C. S. Lewis and a Problem of Evil

An Investigation of a Pervasive Theme

Root

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2009
• eBook ISBN: 9781630878399
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

C. S. Lewis was concerned about an aspect of the problem of evil he called subjectivism: the tendency of one's perspective to move towards self-referentialism and utilitarianism. In C. S. Lewis and a Problem of Evil, Jerry Root provides a holistic reading of Lewis by walking the reader through all of Lewis's published work as he argues Lewis's case against subjectivism. Furthermore, the book reveals that Lewis consistently employed fiction to make his case, as virtually all of his villains are portrayed as subjectivists. Lewis's warnings are prophetic; this book is not merely an exposition of Lewis, it is also a timely investigation into the problem of evil.

1

Objectivity and Evil

Introduction

In this chapter I examine C. S. Lewis’s objectivist commitments. Lewis stated his objectivist position in the essay The Poison of Subjectivism and in the book The Abolition of Man, but additional evidence for his position is scattered throughout his work. It is necessary, for the argument of this study, to understand the significance of Lewis’s objectivist position because of its unifying effect on his writing. Furthermore, it opens the door immediately to the principal topic of this investigation that Lewis believed subjectivism, left unchecked, leads to evil. Therefore, what follows is a systematic exposition of Lewis’s thinking, based upon his published texts. Rhetoric scholar Richard M. Weaver’s work on the ethics of rhetoric will provide a methodological approach to investigate and evaluate Lewis’s objectivist stance. According to Weaver, by its very nature “language is sermonic,” and rhetoric seeks to persuade; therefore, the rhetorician has ends in mind that he believes to be ethical. Weaver’s insights are relevant to Lewis’s writing. In his writing, Lewis has persuasive ends in mind, for he is conscious of his readers. Objectivity is the means by which he maintains an ethical rhetorical position, honest with the facts as he understands them, and with his readers. If, as I assert, Lewis believed subjectivism could lead to evil, it will be necessary to answer this question: What prevents the objectivist from undergoing such a slide himself? Mere objectivist sentiments are no guarantee that one can negotiate through the risks of self-deception, denial, or failure to recognize the human tendency for personal predilection to influence judgment. Does Lewis provide checks and balances in the configuration of his own objectivist stance, which, when in place, help to minimize these risks? I assert that he does. This is important for my overall argument, for eventually these checks will also be seen to be present in the good characters in his fiction, and absent in those characters that have succumbed to subjectivism and evil.

Scholarly Views Concerning the One and the Many

Is there a common thread that unites all of Lewis’s writing? To answer this question, a consideration of scholarly views is in order. In her doctoral dissertation, Jody R. Woerner notes this about Lewis’s fiction: “There does seem to be an unmistakable quality that pervades all his fictional works as if he had left behind the scent of some familiar breeze—bright, bracing, and borne from a distant clime.”1 Similarly, author and Lewis critic David Downing observes that “One always senses in Lewis’s books ‘the one in the many.’”2 While there is a wide variety of suggestions as to what accounts for this “one in many,” most would agree with Downing when he writes that there is a “fascinating interconnectedness in all the books . . . reading any one of them casts light on all the others.” This observation is commonly made. For example, J. A. W. Bennett, Lewis’s student at Oxford, and later the man who would take up his Chair at Cambridge after Lewis retired, acknowledged this interconnectedness of his writing and called attention to it in his inaugural address at Cambridge. Speaking of Lewis, he noted, “The whole man was in all his judgments and activities. . . . His works are all of a piece: a book in one genre will correct, illumine or amplify what is latent in another.”3 Familiarity with Lewis continues to reveal this characteristic of his work. Concepts defined in his non-fiction are illustrated in his imaginative works. A self-effacing comment in one of his literary critical works may merit an entire chapter in one of his religious books. A thought in bud, found in a letter, is manifest in full bloom in an essay. An idea presented by means of an essay becomes the subject of a book. Interconnections reverberate throughout Lewis’s work. Such internal amplification suggests that, in many ways, the best interpreter of his work is Lewis. Downing sees that this is so and, for example, asserts that the best approach for interpreting Lewis’s science fiction is to look to his autobiography. He posits that one will discover there that “Lewis shaped his early life experiences into a coherent narrative.” The observation is true. What is it that informed ‘the one in the many’ and gave to Lewis’s writing a single voice, and how did that voice shape the ethics of his rhetoric—his persuasive view of reality?

The quest for the unifying element in Lewis’s work has led to many suggestions. Downing believes it is found in the fact that Lewis was a deeply imaginative man; he posits that Lewis’s own writing supports this claim. He quotes from one of Lewis’s published letters: “The list of my books which I send . . . will I fear strike you as a very mixed bag . . . (but) there is a guiding thread. The imaginative man in me is older, more continuously operative, and in that sense more basic than either the religious writer or the critic.”4 Lewis’s words, here, are certainly significant, and I will develop their importance in a later chapter on Lewis’s use of fiction. Nevertheless, Downing’s judgment about the unifying element requires greater consideration.

Others, such as Donald Glover in C. S. Lewis: The Art of Enchantment, Michael H. Macdonald and Andrew A. Tadie in C. S. Lewis: The Riddle of Joy, and Corbin Scott Carnell in Bright Shadow of Reality: C. S. Lewis and the Feeling Intellect, claim that what unifies Lewis’s work is his interest in the longing he describes as joy. According to Lewis, this longing is deeply rooted in all humans and is satisfied only when it is tethered to its proper object, that is, to God. Margaret Hannay also sees the importance of this longing in Lewis, and uses it as a means to judge his literary success. She sees Perlandra succeeding where That Hideous Strength fails, for the former develops this longing and the latter does not. However, such a judgment speaks against joy as the source of unity in Lewis, for by Hannay’s own critique, it is inadequate to account for a book such as That Hideous Strength.5 If a cause sufficient enough to explain this ‘one in many’ phenomenon exists at all, it will have to be found elsewhere.

Scott Oury also wonders what the source of this perceived unity in Lewis might be. He dismisses the idea that it should be located in his conversion to Christianity, for “Certainly he did not suddenly, or subsequently, become all he was from that point on. Nor can the literary man be understood entirely from the perspective of his beliefs.”6 It is at this point that Oury explains, and I believe rightly so, that the common thread linking all of Lewis’s writing is an attempt to pay close attention to what Oury calls “the object itself.” The object itself would include anything to which Lewis gave his attention, be it material object, literary text, idea, philosophy or doctrine. The object was always something outside of Lewis which he sought to understand as best as he might. Oury adds, “C. S. Lewis’s conversion, first to theism and then to Christianity, was due in good part to his attention to ‘the object itself.’ The result was to confirm this habit of attention and establish it as a basis for his subsequent life and work.”7 One of the most central facts about Lewis, a fact necessary to understand his work, is that he was an objectivist. Lewis’s rhetorical objectivism may be understood via Richard Weaver, who rightly maintains that rhetoric is sermonic. In other words, all rhetoric seeks to persuade an audience to accept a particular point of view. Consequently, Lewis uses his writing to persuade his readers towards his “sermonically” objectivist posi...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Chapter 1: Objectivity and Evil
• Chapter 2: The Problem of Pain
• Chapter 3: Lewis’s Literary Criticism and a Problem of Evil
• Chapter 4: The Rhetorical Aim of Lewis’s Fiction in Light of a Problem of Evil
• Chapter 5: Literary Analysis
• Chapter 6: Conclusions
• Bibliography
• Permissions