c.s. lewis - the atheist who followed joy

C.S. Lewis: The Atheist Philosopher who Followed Joy

by

Jesse M. Watkins

www.jessewatkins.com

Outline

I. Theism - God does Matter

A. Trained in the Way He Should Go

B. But He Might Depart for a Time

II. From Realism to Idealism

A. And God made Atom(s)

B. Beauty is Objective

III. The Pilgrim Returns

A. Encounter with “The Other”

B. Joy Realized

i

Introduction

Joseph Ratzinger, now known as Pope Benedict XVI, referred to C.S. Lewis as “The

English Author and Philosopher.” Regardless of what side of the liturgy one falls, if someone

who has entered the Papal office has such a strong connotation with C.S. Lewis as an author and

a philosopher, then Lewis’ philosophical impact cannot be understated.1 But his philosophical

dominance did not develop until the mature stages of his life. Most of his early life was spent

with a troubled form of atheism that was not fulfilled. He mentions the difficulty of this journey

by stating in The Problem of Pain, “All my life, an unattainable ecstasy has hovered just beyond

the grasp of my consciousness.”2 Though much research has examined the literary and

allegorical elements of his works, a very small percentage has focused on the philosophical

elements of his conversion. One of the reasons that so little is known is because Lewis himself

used caution when detailing his own journey. As he states, “My own history was so mixed up

with technical philosophy as to be useless to the general public.”3 However, the literary genius

left a breadcrumb-trail of clues throughout his masterpieces and notes for the researcher to

follow. This paper will try to trace Lewis’ own philosophical journey as he describes from

“Popular realism, to Idealism, to Pantheism, to theism, and Christianity.”4 While atheistic

philosophies stimulated his intellect for a while, it was ultimately the experience of joy that

stimulated his heart.

1

1 Adam J. Barkman, The Philosophical Christianity of C. S. Lewis: Its Sources, Content and Formation. Order No. NR69346, Institute for Christian Studies (Canada) and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (The Netherlands, 2012): 7

2 Lewis, C. S., The Problem of Pain. (New York, NY: HarperOne, 2001) 33

3 Barkman, The Philosophical Christianity of C. S. Lewis: Its Sources, Content and Formation, 24

4 Ibid., 26

Theism: God Does Matter

C.S. Lewis, known to friends as Jack, did not begin as an atheist. He was raised by a

staunch Ulsterman father, and a sweet yet pious mother. But the situation into which he was

born was not conducive to the Christian joy which he came to know later in life.

Trained in the Way he Should Go

Lewis was born in 1898 in the midst of the religious turmoil that has yet to be resolved

today between the Catholics and the Protestants.5 There was not much to his Christian heritage

that his early childhood contributed to his eventual return to the philosophy of Christ, but that did

not limit his childhood experiences from shaping his world-view. It was among his earliest

memories that he recounts his encounter with joy. As David Downing asserts, “During Lewis’

experiences of joy as a child, he recognized that the feeling was not mere nostalgia or love of

nature. [Trying to answer] the existence of this joy became a personal grail.”6 But even though

the experiences of his joy left a life-long impression on his heart, the experiences of pain had an

equal force. Upon the death of his mother at a young age, Lewis’ father had a difficult time

reconciling this pain within the context of fatherhood. The death of Mrs. Lewis placed severe

strain on his relationship with Jack that would last for two more decades until his passing in

1929.7 The lack of relationship with his earthly father proved to also hinder progress with his

heavenly father.

2

5 D.C. Downing, Into the Region of Awe, (Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press, 2005): 34

6 Ibid., 35

7 Ibid., 36

He Might Depart from It for a Time

Jack’s earliest experiences with Christianity left him wanting. He saw the religious

system as lacking depth, passion, and challenge. Later in life, as he was discovering philosophy,

he would write a letter to a comrade during WW1 which details his early views towards the

system of Christianity and religion: “You should take up philosophy and metaphysics... the

pursuit would at least save you from the intellectual stagnation that usually awaits a man who has

found complete satisfaction in some traditional religious system.”8 His belief was that once a

man was satisfied in a system, stagnation would inevitably occur. However, Lewis would

eventually find that the conclusion to his philosophy of joy was anything but stagnation.

Not only was his early experience with Christianity difficult to accept intellectually, but

also difficult to keep in a practical sense. As a young boy, Jack’s mother experienced an

untimely passing. All boyhood experiences of happiness and joy were dimmed after this event.

As Jack would later recount, “with my mother’s death, all settled happiness, all that was tranquil

and reliable disappeared from my life.”9 Upon the death of his mother, Jack’s father sent him to

a religious boarding school. There he was inoculated with the liturgical manifestations of the

High Anglican Church, and as Downing observes Lewis “fell into an internalized legalism, such

that his private prayers never seemed good enough.”10 It was because of the unsettled nature of

his parent’s faith that he began the slow merge away from theism to what he called his boyhood

philosophy of Atheism.11 His initial reason for taking off the robe of faith was not because of an

3


9 C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy. (Boston: 2012) 20

10Downing, Into the Region of Awe, 36


inability to accept the belief of God, but rather an inability to keep the burden of the law. Ironic

as it may be, it was at the Cherbourg boarding school that Lewis became initially familiar with

occult and naturalistic philosophies, and it was at the strict Christian School that, “He set aside

his childhood faith out of a sense of relief. For him the burden that needed to be rolled away was

not sin, but rather fear and accusation.”12

What pushed him away from religion to begin with was not an inability to reconcile the

thought of God, or the nature of God, or the problem of evil, but it was rather an emotional

response based on fear and guilt because of the legalistic lens in which he was viewing

Christianity. After living under the oppressive Protestant mentalities of the north, and the

structured routines of the high Church, Lewis came to associate Christianity with the

condemnation of others, and the condemnation of one’s self for not living up to God’s

standards.13 Though Lewis’ perception of Christianity was based on rules and not relationship, it

was his realization that the flesh could not fulfill the burden of the law that initially blinded him

from the gospel of grace.

Realism: There is only Matter

Now that Lewis was free from the bonds of religion, he could embrace the naturalistic

worldview that even “the (gods) are made up of atoms, like the rest of the cosmos, and are not

concerned with judgement and rules.” 14 After the death of his mother, Lewis was sent as a

young man to be tutored under the direction of Mr. William Kirkpatrick. Kirkpatrick was similar

to Lewis’ father in his staunchness, except for Kirkpatrick was not an Ulsterman, but rather an

4

12 Downing, Into the Region of Awe, 38

13 Ibid., 37


outspoken atheist. This led to the further development of Lewis‘ journey away from faith and

religion into the philosophical system of realism (believing that only matter existed and nothing

else). Under the tutelage and reading of the humanistic social sciences that he was subjected to,

Lewis concluded that “all the world’s religions, including Christianity, could be best explained

not as claims of truth, but as expressions of psychological needs and cultural values.”15

And God made Atom(s)

It was within the realist viewpoint that Lewis realized he must jump through

philosophical hoops in order to explain the perception of ideal in nature. As Barkman explains

realism, “one has to look on the meaningless dance of atoms, to realize that all apparent beauty

was subjective.”16 Although this definition would help to justify the non-existence of god at the

time, it did not provide an adequate solution or reason for the existence and value of imagination,

creativity, and beauty. Although Kirkpatrick would teach Lewis logic, rationale, and the value of

questioning and reason, he was still forced to live within the paradox as he states, “nearly all that

I loved, I believed to be imaginary, and nearly all that I believed to be real I thought to be grim

and meaningless.”17 It was precisely the disciplined questioning and logic that forced Lewis to

examine the validity of this paradox which he now lived in. And although the naturalistic

viewpoint could hold up in theory, it was not holding up in practice.

During his teenage years, Lewis was not yet a theologian or a philosopher, but he was

beginning to understand the purpose of philosophy. The purpose of philosophy as Lewis

understood it was to experience the complete transformation of life, or a radical combination of

5




theory and practice.18 This love of philosophy and literature would eventually develop into a

love of philology (study of language in written historical sources) that landed him at Oxford

University to study Literature. Upon entering Oxford as a young atheist, Lewis was staunchly

opposed to the nature of idealism. One such idealist was an Oxford Professor by the name of

J.R.R. Tolkien [an idealist and a Christian]. The idealists typically held that physical objects can

have no existence [value] apart from the mind which is conscious of them. Thus, when Lewis

first met Tolkien, the two had radically opposing worldviews.19 However, it was not the studies

during school time which opened his eyes to the immaterial, but rather his leisurely reading

during wartime.

Beauty is Objective

During WW1, Lewis volunteered to take a break from his studies and enter the military

service. Not only was he in the physical trenches or war, but also the spiritual trenches as he was

examining the concepts of beauty, truth, and goodness from ancient literature during his leisurely

reading. During the War, he began to agree with such philosophers as Plato that beauty is

objective [existing outside the perception of the mind], and also that beauty should be associated

with the immaterial and not the material. 20 This began his process towards idealism.

After finishing his services in the war and his studies at Oxford, he accepted a 1 year

position as lecturer and tutor at University College, and during this time he began to further

embrace the philosophical aspects of idealism. He accepted that beauty was objective, that value

existed outside of the mind, but the more he tried to live out this worldview, it seemed he was

6


19 Colin Duriez, Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship. (New Jersey: 2003) 27


grasping for something more concrete and personal.21 Lewis’ journey towards idealism was not

a firm rejection of atheism. Rather, it was because of his acceptance of idealism that he began to

more firmly question his motives against god to begin with. As he begins to question his own

arguments against God, he comes to a few realizations.

“My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust.

But how had I got this idea of just an unjust? A man does not call a line crooked

unless he has some idea of a straight line.”22

The essence of Kirkpatrick was creeping up on him; the more he read and studied and

thought, he was lead to a deeper realization of the transcendent nature of truth. In Lewis’

mind was developing a greater understanding of the nature of the infinite, and a smaller

perception of his ability to comprehend it. Now his concerns were shifting from the

objects of desire [the physical] to the reason for desire to begin with [the immaterial]. As

Peter Kreeft asserts about the nature of philosophical intuition, “When a man is getting

better, he understands more and more clearly the evil that is left in him.”23 And as Lewis

discovered, his inability to be satisfied with the current philosophical system showed that

a greater answer was still out there to be discovered.

The secret to Lewis’ conversion is that he never ceased to desire something

greater. He philosophical questioning caused him to keep pondering or contemplating

about the highest good. Upon later reflection he concludes, “If the whole universe has no

meaning, we should never have found it has no meaning.”24 But to him, it did have

7


22 Lewis, C. S., The Joyful Christian (New York: Touchstone Books, 1996) 7

23 David Baggett, Gary Habermas, and Jerry Walls. C.S. Lewis as Philosopher. (Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press, 2008), Loc. 288, Kindle.

24 Lewis, The Joyful Christian, 7

meaning. The early childhood experience of seeing his brothers garden replica of moss in

a tin can lid bolstered in him a desire that should be fulfilled. And if a desire existed,

then it existed not just for itself, but as a reflection of a transcendent desire within the

heart to understand the nature of human existence as a people who are desiring and

longing for contact with something other than the self. Lewis eventually comes to this

conclusion in his apologetic called The Problem of Pain: “There have been times when I

think we do not desire heaven; but more often I find myself wondering in our hearts if we

have ever desired anything else.”25

The desire that existed within his mind and within his heart was not simply to

have a philosophical worldview to explain the universe, but to have contact with the

metaphysical other that dwells apart from the immaterial things. This metaphysical other

was involved in the attraction not just to the sciences, but also the imagination. It was the

metaphysical other which attracted him to other professors at the university that were

engaged in a spiritual system above what he had currently known. One of these such

professors was the afore mentioned J.R.R Tolkien. As their relationship developed over

the years, the topic of their conversations migrated from medieval literature and

philology to eternal realms. Ironically, it was the continued encouragement of Lewis that

caused Tolkien to eventually publish Lord of the Rings, but it was the continued

encouragement of Tolkien which Led to Lewis’ faith in Christ.26

8

25 C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (New York: Harper One, 1996), 149, Kindle.

26 Duriez, Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship, 44

The Pilgrim Returns

Not only did God use Christian professors to influence the thinking of C.S. Lewis,

but atheist professors as well. One night in front of the fireplace, Lewis was engaged in a

long discourse with an atheistic philosophy professor named Thomas Weldon. They

spend the evening engaging in credibility towards the biblical account, and in Lewis’ own

words he mentions this event, “We somehow got on the topic of the historical truth of the

Gospels, and both agreed there was a lot that could not be explained away.”27 Events

such as this cannot be understated in the progressive journey towards faith in Christ.

Indeed, God will use all things for his purposes and his glory. Those small seeds of

credibility began to take root in the broken soil of Lewis’ heart.

Encounter with “The Other”

The mystical journey towards faith continued as Lewis was literally carried as a

pedestrian on the pathway of enlightenment. One afternoon, while sitting on the upper

deck of a Headington bus, Lewis was presented with the reality of shutting or opening the

door to what he came to describe as the “other” [that which existed apart from material

and apart from himself]. He decides while on that bus to go through the door, finding a

feeling of being freer than ever before, but simultaneously compelled by his deepest

nature.28 This small, mystical event could seem too insignificant to affect this literary

and philosophical hercules known as C.S. Lewis, but it was indeed just the small stone

hurled at the correct location which could take down the giant of his will. He would later

write in a letter to a friend about the awareness of the immaterial and the other as follows:

9

27 Duriez, Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship, 43

28 Ibid., 45

The conviction is gaining ground on me that after all Spirit does exist; and

that we come in contact with the spiritual elements by means of these thrills

(the mysterious connection between an individual and an object of beauty

like a tree). Beauty is the call of the spirit, in that something of the spirit is

in us.29

These mystical moments on a bus, on a walk, in front of a tree, would not result in the

examination of the outside world, but rather force the examination of the inside world.

Outward experiences of joy, happiness, and pleasure caused Lewis to question what was

the greater thing that these experiences represented.

Lewis’ later visions and writing of creatures who inhabited mystical lands simply

became a reflection of his own journey into the uncharted territories of spiritual

knowledge. Not only did he continue writing letters and engaging in conversation with

those like Tolkien, but it was the continued conversation with himself as he encountered

glimpses of joy that brought him to a knowledge of something “other” that existed.

Lewis later talked about these experiences as “Discourses which brought me into the

region of awe, for thus I understood that in the deepest solitude, there is a road right out

of self, a commerce with something which, by refusing to identify itself with any object

of the senses... proclaims itself to be sheerly objective.”30 And not only was Lewis seeing

clearly that the “other” existed, but he constantly wrestled with the desire to know it and

find it.

10



Joy Realized

Simply living with the awareness of the other was not enough; he needed to know

it. The small moments and small glimpses of joy pointed him towards a deeper and

deeper longing for truth not only as a reality, but as a person. He describes that joy itself

turned out to be no value at all. All the value lay in that joy which he was desiring.31 By

process of elimination, he realized that it was not a thing he desired; not a truth, not a

reality. But instead joy proclaimed, you want something other, outside, not you or any

state of you.

Every time Lewis experienced joy, whether it be through a book, through a

hillside stroll, or an engaging intellectual discussion with his peers, joy kept pointing the

way. Even from his small boyhood experiences of seeing that tin can filled with moss

that his brother had beautifully decorated, he couldn’t get joy out of his mind. Joy was

not only the runway towards faith, it was the take-off as well. As Brian Horne comments

about this desire that joy caused within Lewis, “The journey would not have begun at all

were it not for an experience of such intensity that it became the center point of his whole

existence, and one to which he returned over and over again.”32

This joy and desire would eventually push him to know Jesus Christ as ultimate

truth. He discovered that each experience of joy was not a reflection of something, but

rather of someone. The combination of intellectual experiences and mystical experiences

produced what John Piper calls a “Romantic Rationalist,” able to combine things most

people assume are mutually exclusive: “rationalism and poetry, cool logic and warm

feeling, disciplined prose and free imagination.”33 From realist to idealist, pantheist to

Christian, the philosophy of C.S. Lewis guided him to the Person that joy desired.

11


32 Brian Horne, “Two Faces of C.S. Lewis,” Expository Times 110, (1999): 212, accessed February 23, 2014, http://ext.sagepub.com/content/110/7/210.citation

33John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life, (Wheaton: 2007), 19

http://ext.sagepub.com/content/110/7/210.citation


Bibliography

Bagget, David, Gary Habermas, and Jerry Walls. C.S. Lewis as Philosopher. Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press, 2008.

Barkman, Adam James. "The Philosophical Christianity of C. S. Lewis: Its Sources, Content and Formation." Order No. NR69346, Institute for Christian Studies (Canada) and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (The Netherlands), 2009. In PROQUESTMS ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Full Text, http://search.proquest.com/docview853192962? accountid=12085.

Downing, D C. Into the region of awe: Mysticism in C.S. Lewis. Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press, 2005.

Duriez, Colin. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship. New Jersey: Hidden Spring, 2003.

Horne, Brian.“Two Faces of C.S. Lewis,” Expository Times 110 (1999): 210-213, accessed February 23, 2014, http://ext.sagepub.com/content/110/7/210.citation

Lewis, C. S. The Joyful Christian: 127 Readings. New York: Touchstone Books, 1996.

______ The Problem of Pain. New York, NY: HarperOne, 2001. Kindle

______ Surprised by Joy. Boston, Mariner Books, 2012. Kindle (page 20)

______ The Weight of Glory. New York, Harper Collins, 2009. Kindle (page 26)

Piper, John. Don’t Waste Your Life. Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2007.

http://search.proquest.com/docview/853192962?

http://search.proquest.com/docview/853192962?



c.s. lewis - the atheist who followed joy

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