In his introduction to English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, C. S. Lewis thrashes the bushes searching out potential causes for the surprising efflorescence of brilliant literature that sprang up near the end of the sixteenth century. At the beginning of the century, “the prose is clumsy, monotonous, garrulous; their verse is either astonishingly tame and cold or, if it attempts to rise, the coarsest fustian. In both mediums we come to dread a certain ruthless emphasis; bludgeon work. Nothing is light, or tender, or fresh. All the authors write like elderly men. . . . Then, in the last quarter of the century the unpredictable happens. With startling suddenness we ascend. Youth returns. The fine frenzies of ideal love and ideal war are readmitted. Sidney, Spencer, Shakespeare, Hooker . . . display what is almost a new culture” (1)[1]. What is the explanation for this sudden transformation? Lewis examines several plausible causes of inspiration. First he examines the influence of the new astronomy, but he soon rules it out, concluding that in the sixteenth century the magician exerts more influence than does the astronomer, and any significant influence from astronomy is not apparent in the sixteenth century. Next he turns to the new geography. Perhaps the discovery of the New World inspired the imagination of late sixteenth century writers? Lewis dashes the idea: “Though we all know, we often forget, that the existence of America was one of the greatest disappointments in the history of Europe” (15). Requiring more thorough consideration than astronomy and geography, Humanism, at first glance, seems to hold real potential as a source of inspiration especially since the Humanists were rediscovering the great classics of Greek and Roman literature. But whatever potential that rediscovery held was throttled by the humanist canonization of rules of composition that they extrapolated from the classical texts. Coupled with the humanist insistence that the ancient Latin writers established the unalterable standard for vocabulary and style, it is no wonder that Lewis concludes, “Whatever else humanism is, it is emphatically not a movement towards freedom and expansion” (23). The humanists clogged the flow of imagination worse than those awful American continents impeded traffic to the Far East.
Then, amidst Lewis’ thrashing of the bushes of potential causes, a frightened puritan starts out of the bracken. Ah, now we will have some fun. In the course of the mundane life of a literary critic there is nothing quite so delightfully amusing as a good puritan-shoot. Our man Lewis will set the dogs on him directly, and we can later resume our literary investigation by the fireside over tea and a haunch of roast puritan. But Lewis does not release the dogs on the poor pallid thing. Our disappointment is supplanted by disbelief as we realize that Lewis is actually going to give the puritan and his doctrine a hearing. As expected, the puritan mounts his pulpit and begins to preach, “You must be born again.” Now see what you have done, Lewis. We will have to endure a sermon on the necessity and reality of catastrophic conversion. Lewis calmly replies, “To that experience I must now turn” (32). As he does turn to it, he sounds suspiciously sympathetic to the experience. In the paragraph, cited below, note the lack of distance-creating qualifiers such as, “according to the puritans,” or “adherents claimed.” He writes like someone who has himself experienced catastrophic conversion.
The man who has passed through it feels like one who has waked from nightmare into ecstasy. Like an accepted lover, he feels that he has done nothing, and never could have done anything, to deserve such astonishing happiness. Never again can he ‘crow from the dunghill of desert’. All the initiative has been on God’s side; all has been free, unbounded grace. And all will continue to be free, unbounded grace. His own puny and ridiculous efforts would be as helpless to retain the joy as they would have been to achieve it in the first place. Fortunately they need not. Bliss is not for sale, cannot be earned. ‘Works’ have no ‘merit’, though of course faith, inevitably, even unconsciously, flows out into works of love at once. He is not saved because he does works of love: he does works of love because he is saved. It is faith alone that has saved him: faith bestowed by sheer gift. From this buoyant humility, this farewell to the self with all its good resolutions, anxiety, scruples, and motive-scratchings, all the Protestant doctrines originally sprang (33).
Why must Lewis present such a candid and sympathetic description of Christian conversion – so candid and sympathetic that leaves himself open to the accusation that he is being unnecessarily religious, perhaps even evangelistic? What mandate compels him to deal so thoroughly with the issue? Why does he write, “To that experience I must now turn”? Is it the mandate of earnest scholarship? Plenty of other literary historians apparently feel no necessity to turn so deliberately to the positive and invigorating influences of distinctly Christian ideas. On the contrary, they freely find what is censorious and stultifying in Christian (and especially puritan) practice. Against this backdrop Lewis seems almost unprofessional to be so “preachy” about conversion.
Perhaps, then, it is not the mandate of rigorous scholarship, but the mandate of the Great Commission that lays this necessity upon Lewis. Christ commands his followers to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). Lewis is a notorious Christian; Christians are commanded to make disciples. Perhaps Lewis is simply being a dutiful Christian and taking advantage of his platform to insert a bit of Christian propaganda, sneaky fellow.
While this paper is concerned almost exclusively with the paragraph on catastrophic conversion, it is noteworthy that the presence of Christian influence is not limited to a few isolated passages that are ostensively Christian. From a philosophical point of view, perhaps the most obvious evidence that Lewis is writing under the influence of Christianity is his apparent assumption that truth is a unity and cannot be bifurcated. In the early twenty first century even most Christians naively submit to the idea that empirically verifiable truth or scientific truth is somehow more true than truth that is learned through imagination, intuition, or even faith. Lewis does not concede this artificial bifurcation, and his assuming the oneness of truth may be, by postmodern standards, the most obvious evidence that he is playing by a different set of rules. This worldview manifests itself when, for example, Lewis quotes scripture as authoritative: “We know from scripture …” (48). The paragraph on catastrophic conversion is not an anomaly in a work that is otherwise secular.
I recall my own response to the paragraph on conversion when I first read the book in the early 1990s. I was pastor of a small congregation in the hills of Appalachia, and I was thinking very earnestly about evangelistic endeavors. After reading the section dealing with catastrophic conversion, I told my wife, “Someone could get saved reading this book.” Was that Lewis’ goal?
As much as a part of me would be delighted to answer “yes” to that question, honesty compels me to admit that it probably was not his immediate goal. The paragraph on conversion is not an evangelistic excrescence. But I also rule out the possibility that it is an academic excrescence. It is not an excrescence at all. Rather, in the course of academic investigation, Lewis’ own personal experience with catastrophic conversion affords him insight that others might (and do) easily miss. Thorough academic investigation was integral to who C. S. Lewis was. Thorough commitment to Christ was also integral to his personality. What comes from Lewis’ pen is unavoidably Christian scholarship, as long as he remains true to himself, because he was a Christian scholar. In the “catastrophic conversion” paragraph Lewis writes, “faith, inevitably, even unconsciously, flows out into works of love at once. [The converted person] is not saved because he does works of love: he does works of love because he is saved” (33). The same basic idea applies to Lewis as a scholarly writer. Faith, inevitably, even unconsciously, flows out into works of scholarship at once. He is not a Christian scholar because he writes works of Christian scholarship; he writes Christian scholarship because he is a Christian scholar. In writing about catastrophic conversion, he does not need to quote third party authorities; he personally knows what he is writing about.
This results in what for me, and I suspect for others, is one of the most effective and attractive features of Lewis’ scholarship: reading his work is very much like having a conversation with a learned and winsome friend who has thought deeply about issues that interest me much. His writings are not riddled with endless and pedantic scholarly references. There is a remarkable lack of footnotes in his essays and books. Any fair-minded observer will quickly be impressed with Lewis’ vast acquisition of knowledge. His breadth of reading is stunning. He is, however, like the honeybee that gathers nectar from many sources but makes her own honey. His mind has been nourished and strengthened by many writers and teachers, but now his own writing is the distillation of his own thought. Amid the vast possibilities for ostentation open to a man remarkable for his ability to remember nearly everything he ever read, he clearly takes the advice of Sidney’s muse who chided him with, “Fool, look in your heart and write” (Astrophel and Stella 1). And he also demonstrates the loving, calm attitude of George Herbert who wrote, “Nor let them punish me with loss of rhyme, who plainly say, “My God, my King.”” It has been well said that preaching is Truth mediated through personality. Similarly, in C. S. Lewis we have literary scholarship mediated through personality – Christian personality.
It really is inevitable that Lewis presents a sympathetic understanding of Christian issues. As a true believer, he cannot help it, nor can anyone else unless he pretends to be something other than who he really is. This principle is relevant not only when considering the work of a Christian scholar; it is applicable to the work of virtually everyone involved in scholarship. It is almost a truism that what a scholar knows and loves will influence what he perceives and how he communicates with his students and readers. Feminist critics will perceive feminism and they are expected to discuss it sympathetically, ardently, and with a view to proselytize. Similar liberties are granted to Marxist critics, Freudian critics, etc. The same geniality is not usually extended to Christian scholars, and this is irrational and it is unjust, but happily, in most situations, it does not warrant loud protest, and that for two reasons.
First, Christianity is true. It is not simply comforting, convenient, or “true for me;” it is true. Because it is true then it is right to live by it, teach by it, and interpret literature according to it. We live in a universe that was created by Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ holds it together. In the end we will all stand before him, and he will judge us. There are rewards for faithfully following Christ and for helping others to understand truth and follow Christ. These rewards are far better than academic recognition and career advancement (cf. Lewis’ own experience), and if one suffers a demotion or loses his position as a result of following Christ, he will be all the more richly rewarded. This is not a situation that warrants loud whining.
Second, protest is usually unnecessary because anyone willing to do the research will find ample opportunities to do what Lewis does in his scholarly writings: discover legitimate academic imperative to say regarding catastrophic conversion and many other cardinal Christian doctrines and experiences, “to that experience I must now turn.” This turning can be done with virtually any discipline, but it cries out to be done with the humanities in general and literature and philosophy in particular. Not that the Christian teacher must conjure up some excuse to wedge in an excursus on Christianity and having done so, he and his students can all be relieved when it is finally over. To the contrary, thorough scholarship requires that we spend some time helping our students understand how Christianity has influenced the subjects under consideration. Because Christian teaching is fundamental to serious academics, it is a grievous error to omit it, and it would be a still more grievous error to omit it because we assume that students know about it.
Students are now almost entirely ignorant of even basic knowledge of the Bible, and students are not the only ones; many scholars, especially those born after 1950, demonstrate an alarming inability to even recognize, much less understand, basic Christian doctrines and biblical references. The situation becomes almost amusing when a scholar erroneously supposes he knows Christian doctrine and attempts to explain Milton, Herbert, Bunyan or some other writer whose work is saturated with Christianity. It would be unkind to mention specific instances of the silliness that sometimes flows from this ignorance, but scholars with limited understanding of Christianity will tend not only to miss the obvious but also to concoct the nonexistent. For example, these scholars, groping in the dark, assert that virtually every mention of wine is a reference to the Lord’s Supper; every mention of water is supposed to be a reference to baptism. Perhaps some of these scholars would be surprised to learn that Christians do occasionally use water for some purpose other than baptizing. Doubtless many of these scholars are somewhat embarrassed by their lack of biblical knowledge, but rectifying the situation would entail what many would never consider doing: actually reading the Bible.
In reality, while reading the Bible would help avoid some embarrassment, it would accomplish little more than that. C. S. Lewis’ expertise in matters Christian is not the result of a Bible survey course or merely reading the Bible through once or twice. (Though that is a noble start). His solid insights are the result of years of deliberate study, contemplation, and personal experience. By personal experience I mean that he himself was a believer. His being a believer made him a better scholar, especially when dealing with the literature written by professing believers. It is unrealistic to suppose that every person aspiring to be a scholar of English Literature ought to invest years of study in Christianity. With rare exception, the only English scholars who do that are professing believers. This being the case, it makes sense that every English department have at least one faculty member who is an earnest, church going, Bible-reading, regularly praying Christian. It would be a nightmare to advertise for someone having those qualifications, and I do not imagine that it is going to happen any time soon in America, but it makes good sense, and it is consistent with other hiring practices. Feminist studies are inevitably taught by a feminist. African American literature is virtually always taught by an African American. Why is it such a novel idea that the person best qualified to teach Herbert, Milton, Bunyan, and other conspicuously Christian writers is an academically and spiritually qualified Christian? In the increasingly prevalent context of Biblical and spiritual ignorance, how necessary is the gentle, informed, authoritative voice of a guide like C. S. Lewis who says, “To that experience I must now turn.”
[1] All parenthetical references are to English Literature in the Sixteenth Century.