Lewis responds to a liberal critic (part 5)

C.S. Lewis’ “Rejoinder to Pittenger” was published in a November 1958 issue of Christian Century in response to the October article, “A Critique of C.S. Lewis” by Dr. Norman Pittenger.

The statement that I do not ‘care much for’ the Sermon on the Mount but ‘prefer’ the ‘Pauline ethic’ of man’s sinfulness and helplessness carries a suggestion of alternatives between which we may choose, where I see successive stages through which we must proceed. Most of my books arc evangelistic, addressed to tous exo. It would have been inept to preach forgiveness and a Saviour to those who did not know they were in need of either. Hence St Paul’s and the Baptist’s diagnosis (would you call it exactly an ethic?) had to be pressed. Nor am I aware that our Lord revised it (‘if ye, being evil…‘). As to ‘caring for’ the Sermon on the Mount, if ‘caring for’ here means ‘liking’ or enjoying, I suppose no one ‘cares for’ it. Who can like being knocked flat on his face by a sledge-hammer? I can hardly imagine a more deadly spiritual condition than that of the man who can read that passage with tranquil pleasure. This is indeed to be ‘at ease in Zion’.

C.S. Lewis, “Rejoinder to Dr Pittinger,” God in the Dock (Eerdmans: 1970) 181-182.

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Lewis responds to a liberal critic (part 4)

C.S. Lewis’ “Rejoinder to Pittenger” was published in a November 1958 issue of Christian Century in response to the October article, “A Critique of C.S. Lewis” by Dr. Norman Pittenger.

Where he really hurt me was in the charge of callousness to animals. Surprised me too; for the very same passage is blamed by others for extreme sentimentality.’* It is hard to please all. But if the Patagonians think me a dwarf and the Pygmies a giant, perhaps my stature is in fact fairly unremarkable.

*The reference is to the chapter on ‘Animal Pain’ in The Problem of Pain.

C.S. Lewis, “Rejoinder to Dr Pittinger,” God in the Dock (Eerdmans: 1970) 181.

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Lewis responds to a liberal critic (part 3)

C.S. Lewis’ “Rejoinder to Pittenger” was published in a November 1958 issue of Christian Century in response to the October article, “A Critique of C.S. Lewis” by Dr. Norman Pittenger.

I turn next to my book Miracles and am sorry to say that I here have to meet Dr Pittenger’s charges with straight denials. He says that this book ‘opens with a definition of miracle as the “violation” of the laws of nature’. He is mistaken. The passage (chapter 2) really runs: ‘I use the word Miracle to mean an interference with Nature by supernatural power.’ If Dr Pittenger thinks the difference between the true text and his mis-quotation merely verbal, he has misunderstood nearly the whole book. I never equated nature (the spatiotemporal system of facts and events) with the laws of nature (the patterns into which these facts and events fall). I would as soon equate an actual speech with the rules of grammar. In chapter 8 I say in so many words that no miracle either can or need break the laws of Nature; that ‘it is... inaccurate to define a miracle as something that breaks the laws of Nature’; and that ‘The divine art of miracle is not an art of suspending the pattern to which events conform but of feeding new events into that pattern.’ How many times does a man need to say something before he is safe from the accusation of having said exactly the opposite? (I am not for a moment imputing dishonesty to Dr Pittenger; we all know too well how difficult it is to grasp or retain the substance of a hook one finds antipathetic.)

C.S. Lewis, “Rejoinder to Dr Pittinger,” God in the Dock (Eerdmans: 1970) 178-179.

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Lewis responds to a liberal critic (part 2)

C.S. Lewis’ “Rejoinder to Pittenger” was published in a November 1958 issue of Christian Century in response to the October article, “A Critique of C.S. Lewis” by Dr. Norman Pittenger.

[Dr Pittenger] speaks about ‘the validity of our Lord’s unique place in Christian faith as that One in whom God was so active and so present that he may be called “God-Man”‘. I am not quite sure what this means. May I translate it, ‘our Lord’s actually unique place in the structure of utter reality, the unique mode, as well as degree, of God’s presence and action in Him, make the formula “God-Man” the objectively true description of Him’? If so, I think we are very nearly agreed. Or must I translate it, ‘the unique place which Christians (subjectively, in their own thoughts) gave to our Lord as One in whom God was present and active to a unique degree made it reasonable for them to call Him God- Man’? If so, I must demur. In other words, if Dr Pittenger’s ‘may be called’ means anything less or other than ‘is’, I could not accept his formula. For I think that Jesus Christ is (in fact) the only Son of God that is, the only original Son of God, through whom others are enabled to ‘become sons of God’.’ If Dr Pittenger wishes to attack that doctrine, I wonder he should choose me as its representative. It has had champions far worthier of his steel.

C.S. Lewis, “Rejoinder to Dr Pittinger,” God in the Dock (Eerdmans: 1970) 177-178.

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Lewis responds to a liberal critic

C.S. Lewis’ “Rejoinder to Pittenger” was published in a November 1958 issue of Christian Century. Lewis was responding to the October article, “A Critique of C.S. Lewis” by Dr. Norman Pittenger who was an Anglican professor of apologetics, a liberal known for writing about process theology. It’s quite interesting how Lewis responds to his critic who holds to vastly differently beliefs about Christianity.

One of the charges Dr. Norman Pittenger makes in his ‘Critique’ in the October 1 [1958]Christian Century, I must with shame plead guilty. He has caught me using the word ‘literally’ where I did not really mean it, a vile journalistic cliché which he cannot reprobate more severely than I now do myself.*

*In Broadcast Talks (London. 1942), Part II, ch. 5, p. 60, Lewis had written that “the whole mass of Christians are literally the physical organism, through which Christ acts— that we are His fingers and muscles, the cells of His body.” The word ‘literally’, however, was deleted when Broadcast Talks was reprinted with two other short books as Mere Christianity (London, 1952).

C.S. Lewis, “Rejoinder to Dr Pittinger,” God in the Dock (Eerdmans: 1970) 177.

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Thinking about one’s job (Part 2)

[Ransom answered,] “Yes. I shall arrive knowing the language. It saves a lot of trouble—though, as a philologist I find it rather disappointing.”
    “But you’ve no idea what you are to do, or what conditions you will find?” [asked Lewis.]
    “No idea at all what I’m to do. There are jobs, you know, where it is essential that one should not know too much beforehand ... things one might have to say which one couldn't say effectively if one had prepared them. As to conditions, well, I don’t know much. It will be warm… Our astronomers don’t know anything about the surface of Perelandra at all. The outer layer of her atmosphere is too thick" [answered Ransom].

C.S. Lewis, Perelandra (1943) Chapter 2.

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Thinking about one’s job (Part 1)

“Don’t imagine I’ve been selected to go to Perelandra because I’m anyone particular. One never can see, or not till long afterwards, why any one was selected for any job. And when one does, it is usually some reason that leaves no room for vanity. Certainly, it is never for what the man himself would have regarded as his chief qualifications. I rather fancy I am being sent [to Perelandra] because those two blackguards who kidnapped me and took me to Malacandra, did something which they never intended: namely, gave a human being a chance to learn that language” [said Ransom].

C.S. Lewis, Perelandra (1943) Chapter 2.

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