C. S. Lewis and His Critics

Though I am no theologian I venture to disagree with most of W. Norman Pittenger’s recent criticisms of the writings of C. S. Lewis. Dr. Pittenger concedes that Lewis writes charmingly and provocatively in some of his books, particularly those of a fictional character, but he does not believe that Lewis’ writings have much theological value. My own judgment is that Lewis has done more to clear the theological atmosphere of our time and to create a deep interest in Christian things than many theologians together. Lewis’ avoidance of theological jargon (I use the word in no derogatory sense) is a studied avoidance and should not be taken as ignorance. It seems to me that such an assumption of ignorance is the basis of Dr. Pittenger’s wrong critique of Lewis. But to some of the particulars.

The Sense Of Decency

Dr. Pittenger says that Lewis is crude, even vulgar. As examples, he violates our sense of decency by attempting to explain the Trinity by the figure of a cube which is “six squares while remaining one cube,” and by saying that Christ was either what he claimed to be—the Son of God—or else a madman. I believe that one of Lewis’ greatest contributions to orthodox Christianity is his demonstration that a sanctified imagination is a legitimate tool for any Christian apologist. If Dr. Pittenger thinks a cube may not be used to illustrate the Trinity, what can he say of Jesus’ own invariable use of things close at hand to illustrate holy things—vines, and fig trees, lamps, and bushel baskets, and even vultures? Or what can he say of Paul’s allusions to sounding brass and tinkling cymbals or the resurrection of Christ as the firstfruits? Or of St. Augustine’s historic analogies in De Trinitate, confessedly inadequate but none the less helpful for pedagogical purposes? In his Weight of Glory Lewis says, “Perfect humility dispenses with modesty.” Can it be that we have a false modesty on spiritual things, a modesty in which the “classical view” (a favorite idea in Dr. Pittenger’s criticism of Lewis) is substituted for a downright eagerness to set forth the reality of Christ?

The Book And The Times

Again, Dr. Pittenger says that Lewis’ Christianity is often not orthodox. At the same time Lewis is said to hold to an “uncritical traditionalism” and to be dogmatic in his proclamation of it. Dr. Pittenger says that Lewis proceeds in his books by a “smart superficiality” and does not present a “credible theology.” Dr. Pittenger makes fairly clear as he goes along what he believes to be credible theology. He declares that never in the synoptic gospels is there either statement or implication that Christ claimed to be the Son of God. He is upset with Lewis for using the Fourth Gospel so uncritically. The validity of our Lord’s unique place, says Dr. Pittenger, does not rest on such “mechanical grounds” as Lewis advances but on “the total consentient witness of all Christians from the apostles’ time.” Lewis is declared to be “too cavalier about the actual historical Jesus” who is described by Dr. Pittenger as “a Prophet who announced the coming of God’s kingdom and who may even have thought that he himself was to be the Anointed One, or Messiah, who would inaugurate it.” In other words, Dr. Pittenger diminishes the impact of the Fourth Gospel, holds to a “credible theology” based to a considerable extent, apparently, on general belief through the ages which he interprets as denying that Christ was the unique Son of God, and at the same time accuses Lewis of unorthodoxy and “uncritical traditionalism.” Lewis’ faith, says Dr. Pittenger, is not a reasoned one. Instead, Dr. Pittenger prefers a faith “open and reasoned … built on history, confirmed in experience, checked by reason, and demonstrated in Christian life.” (Note the double emphasis on reason.) He is unhappy with Lewis for his preferring “the Pauline ethic based on man’s sinfulness and helplessness” (Dr. Pittenger’s language) to the Sermon on the Mount. Isn’t Dr. Pittenger himself behind the times here? Does current theology divide Paul’s ethic from Jesus’?

Furthermore, says Dr. Pittenger, the sophisticate Lewis “pretends to be very simple indeed” by taking what the Church has said is in the Scriptures “as the last word.” What does Dr. Pittenger put beside this for his own authority? He repeatedly accuses Lewis of failing to take cognizance of recent theological research. Lewis, for instance, confounds “the Fall” (quotations Dr. Pittenger’s) “with an event in history,” and confuses the “biblical myth” concerning Adam with “a literal description.”

God And His World

But Dr. Pittenger’s article is taken up in large measure with a somewhat detailed criticism of Lewis’ Miracles. Again it seems to me that Dr. Pittenger is far-fetched in his denunciation. He describes Lewis’ book as “one of the worst books ever written on this subject.” In the first place, Dr. Pittenger appears to forget that Lewis, as Chad Walsh has well said, is the “apostle to the skeptic,” not to the seminary professor. No one who has read the Bible with any care could possibly be unaware that it teaches the omnipresence of God. God dwells in the heart, but he dwells also in the heavens. It is therefore altogether proper for Lewis to speak of God as being outside his creation. In the second place, throughout the whole of Miracles Lewis makes clear that all his discussion is, of necessity, metaphoric. His effort is to deny the deterministic and deistic conception that God is confined to his creation. Hence his metaphor of “intervention” to the idea of which Dr. Pittenger objects. In Appendix B to Miracles and elsewhere Lewis makes his metaphoric usage very clear. “If God directs the course of events at all then he directs the movement of every atom at every moment; ‘not one sparrow falls to the ground’ without that direction.” Does this sound as if God is an absentee landlord? Dr. Pittenger’s own list of quotations from St. Augustine and others show that they also spoke metaphorically of miracles. In fact, his quotation from St. Augustine contains the same word—“above”—to which Dr. Pittenger seems to be objecting in Lewis.

Lewis is also accused of being 50 years behind the times for not knowing that a self-explanatory universe is out of date. No “respectable philosophical writer and no first-rate scientist” during the last half century has held to a deterministic universe, says Dr. Pittenger. Only ignorant people are “naturalists” in Lewis’ sense and therefore he has proceeded in his “smart superficiality” to knock down a straw man. To answer Dr. Pittenger on this point it is perhaps sufficient to let the reader think a moment for himself. It is true that at some point in their studies many scientists have acknowledged that they were confronted by a mystery or have even spoken of the whole universe as mysterious, but that is no indication whatever that they have come over to the side of the angels. Admittedly, deistic-type mechanism is passé, but is this all there is to materialism? A great many philosophers and theologians are wrong unless our Zeitgeist may properly be described as “naturalistic” in Lewis’ precise meaning. Whatever they may imply in print or on state occasions, men live as if no miracle is possible, and it was this condition to which Lewis was addressing himself—not to a “classical” theory of miracles.

It might be well to stop for a moment and cite from a couple of reputable science-philosophers who hold to a non-supernatural view of life. In his William Vaughan Moody Lecture at the University of Chicago, in 1931, Anton Julius Carlson said, “As I see it, the supernatural has no support in science, it is incompatible with science, it is frequently an active foe of science.” Dr. Carlson was described by Time as the “scientists’ scientist” and by others as “the Ajax of science.” Here, then, is one reputable scholar who can hardly be described as anything other than a “naturalist.” In Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian, published last year, he says: “There are some who maintain that physiology can never be reduced to physics, but their arguments are not very convincing and it seems prudent to suppose that they are mistaken.” Also, a little later, “God and immortality, the central dogmas of the Christian religion, find no support in science.” Can this reputable scholar be described as anything but a “naturalist”?

Lewis is also accused of writing a book on miracles without looking at the words translated “miracle” in the Old and New Testaments. Isn’t this a little too much? I do not know what sort of Hebrew scholar Lewis is, but I do know that he reads Greek with as much facility as most of us read English. Dr. Pittenger tells us that had Lewis read his Greek New Testament he would have been more fully aware of the Sitz im Leben of the miracles described there, i.e., he would have noted that though they are symbolically accurate they are not necessarily factually so. I suppose it would do little good to quote the New Testament itself against Dr. Pittenger, since he can assume the same symbolistic finality for all situations, but one does not need to be a theological student to notice that thousands swarmed around Christ in his days on earth simply because of what they at least supposed to be miracles—just plain miracles without “classical” or scholarly qualifications.

Naturalism In Our Bones

Could it be that Dr. Pittenger’s objection to Miracles arises in part from an unstated criticism? In the last chapter of Miracles Lewis gives an unmistakable warning to his readers: “If … you turn to study the historical evidence for yourself, begin with the New Testament and not with books about it.… And when you turn from the New Testament to modern scholars, remember that you go among them as sheep among wolves. Naturalistic assumptions, beggings of the question such as that which I noted on the first page of this book, will meet you on every side—even from the pens of clergymen.… We all have Naturalism in our bones.”

In all my reading of Lewis I think one of his very best qualities is his avoidance of technically theological language. It is the very thing which has made him spiritually thrilling to thousands of people around the world. This directness, this “orthodoxy,” is the element which Dr. Pittenger appears to dislike most. There is of course a place for theologians and all the fine points of theological discourse. As to C. S. Lewis, I am sure that he would be the first to acknowledge that his works are not flawless. But let not the theologians smother this man who brings into the soul the fresh air of spiritual reality.

END

C. S. Lewis and W. Norman Pittenger, two of this generation’s influential apologists, currently are engaged in a debate of words provoked by Dr. Pittenger’s recent criticism of the gifted English author’s views (“A Critique of C. S. Lewis,” The Christian Century, October 1, 1958). Dr. Clyde S. Kilby, Chairman of the English Department at Wheaton College, enters the controversy with this rejoinder in Lewis’ behalf.

Our Latest

Testimony

I Demolished My Faith for ‘My Best Life.’ It Only Led to Despair.

Queer love, polyamory, and drugs ruined me. That’s where Jesus found me.

The Book Screwtape Feared Most

Once a bedrock Christian classic, Boethius’s “Consolation of Philosophy” has been neglected for decades. It’s time for a revival.

Being Human

Airport Anxiety and Purposeful Publishing with Joy Allmond

CT’s executive editor learned to care for people as a 9/11-era flight attendant.

The Song of Mary Still Echoes Today

How the Magnificat speaks to God’s care for the lowly.

The Surprising Arrival of a Servant

Jesus’ introduction of justice through gentleness.

The Unexpected Fruit of Barrenness

How the kingdom of God delights in grand reversals.

Apple PodcastsDown ArrowDown ArrowDown Arrowarrow_left_altLeft ArrowLeft ArrowRight ArrowRight ArrowRight Arrowarrow_up_altUp ArrowUp ArrowAvailable at Amazoncaret-downCloseCloseEmailEmailExpandExpandExternalExternalFacebookfacebook-squareGiftGiftGooglegoogleGoogle KeephamburgerInstagraminstagram-squareLinkLinklinkedin-squareListenListenListenChristianity TodayCT Creative Studio Logologo_orgMegaphoneMenuMenupausePinterestPlayPlayPocketPodcastRSSRSSSaveSaveSaveSearchSearchsearchSpotifyStitcherTelegramTable of ContentsTable of Contentstwitter-squareWhatsAppXYouTubeYouTube