"If I find in myself a
desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most
probable explanation is that I was made for another world."
C. S. Lewis,
Mere Christianity
"It is not impossible that our own
Model [including the Biblical worldview] will die a violent
death, ruthlessly smashed by an unprovoked assault of new facts --
unprovoked as the nova of 1572. But I think it is more likely to
change when, and because, far-reaching changes in the mental temper
of our descendents demand that it should. The new Model will not
be set up without evidence, but the evidence will turn up
when the inner need for it becomes sufficiently great. It will
be true evidence." C. S. Lewis, The Discarded Image
[From
the last chapter of his last book, published after his death.
Quoted
here.]
1898 C.S. Lewis (Jack) is born
1911 Attends Malvern in England; abandons Christian faith.
1914 Confirmed at St. Marks in Belfast.
1917 Serves in France as part of British army during WWI.
1919 Lewis returns to Oxford.
1924-25 Philosophy tutor at University College.
1925 Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford.
1929 Converts from atheism to theism for intellectual reasons.
1930 Birth of the
Inklings
(a small informal group including Lewis, Tolkien, Barfield, Williams...)
1931 Famous
discussion
with Tolkien about
Christianity as the
fulfillment of mythology.
1931
"Conversion"
to Christianity (during a motorcycle ride
with brother Warren).
1932 Writes to brother Warren about
this "conversion".
1933 The Pilgrim's Regress published by Dent.
1936 Allegory of Love published by Oxford UP and Clarendon
Press.
1937 Tolkien's Hobbitt is published.
1938 Out of the Silent Planet published by Bodley Head.
1939 England declares war.
1940 The Problem of Pain published by Centenary Press.
1941 First of 31 installments of The Screwtape Letters
appears in The Guardian.
1941 BBC Radio broadcasts titled "Right and Wrong"
(Became Book 1 in
Mere Christianity.
See notes in
The Abolition of Man)
1942 First meeting of the Oxford University Socratic Club.
1942 The Screwtape Letters published.
1942 First of "Christian Behavior" talks delivered on BBC Radio
(Book 3 in
Mere
Christianity)
1942 Preface to Paradise Lost published by Oxford.
1943 Christian Behaviour (Book 3 in
Mere
Christianity) published by Geoffrey Bles.
1943 Perelandra published by Bodley Head.
1944 First of seven talks entitled "Beyond Personality" delivered
on BBC Radio.
1944 Beyond Personality (Book 4 in
Mere
Christianity) published by Geoffrey Bles.
1944
The Abolition of Man published by Macmillan.
1945 That Hideous Strength published by Bodley Head.
1946 The Great Divorce published by Geoffrey Bles.
1946 Jack receives an honorary Doctorate of Divinity from St.
Andrew's University.
1947 Miracles published by Geoffrey Bles.
1948
George Macdonald:
An Anthology published by Macmillan, New York.
1948
Lewis wrote his endorsement of
Lilith
[from Kabbalah]
by George MacDonald
1948 Joy and William Gresham convert to Christianity.
1950 Jack receives a letter from Joy Davidman Gresham.
1950 The Lion, the Witch and Wardrobe published by
Geoffrey Bles.
1951 Prince Caspian published by Geoffrey Bles.
1952 Mere Christianity published by Geoffrey Bles.
1952 The Voyage of the Dawn Treader published by
Geoffrey Bles.
1952 Jack meets Joy Gresham for lunch at the Eastgate Hotel.
1953 The Silver Chair published by Geoffrey Bles.
1954 Jack accepts chair of Medieval and Renaissance English at
Cambridge University.
1954 Joy divorces William Gresham.
1954 The Horse and His Boy published by Geoffrey
Bles.
1954 Completes last tutorial at Magdalen College, Oxford.
1955 The Magician's Nephew published by Bodley Head.
(Summarized in
Narnia Part
2)
1955 Surprised by Joy published by Geoffrey Bles.
1956 Jack and Joy are married at the Oxford Registry Office.
1958 Joy's cancer in remission.
1958 Reflections on the Psalms published by Geoffrey
Bles.
1959 Joy's cancer returns.
1960 The Four Loves published by Geoffrey Bles.
1960 Joy dies.
1961 A Grief Observed published by Faber and Faber under
the pseudonym N.W. Clerk.
1963 Has a heart attack.
1963 Dies at the Kilns, the same day JFK is assassinated .
1964 Letters to Malcolm published by Geoffrey Bles.
1964 The Discarded Image
is published. (Summarized in in Part 3 of our Narnia Series: "Christian
allegory + Mythical gods = Deception."
Here are some quotes and observation that
sum up Lewis' evolving beliefs near the end of his life.
In this last book
-- The Discarded Image,
Lewis tells us that when people no longer feel comfortable the
old
Paradigm or cultural "Model" with its
beliefs and values, they will simply discard it. Nothing is
permanent; everything changes along with human thought, wants, and
speculations. Even "ultimate realities" must
change:
"When changes in the human mind produce a sufficient disrelish of
the old Model and a sufficient hankering for some new one, phenomena
to support that new one will obediently turn up."[5,
page 221]
"We must recognize that what has been
called 'a taste in universes' is not only pardonable but inevitable.
We can no longer dismiss the change of Models as a simple progress
from error to truth. No Model is a catalogue of ultimate
realities, and none is a mere fantasy. Each is a serious attempt
to get in all the phenomena known at a given period.... But also, no
less surely, each reflects the prevalent psychology of an age
almost as much as it reflects the state of that age's knowledge...."[5,
page 222]
Lewis ends his book with this prediction:
"It is not impossible that our own
Model [including the Biblical worldview] will die a violent
death, ruthlessly smashed by an unprovoked assault of new facts --
unprovoked as the nova of 1572. But I think it is more likely to
change when, and because, far-reaching changes in the mental temper
of our descendents demand that it should. The new Model will not
be set up without evidence, but the evidence will turn up
when the inner need for it becomes sufficiently great. It will
be true evidence.'[5,
pages 222-223]
"What Lewis imagined to be 'not
impossible' some generations away -- the death of the modern model or
worldview -- turns out to be happening," wrote the leading postmodern
Pastor Brian McLaren,
who illustrates Lewis' prediction. He has indeed discarded absolute
truth.
If you go to the
Customer Reviews of The
Discarded Image
at Amazon.com,
you would find other interesting responses to this book. One
reviewer wrote:
"In this context, it is perhaps fair to warn potential readers
coming to the book directly from Lewis-the-Christian that he
displays throughout a remarkable sympathy for a variety of views
(pagan, Neo-Platonic, medieval Catholic, and so forth) which they
may find disturbing. Education, not edification, is his primary
focus....
"To use a catch-phrase introduced to scholarship in 1962 by Thomas
Kuhn's 'Structure of Scientific Revolutions,' Lewis is
presenting an 'Old Paradigm' of the Universe, the very
presuppositions of which have been replaced by a series of 'New
Paradigms' during the last four centuries.... It is an effort to
equip the student to think and perhaps even feel in medieval,
not modern, terms. I can think of no one who has so successfully
evoked the sensation of living in a Ptolemaic or Aristotelian
cosmos."[6]
In other words, Lewis has a remarkable
ability to bring Christian readers into new worlds and make them feel at
home in the midst of pagan rituals, occult mysteries and magical forces.
In so doing, he presents unbiblical versions of the most important gifts
God has given us: His unchanging truth, His uncompromising
righteousness, His peace in the midst of turmoil, His unwavering faith,
and His eternal gift of salvation.