God in the Dock
is a compendium of Lewis’ essays, articles, letters, and a few
transcripts of his speeches compiled by editor Walter Hooper, who
served briefly as Lewis’ secretary during the illness that took
Lewis’ life. Hooper has organized the volume into four parts. The
first part contains essays that are “clearly theological,” the
second “semi-theological,” and the third “ethics,” and the
fourth is comprised of Lewis’ letters answering those who disagree
with some point he has made.
If Lewis is a
polemicist, he has two arguments to make: his primary argument is
against unbelief, and particularly unbelief possessed by those who
professed to believe: the liberal clergy and theologians of the
post-war Church of England. His other great issue is more subtle:
it’s an argument against unclear thought and language that
befuddles rather than enlightens. Lewis contends that if a man is not
able to translate a passage from an English volume of systematic
theology into language that his gardener would understand, he should
fail his ordination exam.
Modern conservative
evangelicals are conflicted about Lewis. It seems to me that there
are two reasons for the uncertainty. First there is a
misunderstanding about the way Lewis uses the term myth. As a
professor of literature, Lewis used the term to describe the rich
stories of cultures such as the Norsemen or the Greeks. Lewis
contended that, though historically false, such stories conveyed
subtle evidences of transcendence—in other words, evidence of God,
the True Joy. But he also used the term to describe Christianity, and
that’s what makes modern Bible-believers nervous. It need not.
Unlike modern
liberals, when Lewis uses “myth” in connection with Christianity,
he is not speaking of something false or unhistorical. Indeed, Lewis
was a strong force in his day arguing for the reality of the miracles
of Scripture, and against the anti-supernaturalism that wound up
destroying much of Anglicanism. Lewis uses the term myth in much the
same way that “metanarrative” is used in popular culture: it’s
the “big picture,” the “grand narrative,” the unifying story
that ties together and explains a culture. For Lewis Christian myth
is the true historical story of God’s grand plan of
redemption through His Son Jesus Christ. It is the story (the only
story) that explains the faith of the apostles and the two thousand
years of history since. Theologians use the term “redemptive
history” in almost precisely the way Lewis used the word myth to
describe Christianity. Myth is not the denial of historicity for
Lewis, rather it is the assertion of the grandness and majesty of The
Story—the true story.
The second concern
about Lewis regards his tendency to Universalism, the idea that all
men—even Christ rejecters—will ultimately be redeemed. Lewis
argues that we in time cannot now know what eternity bodes for the
lost. See for instance the last two chapters of The Great
Divorce. I think Lewis himself was conflicted about it—you can
observe his conflict in places where he argues strenuously for the
need of conversion before one faces God. Conservative evangelicals
who are disturbed by this part of Lewis need to go back and read the
first four centuries of church history—even Augustine believed
things we would disavow today. The same can be said of the Reformers:
for instance, they did not clearly separate civil from ecclesiastical
authority—it took a couple more centuries for that to finally
happen. We will do ourselves no favors judging Lewis by this one
matter. Hooper says of him, “Lewis struck me as the most thoroughly
converted man I ever met. Christianity was never for him a
separate department of life. . . ” [12, emphasis his].
God in the Dock
is an edifying and challenging sampler of Lewis’ thought in many
different areas of life and theology. I recommend it highly.
