Question on CS Lewis

[Goodbook]

Another book I read that I cant remember the author of, but he did show that in chinese pictograms, the Genesis story was embedded in the characters.

I thought that was a great apologetic for the hand of God in the chinese language. But he didnt say that chinese myths were like the basis for faith or that we could imagine them to be true if we looked hard enough or somehow reinvented them. This is something that cs lewis seems to do, make something up and christianise it. I mean you have to be careful about stuff like that. You cant mix truth with a lie.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

But he did give up christian apologetics.

He did not give up apologetics. The debate occurred in 1958. The four Loves for instance, an apologetic work amongst many others, was written in 1960. That is factually inaccurate. His last three works following Narnia were in fact Theological apologia.

Not really. That he was always under the spell of myths is obvious. He never really gave them up. Which is pretty sad.

I disagree that Myths need to be 'given up'. As did Lewis.

I can think of many christian apologists who point toward the bible and give evidence and good arguments for faith. CS lewis seems to do this in a way that actually leads AWAY from the Bible. Its just strange thats all.

I disagree that he leads away from the Bible, for he led me, an atheist originally, to actually read it. Lewis led me toward the Bible.

He never really took on board the ladys suggestions to be a better witness, or partnered in a ministry. He could have but he chose myths instead.

I don't know to what you are referring. Anscombe was a Catholic Philosopher, not a priest or part of some ministry.
To quote her own words on the debate: "My own recollection is that it was an occasion of sober discussion of certain quite definite criticisms, which Lewis' rethinking and rewriting showed he thought were accurate."
I have never heard anything about a suggestion to be a better witness or partnering in ministry or whatever you are talking about. Please supply your source.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

But he didnt say that chinese myths were like the basis for faith or that we could imagine them to be true if we looked hard enough or somehow reinvented them. This is something that cs lewis seems to do, make something up and christianise it. I mean you have to be careful about stuff like that. You cant mix truth with a lie.

Neither did Lewis. He just knew that Myths incorporate universal truths which can be used in Christian works.

Please read the following essay by Lewis, I think it will do you good.



“MYTH BECAME FACT” from GOD IN THE DOCK – CS Lewis

My friend Corineus has advanced the charge that none of us are in fact Christians at all. According to him historic Christianity is something so barbarous that no modern man can really believe it: the moderns who claim to do so are in fact believing a modern system of thought which retains the vocabulary of Christianity and exploits the emotions inherited from it while quietly dropping its essential doctrines. Corineus compared modern Christianity with the modern English monarchy: the forms of kingship have been retained, but the reality has been abandoned.

All this I believe to be false, except of a few "modernist" theologians who, by God's grace, become fewer every day. But for the moment let us assume that Corineus is right. Let us pretend, for purposes of argument, that all who now call themselves Christians have abandoned the historic doctrines. Let us suppose that modern "Christianity" reveals a system of names, ritual, formulae, and metaphors which persists although the thoughts behind it have changed. Corineus ought to be able to explain the persistence.

Why, on his view, do all these educated and enlightened pseudo-Christians insist on expressing their deepest thoughts in terms of an archaic mythology which must hamper and embarrass them at every turn? Why do they refuse to cut the umbilical cord which binds the living and flourishing child to its moribund mother? For, if Corineus is right, it should be a great relief to them to do so. Yet the odd thing is that even those who seem most embarrassed by the sediment of "barbaric" Christianity in their thought become suddenly obstinate when you ask them to get rid of it altogether. They will strain the cord almost to breaking point, but they refuse to cut it. Sometimes they will take every step except the last one.

If all who professed Christianity were clergymen, it would be easy (though uncharitable) to reply that their livelihood depends on not taking that last step. Yet even if this were the true cause of their behavior, even if all clergymen are intellectual prostitutes who preach for pay-and usually starvation pay-what they secretly believe to be false, surely so widespread a darkening of conscience among thousands of men not otherwise known to be criminal, itself demands explanation? And of course the profession of Christianity is not confined to the clergy. It is professed by millions of women and laymen who earn thereby contempt, unpopularity, suspicion, and the hostility of their own families. How does this come to happen?

Obstinacies of this sort are interesting. "Why not cut the cord?" asks Corineus. "Everything would be much easier if you would free your thought from this vestigial mythology." To be sure: far easier. Life would be far easier for the mother of an invalid child if she put it into an institution and adopted someone else's healthy baby instead. Life would be far easier to many a man if he abandoned the woman he has actually fallen in love with and married someone else because she is more suitable. The only defect of the healthy baby and the suitable woman is that they leave out the patient's only reason for bothering about a child or wife at all. "Would not conversation be much more rational than dancing?" said Jane Austen's Miss Bingley. "Much more rational," replied Mr. Bingley, "but much less like a ball." In the same way, it would be much more rational to abolish the English monarchy. But how if, by doing so, you leave out the one element in our state which matters most? How if the monarchy is the channel through which all the vital elements of citizenship loyalty, the consecration of secular life, the hierarchical principle, splendor, ceremony, continuity-still trickle down to irrigate the dust bowl of modern economic statecraft?

The real answer of even the most "modernist" Christianity to Corineus is the same. Even assuming (which I most constantly deny) that the doctrines of historic Christianity are merely mythical, it is the myth which is the vital and nourishing element in the whole concern. Corineus wants us to move with the times. Now, we know where times move. They move away. But in religion we find something that does not move away. It is what Corineus calls the myth that abides; it is what he calls the modern and living thought that moves away. Not only the thought of theologians, but the thought of antitheologians. Where are the predecessors of Corineus? Where is the Epicureanism of Lucretius, the pagan revival of Julian the Apostate? Where are the Gnostics, where is the monism of Averroes, the deism of Voltaire, the dogmatic materialism of the great Victorians? They have moved with the times. But the thing they were all attacking remains: Corineus finds it still there to attack. The myth (to speak his language) has outlived the thoughts of all its defenders and of all its adversaries. It is the myth that gives life. Those elements even in modernist Christianity which Corineus regards as vestigial, are the substance: what he takes for the "real modern belief" is the shadow.

To explain this we must look a little closer at myth in general, and at this myth in particular. Human intellect is incurably abstract. Pure mathematics is the type of successful thought. Yet the only realities we experience are concrete- this pain, this pleasure, this dog, this man. While we are loving the man, bearing the pain, enjoying the pleasure, we are not intellectually apprehending Pleasure, Pain or Personality. When we begin to do so, on the other hand, the concrete realities sink to the level of mere instances or examples: we are no longer dealing with them, but with that which they exemplify. This is our dilemma—either to taste and not to know or to know and not to taste—or, more strictly, to lack one kind of knowledge because we are in an experience or to lack another kind because we are outside it. As thinkers we are cut off from what we think about; as tasting, touching, willing, loving, hating, we do not clearly understand. The more lucidly we think, the more we are cut off: the more deeply we enter into reality, the less we can think. You cannot study pleasure in the moment of the nuptial embrace, nor repentance while repenting, nor analyze the nature of humor while roaring with laughter. But when else can you really know these things? "If only my toothache would stop, I could write another chapter about pain." But once it stops, what do I know about pain?

Of this tragic dilemma myth is the partial solution. In the enjoyment of a great myth we come nearest to experiencing as a concrete what can otherwise be understood only as an abstraction. At this moment, for example, I am trying to understand something very abstract indeed-the fading, vanishing of tasted reality as we try to grasp it with the discursive reason. Probably I have made heavy weather of it. But if I remind you, instead, of Orpheus and Eurydice, how he was suffered to lead her by the hand but, when he turned round to look at her, she disappeared, what was merely a principle becomes imaginable. You may reply that you never till this moment attached that "meaning" to that myth. Of course not. You are not looking for an abstract "meaning" at all. If that was what you were doing, the myth would be for you no true myth but a mere allegory. You were not knowing, but tasting; but what you were tasting turns out to be a universal principle. The moment we state this principle, we are admittedly back in the world of abstraction. It is only while receiving the myth as a story that you experience the principle concretely.

When we translate we get abstraction-or rather, dozens of abstractions. What flows into you from the myth is not truth but reality (truth is always about something, but reality is that about which truth is), and, therefore, every myth becomes the father of innumerable truths on the abstract level. Myth is the mountain whence all the different streams arise which become truths down here in the valley; in hac valle abstractionist Or, if you prefer, myth is the isthmus which connects the peninsular world of thought with that vast continent we really belong to. It is not, like truth, abstract; nor is it, like direct experience, bound to the particular.

Now as myth transcends thought, incarnation transcends myth. The heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact. The old myth of the dying god, without ceasing to be myth, comes down from the heaven of legend and imagination to the earth of history. It happens-at a particular date, in a particular place, followed by definable historical consequences. We pass from a Balder or an Osiris, dying nobody knows when or where, to a historical person crucified (it is all in order) under Pontius Pilate. By becoming fact it does not cease to be myth: that is the miracle. I suspect that men have sometimes derived more spiritual sustenance from myths they did not believe than from the religion they professed. To be truly Christian we must both assent to the historical fact and also receive the myth (fact though it has become) with the same imaginative embrace which we accord to all myths. The one is hardly more necessary than the other.

A man who disbelieved the Christian story as fact but continually fed on it as myth would, perhaps, be more spiritually alive than one who assented and did not think much about it. The modernist-the extreme modernist, infidel in all but name-need not be called a fool or hypocrite because he obstinately retains, even in the midst of his intellectual atheism, the language, rites, sacraments, and story of the Christians. The poor man may be clinging (with a wisdom he himself by no means understands) to that which is his life. It would have been better that Loisy should have remained a Christian: it would not necessarily have been better that he should have purged his thought of vestigial Christianity.

Those who do not know that this great myth became fact when the Virgin conceived are, indeed, to be pitied. But Christians also need to be reminded—we may thank Corineus for reminding us—that what became fact was a myth, that it carries with it into the world of fact all the properties of a myth. God is more than a god, not less; Christ is more than Balder, not less. We must not be ashamed of the mythical radiance resting on our theology. We must not be nervous about "parallels" and "pagan Christs": they ought to be there-it would be a stumbling block if they weren't. We must not, in false spirituality, withhold our imaginative welcome. If God chooses to be mythopoeic-and is not the sky itself a myth-shall we refuse to be mythopathic? For this is the marriage of heaven and earth: perfect myth and perfect fact: claiming not only our love and our obedience, but also our wonder and delight, addressed to the savage, the child, and the poet in each one of us no less than to the moralist, the scholar, and the philosopher.

 

[Open Heart]

Essentially that all Morality is from God.

Exactly!

 

[Open Heart]

Goodbook. PLEASE quote what you are replying to. A lot of your posts lack context. IOW they come out of the blue.

 

[Open Heart]

Also interesting was he basically gave up being a christian apologist after another lady demolished his arguments or perhaps subtly bested him in a debate which showed she knew a lot more about faith than he did.

Then he turned to myth.

This is just completely mistaken. It ignores the real timeline, where he continued in apologetics to the end of his life, nor did he "turn to myth" as a result of "being beaten."

 

[Open Heart]

the whole hallway analogy is troubling because, Jesus specifically says he is the door, and that nobody gets to the Father except by him. And also narrow is the way and few are those that find it.

Unless he was referring to in my Father's house are many mansions. But still why didn't he just say Jesus is the door like it says in the bible.

Why would the hallway analogy be troublesome? It doesn't interfere with the metaphor of Jesus being the door. And it conveys perfectly well Lewis' notion that "Mere Christianity" is not a sect or group or denomination, but simply those things which all Christian groups have in common, from fundamentalists to Catholics.

 

[Goodbook]

Weird, sounds like cs lewis is really clinging to his myths here.
If people act and believe that christianity is a myth but dont actually follow Jesus and think its just a bedtime story, or entertaining literature or a once upon a time tale then they are no better than an unbeliever.

You cant really have it both ways. Its like children believing in santa claus for gain. It doesnt hold up but some children still want to believe a lie and perpetuate it into adulthood.

But believing a lie will not get you to the truth.
CS lewis seems to think that being a christian might threaten our imaginations. But what happens is we CAST DOWN vain imaginations and bring every thought captive to christ. When you are a christian you are not afraid to say, well, sorry but this thing I used to believe was a lie. But now I know the truth.

Another thing is, when you are called to follow Jesus, there is no turning back.
So, no delving into occult books or other mythologies for parallels, or trying to justify studying what is not important, in terms of incomplete understandings of God, or idols. We run so that we may obtain the prize, we dont look behind and go, oh but osiris was believed by the greeks or whatever and hey, they thought he rose from the dead just like Jesus. Lets devote our lives to trying to understand how those ancient greeks view the world! And then maybe recreate the tale but inserting christian morality into it.

I mean, thats just playing around and whitewashing what they really believed. But I suppose some churches do that a lot esp with easter bunnies and eggs etc and dont think of the consequences of their syncretism, and that allows them to continue on with pagan practices that dilute the message of the gospel.

 

[Goodbook]

It seems some churches in lewis day presented to others a bible that read more like a novel?
Is that what hes getting at? Not naming any churches, but if that was the case they still wouldnt have converted anyone. It would be like the santa claus version of God they are praying to, and the santa claus version or genie god is the god of this world and not the living God, the one of isaac, abraham and Jacob, the Father of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

cs lewis doesnt seem to be aware that the early church was warned about false christs and false prophets and that christians had to keep to the narrow way. It seems like hes trying to make it broader to include everyone.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

It seems some churches in lewis day presented to others a bible that read more like a novel?
Is that what hes getting at? Not naming any churches, but if that was the case they still wouldnt have converted anyone. It would be like the santa claus version of God they are praying to, and the santa claus version or genie god is the god of this world and not the living God, the one of isaac, abraham and Jacob, the Father of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

cs lewis doesnt seem to be aware that the early church was warned about false christs and false prophets and that christians had to keep to the narrow way. It seems like hes trying to make it broader to include everyone.

Miss Goodbook, I fear you are missing the point. Lewis held that imagination is the handmaiden to the gospel. It is like when the children meet Silenus in Prince Caspian and they say it would be better to get to know him with Aslan around then without.

Myth has truth, it is a false story; but real lessons and meaning are present. It is a partial truth as opposed to Christianity's complete version. As Lewis states, the very existence of myth is strong support for the truth of Christ.

Go on some of these other forums and you will see people rejecting much of the old testament, from Adam down to Jonah, as myth. These are the people to which Lewis are writing as well as critics who doubt the Truth of Christianity as elements thereof are present in other mythic frameworks. But these aren't actually problems at all, as myth and imagination are no enemy to Christ.

Lewis was well aware of false teachers as he spent much time fighting against diluted Christianity. He was for the real Truth of the gospel as much as you or I. It seems that you just fail to understand that God can and does use everything imaginable to try and save his children, as any good Father would. Such stories in a Christian context enrich us.

 

[Goodbook]

Oh ok.
Theres just some things about cs lewis that i dont agree with and that could lead people astray.
That God can reach people that previously believed the bible was fiction is true.
But, you only have to give the archelogical evidence to show that the events of the Bible isnt a myth. The israelites are not a mythical people.
There was a census at the time of Jesus birth, there are records to show this. All the place names in the bible existed. People can trace their geneology back. Names are given. How anyone can think all that was made up is preposterous.
When you believe you cant continue on saying the bible is a true myth. You just say its true and take it for its word not just a story to illustrate a principle. Even the very scripture is powerful.

People didnt write the bible to make sense of themselves, or to explore God. It was God breathed. The prophets were Gods mouthpiece and infused with his very spirit. The gospels were actual eyewitness accounts. All those miracles actually happened and many still haopen today.

Cs lewis seems to treat the bible as if its just a really cool story to believe in, just like children believe other fairy tales, like cinderella..and that he wished he could have made it up himself. Im sorry to be blunt but thats how it seems to me and I get annoyed by this approach, it just to me gives a half baked idea of who God is and who Jesus really is. Its almost as if cs lewis doesnt believe Jesus christ actually came in the flesh. Sure he can say hes the son of God and did all these things but then still treats him like a fictional character.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Oh ok.
Theres just some things about cs lewis that i dont agree with and that could lead people astray.
That God can reach people that previously believed the bible was fiction is true.
But, you only have to give the archelogical evidence to show that the events of the Bible isnt a myth. The israelites are not a mythical people.
There was a census at the time of Jesus birth, there are records to show this. All the place names in the bible existed. People can trace their geneology back. Names are given. How anyone can think all that was made up is preposterous.
When you believe you cant continue on saying the bible is a true myth. You just say its true and take it for its word not just a story to illustrate a principle. Even the very scripture is powerful.

People didnt write the bible to make sense of themselves, or to explore God. It was God breathed. The prophets were Gods mouthpiece and infused with his very spirit. The gospels were actual eyewitness accounts. All those miracles actually happened and many still haopen today.

Cs lewis seems to treat the bible as if its just a really cool story to believe in, just like children believe other fairy tales, like cinderella..and that he wished he could have made it up himself. Im sorry to be blunt but thats how it seems to me and I get annoyed by this approach, it just to me gives a half baked idea of who God is and who Jesus really is. Its almost as if cs lewis doesnt believe Jesus christ actually came in the flesh. Sure he can say hes the son of God and did all these things but then still treats him like a fictional character.

Did you actually read his piece? He said that Jesus was Myth becoming fact. That Jesus was a historic real breathing human that was the completion of mythic process. He never in any way treats Jesus as fictional. Nor does he treat the Bible with anything but utmost respect and reverence. You are very mistaken in the above characterisation.

 

[Open Heart]

But believing a lie will not get you to the truth.

AGAIN, myths are not lies. Just because something is not historical doesn't make it a lie. Jesus' parables were not historical. They were fiction. Yet they conveyed truths. Same with myths.

 

[Open Heart]

So, no delving into occult books or other mythologies

Myths are not occultic. I'm getting sick of you making these sorts of statements.

 

[Open Heart]

Another book I read that I cant remember the author of, but he did show that in chinese pictograms, the Genesis story was embedded in the characters.

Do you know what the Rorschach inkblot test is? It's kind of like seeing bunnies or castles in cloud formations. Or the Virgin Mary on toast.

 

[Open Heart]

Its almost as if cs lewis doesnt believe Jesus christ actually came in the flesh.

Proposterous. The fact that you would suggest such a thing shows that you have no understanding of Lewis at all. I think at this point you need to face the fact that the problem is not Lewis, but within yourself.

 

[MournfulWatcher]

Oh ok.
Theres just some things about cs lewis that i dont agree with and that could lead people astray.
That God can reach people that previously believed the bible was fiction is true.
But, you only have to give the archelogical evidence to show that the events of the Bible isnt a myth. The israelites are not a mythical people.
There was a census at the time of Jesus birth, there are records to show this. All the place names in the bible existed. People can trace their geneology back. Names are given. How anyone can think all that was made up is preposterous.
When you believe you cant continue on saying the bible is a true myth. You just say its true and take it for its word not just a story to illustrate a principle. Even the very scripture is powerful.

People didnt write the bible to make sense of themselves, or to explore God. It was God breathed. The prophets were Gods mouthpiece and infused with his very spirit. The gospels were actual eyewitness accounts. All those miracles actually happened and many still haopen today.

Cs lewis seems to treat the bible as if its just a really cool story to believe in, just like children believe other fairy tales, like cinderella..and that he wished he could have made it up himself. Im sorry to be blunt but thats how it seems to me and I get annoyed by this approach, it just to me gives a half baked idea of who God is and who Jesus really is. Its almost as if cs lewis doesnt believe Jesus christ actually came in the flesh. Sure he can say hes the son of God and did all these things but then still treats him like a fictional character.

Maybe you should let C.S Lewis past writings speak for himself instead of making false accusations and inferences about him and what he believed, because it is the opposite of what you've said here, and I can't understand how you haven't grasped that yet.

 

[Goodbook]

Lets see, how do I put this bluntly. Maybe you should read the Bible more than cs lewis and grasp hold of scripture first before you quote whatever cs lewis says which isnt even scriputre. He isnt God you know.

 

[Goodbook]

Isaiah 5:20

 

[Goodbook]

why isnt anyone acknowledging that CS lewis is also flawed in his writing and could and has lead others astray.

I think you have to acknowledge that, and if you dont, maybe you are blind to it. Which is why you need to search the scripture to see if what he was writing is so. Well, i have and much of what he says and the life he led doesnt line up with what scripture says a christian acts. Like for example occult. GOds word tells us to stay away from it, but here you have cs lewis still playing round with it and writing fantasy novels. Its like hes doubleminded. One foot in the athiest camp trying to placate them and the other in the christian camp.

Think of the missionary heroes, the faithful saints who demonstrated with their actions a christ likeness and not just with their words. If your lips honor Him but your heart is far from Him, what are you but a clanging cymbal?