CS Lewis, 50 Years Ago

Hard to believe it was 50 years ago that JFK was assassinated.  One of my earliest childhood memories was watching the flag draped coffin with Kennedy's body slowly passing down the streets on our old black and white TV with my parents.   I had just turned four.

Unknown to me at that time was the life and death, the same day, of C.S. Lewis who probably influenced me more than any other person, save Christ Himself.   I started reading Lewis in high school, first Mere Christianity, then The Screwtape Letters an later the Narnia books and the space trilogy.   Lewis was a brilliant mind, but many have had a brilliant mind.  No one wrote like Lewis, as Sherwood Wirt once said, Lewis had the ability to "make righteousness readable".   His clever turns of phrases, proper British prose and logical argumentation combined to make thinking enjoyable.

Three articles caught my attention today.


John G West, author of The Magician's twin was featured at Discovery Institute's Evolution News blog here and here.  The gist of West's take on Lewis is that Lewis was not particularly friendly toward Darwin's theory, even if, as a non-scientist, he occasionally gave aspects of the theory a pass.   Later in life, Lewis became a bit more convinced that naturalism could not account for life on earth. 

One of my favorite quotes from The Magician's Twin was a passage Darwin wrote that Lewis underlined, expressing that a "horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?"

horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?"91 (underlining by Lewis) - See more at: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/11/darwin_in_the_d_2079331.html#sthash.TQv0vTv5.dpuf

Uncommon Descent  has some YouTube clips based on The Magician's Twin.

And finally at Powerline, Steven Hayward briefly mentions some prescient political thinking from Lewis.

I wholeheartedly agree with Hayward that The Abolition of Man is one of Lewis' most vital books.  Hayward includes two quotes:

"Man’s conquest of Nature, if the dreams of some scientific planners are realized, means the rule of a few hundreds of men over billions upon billions of men."

and

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive...those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." 

Like I said, no one turned a phrase better, with as much clarity and force as Lewis.