of the dead state of much of professing Christendom today. He may have been an interesting fictional writer who wrote on Christian related topics, but not a sound or reliable teacher as you will find below. Lewis believed in evolution and denied that Christ was the only way to God, and did not believe the scriptures are the infallibly inspired word of God. He held to works salvation and purgatory. Did you miss this when you read his books?

CS Lewis was not an evangelical and definitely not a follower of the Protestant Reformation. He was a modern Anglican, basically a catholic of the English version, though not controlled by Rome, but continuing in much the same doctrine and practice.

Consider the danger in reading teachers with such erroneous beliefs, and especially letting children read them, because they may slip some false thoughts into the mind, at least, would it not be preferable and more edifying and glorious to God to read authors sound in the faith and endorse them and commend them as examples to others?

If one feels the liberty to read those like Lewis, as they would read other non-christian writings, or error laden religious works, then at least warn others of his errors and to be careful of picking up any false ideas from him. But consider, does not all we expose ourselves to influence our thinking?  Should we not seek to keep ourselves from the world and error that may influence our mind, and especially when it is posing as christian it is all the worse? Think on things that are good, pure lovely. If one called a brother walks in sin have no company with them is what scripture commands.

Lewis is popular because he is easy to read, and has a moralistic view of Christianity that even the unconverted can feel comforted that they follow and are in the faith. One who comments below raises a question, why quote Lewis. I would go farther to say, Why are we even reading Lewis, when there are so many much better Christian authors that will give you far more spiritual understanding and spiritual gain for your time.  And who are not so confused about scripture and God and do not expose people to being confused or misled by errors.
Based on quotes from Lewis below I would no longer read Lewis and have not in over 40 years since those college classes, nor would I recommend him to anyone and I discourage others from quoting him as an authority.  though a broken clock is right twice a day we would not recommend it as reliable. ~ DP

Lewis Believed Christ was not the only way to God and salvation. A pagan might actually belong to Christ without the gospel, though they don’t know it. 

“There are people in other religions who are being led by God’s secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it … For example a Buddhist of good will may be led to concentrate more and more on the Buddhist teaching about mercy and to leave in the background (though he might still say he believed) the Buddhist teaching on certain points. Many of the good Pagans long before Christ’s birth may have been in this position” (Mere Christianity, pp. 176-177).

“I think that every prayer which is sincerely made even to a false god or to a very imperfectly conceived true God, is accepted by the true God and that Christ saves many who do not think they know Him.” (Letters of C. S. Lewis, 428.)

“I have the deepest respect for Pagan myths, still more for myths in the Holy Scriptures” (PP, p.71). CS Lewis

But God says:
Act 4:12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

Prov 28:9 One who turns away his ear from hearing the law, Even his prayer is an abomination.  NKJV

Prov 15:29 The LORD is far from the wicked, But He hears the prayer of the righteous.

Mic 3:4 Then they will cry to the LORD, But He will not hear them; He will even hide His face from them at that time, Because they have been evil in their deeds. NKJV

John 9:31 Now we know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does His will, He hears him. NKJV

Ps 66:18 18 If I regard iniquity in my heart, The Lord will not hear. NKJV

Heb_12:17  For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.

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It’s not uncommon to hear people quote CS Lewis. I think for many folks, he should be considered the Protestant pope if ever there should’ve been one. He’s written many books. I remember one of the books assigned to the 101 students in Bible college was Lewis’ Mere Christianity. As I became more interested in Lewis’ work, I did some more digging through his material. But I found that the deeper I went, the more shocked I became at some of the stuff Lewis has said. Here are some of his quotes on serious Biblical teachings so you can see for yourself. You might walk away from reading this asking the same question I eventually asked myself – “Why are we quoting CS Lewis?”

God did not create man from the dust of the earth.  Humanity actually came from centuries of God gradually perfecting animals. In other words, theistic evolution:

“For long centuries God perfected the animal form which was to become the vehicle of humanity and the image of Himself. He gave it hands whose thumb could be applied to each of the fingers, and jaws and teeth and throat capable of articulation, and a brain sufficiently complex to execute all the material motions whereby rational thought is incarnated. The creature may have existed for ages in this state before it became man: it may even have been clever enough to make things which a modern archaeologist would accept as proof of its humanity. But it was only an animal because all its physical and psychical processes were directed to purely material and natural ends. Then, in the fullness of time, God caused to descend upon this organism, both on its psychology and physiology, a new kind of consciousness which could say “I” and ”me”, which could look upon itself as an object, which knew God, which could make judgments of truth, beauty, and goodness, and which was so far above time that it could perceive time flowing past.
This new consciousness ruled and illuminated the whole organism, flooding every part of it with light, and was not, like ours, limited to a selection of the movements going on in one part of the organism; namely the brain. Man was then all consciousness.” (The Problem of Pain, p. 177).

Lewis believed man is an animal:  “When we come to man, the highest of the animals, we get the completest resemblance to God which we know of.” (p.139)

But God tells us in Genesis 2:20 And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.  No help meet for Adam’s needs could be found for him among the animals because he was not an animal!  He needed someone created in the image of God like he was himself.  God knew this and did so.  Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Lewis casts many of the animals as being “like God” in some way since this is necessary to arrive at what the Bible says without actually taking it literally.  Thus, man is the closest is what he says in the following quotes.

“I have therefore no difficulty accepting, say, the view of those scholars who tell us that the account of Creation in Genesis is derived from earlier Semitic stories which were Pagan and mythical.” (Reflections on the Psalms- p.110)

“I had some ado to prevent Joy and myself from relapsing into Paganism in Attica! At Daphni it was hard not to pray to Apollo the Healer. But somehow one didn’t feel it would have been very wrong – would have only been addressing Christ sub specie Apollinis.” (C.S. Lewis: A Biography, pg. 276)

Describing Christ as a lower form of the pagan sun god Apollos is blasphemy!
If you are interested, I suggest you go research C.S. Lewis if you still don’t believe that he is a  false teacher. There is much info on his life and his works fully documented online and in books. I recommend you read concerning the heresies and hidden satanic themes Lewis introduces in his works and the popular, Chronicles of Narnia.

In Narnia Lewis write about pagan creatures which are gods and worshiped by some people and many in ancient times. Lewis believed in purgatory and has attracted readers who are Mormons, Catholics, etc. The very fact that he attracted these sort of groups (who teach a works gospel, and other heresies, etc.) should be an immediate warning flag to any believer (see 2 Corinthians 6:14). Lewis’ buddies Charles Williams and J.R.R. Tolkien influenced him into his belief system of idolatry and witchcraft and he tried to mix it in with Christianity. One very troubling thing I have seen is the fact that Christians have openly said that paganism could have been used to bring the message of Christ to the world. That is utter blasphemy. This is the sort of stuff young kids and other people are believing because of reading C.S. Lewis’ works of darkness! Here’s a quote from him: “…as I believe, Christ,…fulfills both Paganism and Judaism…”; p. 129; Reflections on the Psalms ”

CS Lewis decided to write a book about prayer. January 5, 1953, he wrote to Father Giovanni Calabria the following:

“I invite your prayers about a work which I now have in hand. I am trying to write a book about private prayers for the use of the laity, especially for those who have been recently converted to the Christian faith and so far are without any sustained and regular habit of prayer. I tackled the job because I saw many no doubt very beautiful books written on this subject of prayer for the religious but few which instruct tiros and those still babes (so to say) in the Faith. I find many difficulties nor do I definitely know whether God wishes me to complete this task or not.”

A year later he abandoned the book he had started. He wrote to Sister Penelope CSMV in February 15, 1954 the following:

 “I have had to abandon the book on prayer: it was clearly not for me.”

Ten years later, he decided to continue the book. It became Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer. The book is basically CS Lewis writing to a fictitious character named Malcolm. In the book we can see that Lewis had some “interesting” theology. He admits that he prays for the dead, and believes in Purgatory and note in the following paragraphs that he believes Christ does not cleanse us from all sin, we must also suffer to be cleansed before entering heaven:

“Of course I pray for the dead. The action is so spontaneous, so all but inevitable, that only the most compulsive theological case against it would deter me. And I hardly know how the rest of my prayers would survive if those for the dead were forbidden. At our age the majority of those we love best are dead. What sort of intercourse with God could I have if what I love best were unmentionable to Him?

 On the traditional Protestant view, all the dead are damned or saved. If they are damned, prayer for them is useless. If they are saved, it is equally useless. God has already done all for them. What more should we ask? But don’t we believe that God has already done and is already doing all that He can for the living? What more should we ask? Yet we are told to ask.

“Yes,” it will be answered, “but the living are still on the road. Further trials, further developments, possibilities of error, await them. But the saved have been made perfect. They have finished the course. To pray for them presupposes that progress and difficulty are still possible. In fact, you are bringing in something like Purgatory.”

Well, I suppose I am. Though even in Heaven some perpetual increase of beatitude, reached by a continually more ecstatic self-surrender, without the possibility of failure but not perhaps without its own ardours and exertions—for delight also has its severities and steep ascents, as lovers know—might be supposed. But I won’t press, or guess, that side for the moment. I believe in Purgatory.

Mind you, the Reformers had good reasons for throwing doubt on “the Romish doctrine concerning Purgatory” as that Romish doctrine had then become. I don’t mean merely the commercial scandal [that is, the selling of indulgences]. If you turn from Dante’s Purgatorio to the sixteenth century you will be appalled by the degradation. In Thomas More’s Supplication of Souls Purgatory is simply temporary Hell. In it the souls are tormented by devils, whose presence is “more horrible and grievous to us than is the pain itself.” Worse still, [John] Fisher, in his Sermon on Psalm VI, says the tortures are so intense that the spirit who suffers them cannot, for pain, “remember God as he ought to do.” in fact, the very etymology of the word purgatory has dropped out of sight. Its pains do not bring us nearer to God, but make us forget Him. It is a place not of purification but purely of retributive punishment.

The right view returns magnificently in [John Henry] Newman’s Dream[of Gerontius]. There, if I remember it rightly, the saved soul, at the very foot of the throne, begs to be taken away and cleansed. It cannot bear for a moment longer “With its darkness to affront that light.” Religion has claimed Purgatory.*

Our souls demand Purgatory, don’t they? Would it not break the heart if God said to us, “It is true, my son, that your breath smells and your rags drip with mud and slime, but we are charitable here and no one will upbraid you with these things, nor draw away from you. Enter into the joy”? Should we not reply, “With submission, sir, and if there is no objections, I’d rather be cleaned first.” “It may hurt, you know”—”Even so, sir.”

I assume that the process of purification will normally involve suffering. Partly from tradition; partly because most real good that has been done me in this life has involved it. But I don’t think suffering is the purpose of the purgation. I can well believe that people neither much worse not much better than I will suffer less than I or more. “No nonsense about merit.” The treatment given will be the one required, whether it hurts little or much.

My favourite image on this matter comes from the dentist’s chair. I hope that when the tooth of life is drawn and I am “coming round,” a voice will say, “Rinse your mouth out with this.” This will be Purgatory. The rinsing may take longer than I can now imagine. The taste of this may be more fiery and astringent than my present sensibility could endure. But More and Fisher shall not persuade me that it will be disgusting and unhallowed. (Letters to Malcolm, p. 107-109).

“…whatever inconceivable purification it may cost you after death.”  (p.108, 172, 174, 175, 182)

But in spite of Lewis’ own ideas which he sets above the very clear word of God, we have this clear teaching. 2 Cor 5:6 So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. 7 For we walk by faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. NKJV

How salvation (the general scope) works: “There are people in other religions who are being led by God’s secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it … For example a Buddhist of good will may be led to concentrate more and more on the Buddhist teaching about mercy and to leave in the background (though he might still say he believed) the Buddhist teaching on certain points. Many of the good Pagans long before Christ’s birth may have been in this position” (MC, pp. 176-177). God “often makes prizes of humans who have given their lives for causes He thinks bad on the monstrously sophistical ground that the humans thought them good and were following the best they knew” (SL, p.26). “There are three things that spread the Christ-life to us: baptism, belief, and that mysterious action which different Christians call by different names — Holy Communion, the Mass, the Lord’s Supper” (Mere Christianity, pp.62,63). In the other world “there will be every occasion for being the sort of people that we can become only as the result of doing such acts here” (MC, p.63).

On being “Born Again”: “… ye must be born again. Till then, we have duty, morality, the Law. A schoolmaster, as St. Paul says…. But the schooldays, please God, are numbered” (LM, p.115). [Note: In context, to be “born again,” for Lewis, is somewhere down the road yet (MC, pp.59,60).]

We’re saved by works according to Lewis … There are three things that spread the Christ-life to us: baptism, belief, and that mysterious action which different Christians call by different names–Holy Communion, the Mass, the Lord’s Supper” (pp.62,63).  Titus 3:5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; Added to this he says that in the next life “there will be every occasion for being the sort of people that we can become only as the result of doing such acts here” (p.63) [Emphasis added.]  So, he literally believed that this was the “only” way to be saved. Lewis is also wiping out any difference between the Lord’s supper of true Christians and the Roman Mass. Jesus told us clearly that it is to be in remembrance of me.” 1 Corinthians 11:24.   He lumps all beliefs about it into one and claims it is part of salvation as well as calling Roman Catholics “Christians”! ”

When Lewis’ carnal mind could not understand a scripture passage he simply rejected it or mocked it and Christ. In his book The World’s Last Night and Other Essays on pages 98-99, Lewis said, “Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place… certainly the most embarrassing verse in the Bible. The one exhibition of error and the one confession of ignorance grow side by side. That they stood thus in the mouth of Jesus himself and were not merely placed thus by the reporter, we surely need not doubt… The facts, then, are these: that Jesus professed himself (in some sense) ignorant, and within a moment showed that he really was so.”

In this day when the false church on the wide road is so prevalent, so much tolerance of weak teaching, so little discipline in the churches, and such a wide breadth of interpretation and teaching deviating from scripture that is tolerated, doesn’t it make sense to make every effort to only recommend good sound teachers to our reading and example and warn people against those who hold dangerous errors?

It is not our duty to be PC politically correct and tolerant of all but rather we are commanded to: Eph 5:11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.

1 Tim 6:3 If anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which accords with godliness, 4 he is proud, knowing nothing, but is obsessed with disputes and arguments over words, from which come envy, strife, reviling, evil suspicions, 5 useless wranglings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. From such withdraw yourself.

Gal 1:8-But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.

Titus 1:13 Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, 14 not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men who turn from the truth.

2 Tim 4:1 I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: 2 Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke , exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. 5 But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. NKJV

 

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How “Christian” was C.S. Lewis…and Why is He an Evangelical Hero?    by Mike Duran

His books have influenced more Christians than possibly any other author; his stories are classics, beloved by children and adults alike. There are foundations to his legacy, a movie about him, bumper stickers that quote him and his caricature can be found on t-shirts and coffee mugs. C.S. Lewis is the poster boy for “Christian thinkers,” inspiration for vast numbers of Christian authors, an icon in the already crowded pantheon of religious heroes.
But does he deserve the acclaim? Not only do some question the uncritical embrace of Lewis by American evangelicals, they question his Christian faith. Christianity Today columnist Bob Smietana, in an article entitled, C.S. Lewis Superstar, sums up the essence of the “Lewis resistance” :

Clive Staples Lewis was anything but a classic evangelical, socially or theologically. He smoked cigarettes and a pipe, and he regularly visited pubs to drink beer with friends. Though he shared basic Christian beliefs with evangelicals, he didn’t subscribe to biblical inerrancy or penal substitution. He believed in purgatory and baptismal regeneration.
How did someone with such a checkered pedigree come to be a theological Elvis Presley, adored by evangelicals?

Somehow, Lewis’ “checkered pedigree” has become of little concern to the average evangelical admirer. Nevertheless, some have described his Christianity as a “myth” and John Robbins goes so far as to ask, Did C.S. Lewis Go to Heaven? In his essay, Robbins concludes, “So we ask again: Did C. S. Lewis go to Heaven? And our answer must be: Not if he believed what he wrote in his books and letters.” For instance:

 

He was unusually tolerant of mythology and paganism. On a visit to Greece with his wife in 1960, Lewis made the following unusual statement: “I had some ado to prevent Joy (and myself) from lapsing into paganism in Attica! AT DAPHNI IT WAS HARD NOT TO PRAY TO APOLLO THE HEALER. BUT SOMEHOW ONE DIDN’T FEEL IT WOULD HAVE BEEN VERY WRONG–WOULD HAVE ONLY BEEN ADDRESSING CHRIST SUB SPECIE APOLLONIUS” (C.S. Lewis to Chad Walsh, May 23, 1960, cited from George Sayer, Jack: A Life of C.S. Lewis, 1994, p. 378).

 

 

Perhaps these are why renowned Welsh preacher D. Martin Lloyd-Jones warned that C.S. Lewis had a defective view of salvation and was an opponent of the substitutionary and penal view of the atonement (Christianity Today, Dec. 20, 1963). And in a letter to the editor of Christianity Today, Feb. 28, 1964, Dr. W. Wesley Shrader, First Baptist Church, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, warned that “C.S. Lewis … would never embrace the (literal-infallible) view of the Bible” (F.B.F. News Bulletin, Fundamental Baptist Fellowship, March 4, 1984). Andrew Greeley in an article entitled, Narnia: Not Just for Evangelicals writes, C.S. Lewis was not a Christian in the sense of the word that “evangelicals” insist upon. He was an Anglican who sometimes skirted, in his writings at any rate, dangerously close to the thin ice of Catholicism. Indeed, many in my generation of Catholics simply assumed he was one of us. But even as an Anglican he would certainly fall out of the realm of the “saved” when the Rapture blasts all of us who do not believe in word-for-word inerrancy into oblivion.

Despite all this, C.S. Lewis is still considered one of the greatest Christian theologians, thinkers and authors of all time. But why? Of course, disbelieving in the inerrancy of Scripture is far more serious than smoking tobacco and swilling suds. But nowadays a Christian author / thinker who smoked cigarettes, drank beer, believed in evolution, felt compelled to pray to Apollo, and rejected biblical inerrancy would have about as much chance of becoming an evangelical hero as Paris Hilton does of becoming relevant. So, given the facts, how “Christian” was C.S. Lewis. . . and why is he an evangelical hero?

He believed in a type of “soft universalism.” “[H]ere are people who do not accept the full Christian doctrine about Christ but who are so strongly attracted by Him that they are His in a much deeper sense than they themselves understand. There are people in other religions who are being led by God’s secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it. For example, a Buddhist of good will may be led to concentrate more and more on the Buddhist teaching about mercy and to leave in the background (though he might still say he believed) the Buddhist teaching on certain other points. Many of the good Pagans long before Christ’s birth may have been in this position” (Mere Christianity pp 176-177).

He believed in purgatory. In Letters to Malcolm, he wrote “I believe in Purgatory. The right view returns magnificently in Newman’s Dream. There if I remember rightly, the saved soul, at the very foot of the throne, begs to be taken away and cleansed. It cannot bear for a moment longer with its darkness to affront that light. Our souls demand Purgatory, don’t they?” (pp. 110-111)

He believed in prayers for the dead. In Letters to Malcolm, he wrote, “Of course I pray for the dead. The action is so spontaneous, so all but inevitable, that only the most compulsive theological case against it would deter men. And I hardly know how the rest of my prayers would survive if those for the dead were forbidden” (p. 109).

And now a brief list of the errors (heresy) of Lewis:

He embraced Purgatory

He rejected Biblical Inerrancy

He embraced Prayer for the Dead

He embraced the Theory of Evolution

He attended the Catholic Confessional

He rejected Substitutionary Atonement

He embraced The Almighty Will of Man (Free Will)

He claimed that we will all be made a ‘god’ or ‘goddess,’ respectively.

He embraced the Catholic Mass as a ‘mere’ expression of the Lord’s Supper.

He requested the Last Rites by a heretically ordained Catholic Priest before his death.

He taught that salvation was possible outside of Christ and that ‘good pagans’ are ‘led by God’ and ‘belong to Christ without knowing it.’

If you can believe it, this is an abridged version of a list of heresies and rejected-truths that are clearly taught as sound doctrine in the Word of God. To his shame, Mr. Lewis appears to have been more of a product of his postmodern environment than he thought. The spiritual relativity of the last indictment, in my judgment, is enough to reduce his claims of knowing the King of Kings to absurdity.

In my experience, a defense of this man is usually stimulated by an affection of the childlike behavior; desire to enjoy the world, and the subsequent sensuality that Lewis produced in His works. Please do not misunderstand. Childlike faith, enjoying God’s creation and God-centered emotions are good and profitable things. The flaw of course is that Lewis took them all too far. He remained childlike to the point of not growing up to Salvation as we are instructed in 1 Peter 2:2. He loved the world so much that he drank beer, wine, and whiskey on a daily basis. And I believe that it was his emotions that often determined his theology, not the Bible.

I once spoke with a minister who supports Lewis and admitted that Lewis is not theologically reliable and he is not a writer that every Christian should read. I was also told a story of how Lewis destroyed the Biblical view of the will of man in the life of a young professing Christian. Those of us who realize the total dependency on God in our lives and that apart from Christ we can do nothing also realize that we are fragile doubters who are prone to wander from the God that we love. Why, oh why would we ever subject our minds to a man who rejects so many Truths of the God who saved us? Christians… Why play with fire? Why put poison in the bottle of infants? How much false doctrine will it take for people to acknowledge that CS Lewis didn’t believe the Gospel? We must judge fruit, and the tree of CS Lewis didn’t even have a root.

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Lots more short quotes, not all I agree are certain, but do show errors Lewis held to and included in his writings  http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Wolves/cs_lewis-heretic.htm

You may not know that:

Reflections on the Psalms

He calls these Psalms contemptible (21-22) and devilish (25). Lewis believes these Psalms distort the truth of God, but God’s hatred for sin is yet shown somehow through them (32).

The fourth and final issue I observed was Lewis’ Neo-orthodox approach to the Scriptures. Based on Lewis’ own words, it seems he holds that the Scriptures are not the Word of God literally, but the words of God written in the words of men. For example, on page 97, Lewis says concerning “the bargaining Psalms,”

As for the element of bargaining in the Psalms (Do this and I will praise you), that silly dash of Paganism certainly existed. The flame does not ascend pure from the altar. But the impurities are not its essence. And we are not all in a position to despise even the crudest Psalmists on this score. Of course we would not blunder in our words like them.

Lewis clearly says here that some of the Psalms were not divinely inspired or if they were, that they are not the “essence” of what God intended. They are not as “pure” as they were on the altar. He believes something is lost when God’s infinite Word is given to the finite. The problem with this is that Christians are only left with ectypal knowledge of God; and thus, God may be unknowable.

Lewis furthermore makes his Neo-orthodox approach clear on pages 111-117. Concerning the Scriptures, he says, “The human qualities of the raw materials show through. Naivety, error, contradiction, even wickedness are not removed (111).” Furthermore, Lewis argues:

The total result is not “the Word of God” in the sense that every passage, in itself, gives impeccable science or history. It carries [Emphasis mine] the Word of God; and we (under grace, with attention to tradition and to interpreters wiser than ourselves, and with the use of such intelligence and learning as we may have) receive that word from it not by using it as an encyclopedia or an encyclical but by steeping ourselves in its tone or temper and so learning its overall message (112).

If the Scriptures only “carry” the Word of God, then how can the church know which ectypal aspect carries enough archetypal truth for His church to know Him? The answer is that the church cannot know if the Neo-orthodox view is true.

In the same vein as above, Lewis argues for more than one meaning for the Scriptures themselves. He writes:

If the Old Testament is a literature thus “taken up,” made the vehicle of what is more than human, we can of course set no limit to the weight or multiplicity of meanings which may have been laid upon it (117).

This quote is interesting because on page 121 Lewis says, “What we see when we think we are looking into the depths of Scripture may sometimes be only the reflection of our own silly faces.” He furthermore calls some allegorical interpretations of various texts, “strained,” “arbitrary,” and “ridiculous (121).” I wonder if there are multiple meanings and the Scripture writers’ words only “carry” the Word of God, how then Lewis can come against any interpretation. I believe he is being inconsistent, wanting to “have his cake and eat it too.” I further believe Lewis’ arguments “fly in the face” of all of Scripture.

 

“Lewis takes the entire book [Surprised by Joy] to get to theism and unpacks it carefully, but his actual movement to Christ happens in about two or three sentences. That is all he says. At the end of the day, Lewis believed that in Christianity you are confronted with a person that you either say yes to or no to…” [Quote from Christianity Today, December 2005 C. S. Lewis Superstar by Bob Smietana.]

“Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled.” (Luke 21:32)

C.S. Lewis despaired in understanding the above passages, and conceded to the skeptics that Jesus was in error.  He wrote:

“Say what you like,” we shall be told [by critics], “the apocalyptic beliefs of the first Christians have been proved to be false.  It is clear from the New Testament that they all expected the Second Coming in their own lifetime.  And, worse still, they had a reason, and one which you will find very embarrassing.  Their Master had told them so. He shared, and indeed created, their delusion.  He said in so many words, ‘This generation shall not pass till all these things be done.’  And he was wrong.  He clearly knew no more about the end of the world than anyone else.”

So there you go…Jesus was in error, with limited understanding, and a failed prophet according to Lewis

C.S. Lewis disagreed with 6 day creation. (but obviously our theology should be from the Bible, not from him!) He wrote: “For long centuries, God perfected the animal form which was to become the vehicle of humanity and the image of Himself. he gave it hands whose thumb could be applied to each of the fingers, and jaws and teeth and throat capable of articulation, and a brain sufficiently complex to execute all of the material motions whereby rational thought is incarnated. The creature may have existed in this state for ages before it became man: it may even have been clever enough to make things which a modern archaeologist would accept as proof of its humanity. But it was only an animal because all its physical and psychical processes were directed to purely material and natural ends. Then, in the fullness of time, God caused to descend upon this organism, both on its psychology and physiology, a new kind of consciousness which could say “I” and “me,” which could look upon itself as an object, which knew God, which could make judgments of truth, beauty and goodness, and which was so far above time that it could perceive time flowing past…. We do not know how many of these creatures God made, nor how long they continued in the Paradisal state. But sooner or later they fell. Someone or something whispered that they could become as gods…. They wanted some corner in this universe of which they could say to God, “This is our business, not yours.” But there is no such corner. They wanted to be nouns, but they were, and eternally must be, mere adjectives. We have no idea in what particular act, or series of acts, the self-contradictory, impossible wish found expression. For all I can see, it might have concerned the literal eating of a fruit, the question is of no consequence.
(C.S. Lewis, Problem of Pain)