C. S. Lewis
Page 36
It was while he was halfway through the Mere Christianity talks that Lewis addressed the question: ‘How can an unchanging Gospel survive the continual increase of knowledge?’ How can we pass down the Everlasting Gospel in moulds which it has outgrown? Lewis believed that wherever there is real progress in knowledge, there is some knowledge, some unchanging element, that is never superseded. ‘I claim’, he said, ‘that the positive historical statements made by Christianity have the power, elsewhere found chiefly in formal principles, of receiving, without intrinsic change, the increasing complexity of meaning which increasing knowledge puts into them.’86
* * *
* The Reverend James William Welch (1900–67) was educated at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and was ordained in the Church of England in 1927. He was Curate of St Mary’s, Gateshead, 1926–9, after which he served with the Church Missionary Society at Oleh, Nigeria, 1929–35. He was Principal of St John’s Training College, York, 1935–50, but left to become the BBC’s Director of Religious Broadcasting, 1939–42. He was Prebendary of Neasden in St Paul’s Cathedral, London, 1942–4, after which he was Chaplain to His Majesty King George VI. Welch was Professor of Religious Studies and Vice-Principal of Ibadan University College, Nigeria, 1950–4.
* Eric Fenn (1899–1995) was a pacifist, and as a result of refusing military service in 1917 he was sent to Wormwood Scrubs prison. Following the war he took a degree at Imperial College, London, after which he trained for the Presbyterian ministry at Westminster College, Cambridge. In 1926 he began working with the Student Christian Movement. He joined the BBC in 1939 and he began in 1945 broadcasting a programme entitled ‘Think on These Things’. From 1957 until his retirement in 1968 he was Professor of Christian Doctrine at Selly Oak College, Birmingham.
† The Reverend Maurice Henry Edwards (1886–1961) was educated at Queen’s College, Cambridge, and Leeds Clergy School. He served as a chaplain in the Royal Navy during 1914–18. He became a chaplain in the Royal Air Force in 1918 and after the war he served in Iraq and Egypt. He was Chaplain-in-Chief of the RAF, 1940–4. After this he was Rector of Acton Burnell cum Pitchford from 1948 until his retirement in 1953.
‡ The Reverend Charles James Frederick Gilmore (1908–90) was educated at St John’s College, Oxford, and took his BA in 1931. He spent a year at Wycliffe Hall theological college, Oxford, and was ordained in 1932. He was a curate at Stoke-next-Guildford, 1932–4; Vicar of St Luke, Battersea, 1934–6. In 1936 he became a chaplain with the Royal Air Force, and in 1949 he was promoted to Assistant Chaplain-in-Chief. Gilmore was Warden of the College of Aeronautics, 1950–2, and Adviser to the College, 1968–75. In 1943 he founded and was the first Commandant of the Royal Air Force Chaplains Society and Society of Moral Leadership.
* Eric Rücker Eddison (1882–1945) read Greats at Trinity College, Oxford, taking his BA in 1905. He entered the Board of Trade in 1906, and was private secretary to successive Presidents of the Board, 1915–19. In 1923 he was Secretary to the Imperial Economic Conference. In 1930 Eddison became Deputy Comptroller-General in the Department of Overseas Trade. He retired in 1938 to devote his time to writing. He is the author of three novels loosely linked together as separate parts of a romantic epic: The Worm Ouroboros (1922); Mistress of Mistresses: A Vision of Zimiamvia (1935); and A Fish Dinner in Memison (1941). At his death Eddison was working on a fourth novel which remained incomplete – The Mezentian Gate (1958). He also published Styrbiorn the Strong (1926) and a scholarly translation, Egils Saga (1930).
* ‘Priestess in the Church?’, originally published as ‘Notes on the Way’ in Tide and Time, Volume XXIX, was reproduced in Undeceptions (1971) and God in the Dock (1998).
NOTES
1 BBC Written Archives, Caversham Park, Reading.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 TST, p. 489.
5 Letter to Walter Hooper.
6 Letters, p. 358.
7 Luke 19:3.
8 Sister Penelope’s ‘Notes on the Letters’, Bodleian Library, MS. Eng. lett. c. 220/1, fol, 1.
9 Letters, p. 359. Lewis was referring to Numbers 22:28 where Balaam is converted by his ass preaching to him.
10 ‘God in the Dock’, God in the Dock (1979; Fount, 1998), p. 93.
11 Screwtape Proposes a Toast and Other Pieces, pp. 87–8.
12 Ibid., p. 90.
13 Ibid., p. 91.
14 Ibid., pp. 101–2.
15 Bodleian Library, MS. Facs. C. 47, fol. 4.
16 Richard Baxter, Church-history of the Government of Bishops and their Councils (1680), ‘What History is Credible, and What Not’ [p. xv].
17 See Chapter 4, n. 33.
18 C.S. Lewis: Essay Collection and Other Short Pieces, p. 440.
19 Mere Christianity (1952; Fount, 1998), p. vii.
20 Collationes in Decem Praeceptis, 1.
21 Romans 2:14–15.
22 BBC Written Archives.
23 Mere Christianity, bk I, ch. 1, p. 4.
24 Ibid.
25 Ibid., p. 7.
26 Ibid., ch. 2, p. 9.
27 Ibid., p. 11.
28 Ibid., ch. 3, p. 17.
29 Ibid., ch. 4, p. 20.
30 Ibid., ch. 5, p. 25.
31 Ibid., p. 26.
32 TST, p. 491.
33 William Wordsworth, The Prelude (1850), IX, 108.
34 BBC Written Archives.
35 Letter to Walter Hooper, Bodleian Library, MS. Eng. lett. c. 220/2, fol. 131–2.
36 Letters, pp. 363–4.
37 Mere Christianity, bk II, ch. 2, p. 37.
38 Ibid., ch. 3, p. 43.
39 The Tablet, vol. 180 (18 July 1942), p. 32.
40 Time and Tide, vol. 23 (19 September 1942), p. 744.
41 The Clergy Review, vol. XXII (December 1942), pp. 561–2.
42 ‘Boxen or Scenes from Boxonian City Life’, Boxen, ch. 1, p. 63.
43 TST, p. 489.
44 BBC Written Archives.
45 Screwtape Proposes a Toast and Other Pieces, p. 93.
46 C.S. Lewis: Essay Collection and Other Short Pieces, pp. 148–9.
47 Mere Christianity, bk III, ch. 5, p. 79.
48 Ibid.
49 Ibid., pp. 79–80.
50 Ibid., bk III, ch. 6, p. 86.
51 Ibid., p. 87.
52 Ibid., pp. 89–90.
53 Ephesians 5:23.
54 Mere Christianity, bk III, ch. 6, p. 93.
55 Ibid.
56 The Tablet, vol. 181 (26 June 1943), p. 308.
57 ‘Miracles’, God in the Dock, p. 1.
58 TST, p. 494.
59 Bodleian Library, MS. Eng. Lett. c. 220/2, fol. 28. Both sides of the correspondence between Lewis and Eddison are to be found in the Bodleian Library.
60 Ibid., fol. 39.
61 CSL: The Bulletin of the New York C.S. Lewis Society, vol. 3, No. 7 (May 1972). p. 2.
62 That Hideous Strength, ch. 6, pt 6, pp. 87–8.
63 Ibid., ch. 2, pt 4, p. 45.
64 Ibid., ch. 7, pt 2, p. 157.
65 Ibid., ch. 14, pt 5, p. 350.
66 ‘Equality’, C.S. Lewis: Essay Collection and Other Short Pieces, p. 666.
67 ‘Membership’, Fern-seed and Elephants, pp. 9–10.
68 The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers, Volume Three, pp. 387–8.
69 ‘Priestesses in the Church?’, God in the Dock, p. 81.
70 Ibid., p. 83.
71 Ibid., p. 86.
72 Ibid., pp. 83–4.
73 BBC Written Archives.
74 Ibid.
75 Ibid.
76 Ibid.
77 Mere Christianity, bk IV, ch. 2, p. 135.
78 The Times Literary Supplement (21 October 1944), p. 513.
79 Theology, vol. XLVIII (March 1945), p. 68.
80 BBC Written Archives.
81 Ibid.
82 Letters, p. 414.
83 The Screwtape Letters, Letter 25, p. 97.
84 The Four Loves (1960; Fount, 1998), ch. 6, p. 131.
85 Jude 3.
86 ‘Dogma and the Universe’, God in the Dock, p. 27.
10
THE CRUSADING INTELLECT
Towards the end of Michaelmas Term 1941 a young lady from Somerville College complained that no one seemed ready to discuss the questions agnostics raised about God. Luckily, she complained to the right person – the indefatigable Miss Stella Aldwinckle,* who immediately put up a notice exhorting ‘all atheists, agnostics, and those who are disillusioned about religion or think they are’ to meet her in the Somerville Junior Common Room.1 After a few meetings she came to the conclusion that ‘an open forum for the discussion of the intellectual difficulties connected with religion in general and with Christianity in particular was the obvious solution, and Mr C.S. Lewis the obvious President’.2 Interest spread quickly to other colleges, and the Oxford University Socratic Club was formed. Lewis readily accepted the position of president (a position he retained until he went to Cambridge in 1954) and Stella Aldwinckle served as chairman of the society from its founding until it ended in 1972. Lewis gave much of the early history of the society in his preface to the first Socratic Digest:
By stages which must have been very swift (for I cannot remember them), we found that a new society had been formed, that it was attempting the difficult programme of meeting once a week, that it was actually carrying this programme out, that its numbers were increasing, and that neither foul weather nor crowded rooms (they were lucky who found seats even on the floor) would reduce the size of the meetings. This was the Socratic Club … Those who founded it do not for one moment pretend to be neutral. It was the Christians who constructed the arena and issued the challenge. It will therefore always be possible for the lower (the less Athenian) type of unbeliever to regard the whole thing as a cunningly – or not even so very cunningly – disguised form of propaganda. The Athenian type, if he had this objection to make, would put it in a paper and read that paper to the Socratic itself. He would be welcome to do so – though I doubt whether he would have the stomach if he knew with what pains and toil the committee has scoured Who’s Who to find intelligent atheists who had leisure or zeal to come and propagate their creed.3
The first official meeting of the Socratic Club was held in Somerville College on 26 January 1942 when Dr ‘Humphrey’ Havard, one of the Inklings, read a paper answering the question ‘Won’t Mankind Outgrow Christianity in the Face of the Advance of Science and Modern Ideologies?’ The secretary recorded of this first meeting that Stella Aldwinckle ‘opened the meeting with a brief description of the nature and aims of the club. She said it had been formed for those who do not necessarily wish to commit themselves to Christian views but are interested in a philosophical approach to religion in general and Christianity in particular.’4 Following a brief résumé of Dr Havard’s paper, the minutes end with this summary:
Talking of the so-called conflict between Science and Christianity, the speaker emphasized that they operated in different spheres. It was as if one man said: ‘It is very fine today’; and the other: ‘On the contrary, it is half-past four!’ Hostility was more apparent between scientists and philosophers. On the subject of the Menace of Modern Ideologies to Christianity, Dr Havard pointed out that although all theological fashions seem to be irresistible in their day they do not outgrow the Christian Creed. Christianity was very unpopular in the first and third centuries, and unfashionable in the eighteenth – but it continued to survive. In conclusion, the speaker gave it as his opinion that man’s intellectual trust in the advances of sciences and in modern ideologies would not prove to be permanent.5
After this the meetings were held in one or other of the Oxford colleges, and the usual practice was to have two speakers at each meeting. One week the first speaker would be a Christian, who would be answered by an atheist; the next week an atheist would be answered by a Christian. Meetings began at 8.15 p.m. and, after both speakers had had their say, there was a general discussion which usually went on until 10.30 p.m., when Miss Aldwinckle brought them to a close lest they run into the small hours of the morning. As Lewis said, it was difficult to dig up enough atheists who would come and propagate their creed, and when none was available the debate would be between Christians who held widely differing views. Anyone who was a student in Oxford between 1942 and 1954 would have seen the society’s bright green posters in the lodge of his or her college announcing the topics and speakers for that term – and proudly displayed at the top of the poster, the words: ‘President: C.S. LEWIS, M.A.’
Such a masthead was enough to ensure a large turnout, and though Lewis was undoubtedly the wittiest and most exciting speaker in the Socratic Club he by no means tried to hog all the attention. During his thirteen years as president, he was the first speaker on only eleven occasions when he spoke on the following subjects:
1. ‘Christianity and Aesthetics’ (16 November 1942)
2. ‘If We Have Christ’s Ethics Does the Rest of the Christian Faith Matter?’ (8 February 1943)
3. ‘Science and Miracles’ (15 November 1943)
4. ‘“Bulverism”: or The Foundation of Twentieth-Century Thought’ (7 February 1944)
5. ‘Is Institutional Christianity Necessary?’ (5 June 1944)
6. ‘Is Theology Poetry?’ (6 November 1944)
7. ‘Resurrection’ (14 May 1945)
8. ‘Nature and Reason’ (15 October 1945)
9. ‘Religion without Dogma?’ (20 May 1946)
10. ‘A First Glance at Sartre’ (3 November 1947)
11. ‘On Obstinacy in Belief’ (30 April 1953)
As president, however, it usually fell to Lewis to make the first reply in discussion. And, though it was a matter of courtesy to invite an eminent atheist visitor to speak first, everyone knew it was more exciting for the eminent atheist to sound the battle-cry before Lewis stepped in like a new David and defeated the opposition with the brilliant cut and thrust of his unanswerable logic. The distinguished theologian, Austin Farrer, was a member of the Socratic and a frequent speaker, and he remembered that
The great value of Lewis as apologist was his many-sidedness. So far as the argumentative business went, he was a bonny fighter. His writing gave the same impression as his appearances in public debate. I was occasionally called upon to stop a gap in the earlier programmes of Lewis’s Socratic Club. Lewis was president, but he was not bound to show up. I went in fear and trembling, certain to be caught out in debate and to let down the side. But there Lewis would be, snuffing the imminent battle and saying ‘Aha!’ at the sound of the trumpet. My anxieties rolled away. Whatever ineptitude I might commit, he would maintain the cause; and nobody could put Lewis down.6
No minutes of the Socratic meetings were kept until Valerie Pitt became secretary in 1945. However, many Socratic evenings passed into legend and demonstrate what a fiercely energetic society the Socratic was. On the evening of 24 January 1944 one of the largest crowds ever to attend – 250 people – gathered in Lady Margaret Hall, one of the women’s colleges, to hear Lewis answer that great erstwhile atheist C.E.M. Joad, who read a paper entitled ‘On Being Reviewed by Christians’. One of Lewis’s pupils, John Wain, was there and in his autobiography he described the atmosphere as ‘positively gladiatorial’:
Joad’s last words were no longer out than the society’s secretary, a formidable, crop-haired woman, was on her feet with the announcement, ‘Mr C.S. Lewis will now ANSWER Dr Joad.’ Lewis gently corrected her: ‘Open the discussion, I think, is the formula.’ But to this secretary and her like, these performances were no mere polite ‘opening’ of ‘discussions’. An enemy had invaded the very hearthstone of the faithful, and it was a matter of ‘Christians, up and smite them!’ – Christians, in this case, being Lewis.7
It was the heart of winter but the discussion between the two men became so hot that they were both soon dripping with perspiration. Joad eventually begged leave to remove his coat, but when Stella Aldwinckle suggested Lewis do the same he whispered that he h
ad a large hole in his shirt, and so he carried on in his heavy tweed jacket.
On 7 February 1944, a week after Professor Joad’s visit, Lewis read a paper to the Socratic which, more than any he read to the society, reveals with unnerving accuracy those forces which discredit reason, and are more rampant now than when Lewis was alive. In his paper, ‘“Bulverism”: or the Foundation of 20th Century Thought’, he began by pointing to the error of those Freudians and Marxists who attempt to invalidate thinking by claiming that it is psychologically or ideologically ‘tainted’ at the source, or who, instead of attempting to refute a man’s argument, cast stones at him:
In other words, you must show that a man is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong. The modern method is to assume without discussion that he is wrong and then distract his attention from this (the only real issue) by busily explaining how he became so silly. In the course of the last fifteen years I have found this vice so common that I have had to invent a name for it. I call it Bulverism. Some day I am going to write the biography of its imaginary inventor, Ezekiel Bulver, whose destiny was determined at the age of five when he heard his mother say to his father – who had been maintaining that two sides of a triangle were together greater than the third – ‘Oh, you say that because you are a man.’ ‘At that moment,’ E. Bulver assures us, ‘there flashed across my opening mind the great truth that refutation is no necessary part of argument. Assume that your opponent is wrong, and then explain his error, and the world will be at your feet. Attempt to prove that he is wrong or (worse still) try to find out whether he is wrong or right, and the national dynamism of our age will thrust you to the wall.’ That is how Bulver became one of the makers of the twentieth century.8