More about  C. S. Lewis

C. S. Lewis Chronology


"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.


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