C.S. Lewis, Theology and The Trinity (part 2)

Mere Theology

Lewis spent his professional life first as an Oxford don finally as a Cambridge professor. He never had any formal theological training. But he was a tireless reader, and he absorbed the classics, including the great works of the Church Fathers. He even wrote the introductory article to the new translation of Athanasis’ On the Incarnation, (a great classic of the Christian Faith and written to laypeople, not churchmen or theologians!). His faith was based first and foremost upon his personal experience of God in Christ, not on apologetic arguments or carefully constructed theological systems. But his razor sharp mind let him take up the mantle of an apologist in an age of skepticism. While not a professional theologian he became a profoundly competent lay theologian whose reputation as a Christian and an academic led to an invitation from the BBC to do a series of broadcast talks to the British nation on the topic of Christianity during the dark days of WWII. In the introduction to the published version of this series of radio talks Lewis laid out the perspective from which he was speaking, a perspective which he labeled as, mere Christianity.

The reader should be warned that I offer no help to anyone who is hesitating between two Christian ‘denominations’. You will not learn from me whether you ought to become an Anglican, a Methodist, a Presbyterian, or a Roman Catholic. This omission is intentional (even in the list I have just given the order is alphabetical). There is no mystery about my own position. I am a very ordinary layman of the Church of England, not especially ‘high’, nor especially ‘low’, nor especially anything else. But in this book I am not trying to convert anyone to my own position. Ever since I became a Christian I have thought that the best, perhaps the only, service I could do for my unbelieving neighbours was to explain and defend the belief that has been common to nearly all Christians at all times. I had more than one reason for thinking this. In the first place, the questions which divide Christians from one another often involve points of high Theology or even of ecclesiastical history, which ought never to be treated except by real experts. I should have been out of my depth in such waters: more in need of help myself than able to help others. And secondly, I think we must admit that the discussion of these disputed points has no tendency at all to bring an outsider into the Christian fold.¹

For I am not writing to expound something I could call ‘my religion’, but to expound ‘mere’ Christianity, which is what it is and what it was long before I was born and whether I like it or not.²

That Lewis was successful in this task of presenting mere Christianity/theology is seen in the fact that he has achieved the practical status of sainthood, at least in America, from Christian denominations and sects of virtually all stripes, from Catholics and Episcopalians/Anglicans to Fundamentalists. Even the radical fundamentalist Dr. Bob Jones Jr. when asked by Walter Hooper (later Lewis’ personal secretary) what he thought of Lewis, Jones replied fiercely, “That man smokes a pipe, and that man drinks liquor—but I do believe he is a Christian!”³

Interestingly, whether he knew it or not Lewis was operating from the framework of the so-called Vincentian canon, named after Vincent of Lerins who lived in the fifth century. Vincent stated: “we hold that which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all people.” ((Vincent of Lérins stated:

I have devoted considerable study and much attention to inquiring, from men of outstanding holiness and doctrinal correctness, in what way it might be possible for me to establish a kind of fixed and, as it were, general and guiding principle for distinguishing the truth of the Catholic faith from the depraved falsehoods of the heretics. . . . Holy Scripture, on account of its depth, is not accepted in a universal sense. The same statements are interpreted in one way by one person, in another by someone else, with the result that there seem to be as many opinions as there are people. . . . Therefore, on account of the number and variety of errors, there is a need for someone to lay down a rule for the interpretation of the prophets and the apostles in such a way that is directed by the rule of the Catholic Church. Now in the Catholic Church itself the greatest care is taken that we hold that which has been everywhere, always, and by all people (quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est).

Vincent recognized the inadequacy in a simple appeal to the text of scripture in that the scripture was subject to a variety of interpretations. Something more was needed. He settled on the principle of the “consensus of the faithful.” In other words, there had to be universal recognition by the laity as well as the clergy. A doctrine could not be local. A doctrine could not be new. Another way to sum up this teaching is “catholicity.” The substance of Christian doctrine must be universal. This is in fact the presupposition of Thomas Oden in his systematic theology. Oden has endeavored to write a consensual theology using as his method the vincentian canon, focusing upon what is common to all branches of Christianity. (M. James Sawyer, The Survivor’s Guide to Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006), 158-9).))

In the final series of his BBC broadcast talks, published as Beyond Personality, he takes up the question of the Trinity although he had been warned that he ought to avoid the topic because “the ordinary reader does not want Theology; give him plain practical religion.”⁴ Lewis refused to heed this advice answering: “Theology means ‘the science of God’, and I think any man who wants to think about God at all would like to have the clearest and most accurate ideas about Him which are available.”⁵

True, our personal experience of God is to be our starting point and anchor, but we cannot stay there. We must forge ahead if we are to grow. Add to this that while Christianity is personal and personalist it is not designed to be a solitary experience. While I have heard the claim seemingly innumerable times, “Me and God is a majority in any situation!” (pardon the grammar!), this attitude is decidedly anti-Christian. It proclaims that the faith is a private affair that is no one else’s business. This attitude involves an implicit denial of core aspects of the Christian faith. God is not an individual “I”, He is a “We” (again there is no grammatical form that can properly express this reality) i.e. Father, Son and Spirit, who exist eternally in a dynamic love relationship. It also denies the reality that we are “members of one another” as parts of the body belong together and depend on one another. Our private experience of God, while true and valid, is woefully incomplete. We need only to look on the “one anothers” in the New Testament to give the lie to the “rugged individualism” version of Christianity.

Our personal experience of God is real, but it is not exhaustive. A look inside our own soul may reflect the experience of 19^th century philosopher James Martineau; that he found God enthroned in his own soul.⁶ Others throughout the world and throughout the centuries have also enjoyed similar experiences. While real and personal, the problem with “our experiences” is that they are solipsistic. Who is the God that Martineau and countless others testify to? While it is true that Jesus is the light that enlightens everyone (Jn 1:9), the reality of the experience does not bring with it its own infallible interpretation. Or to put this another way, spiritual experiences are not self-interpreting. They may identify the reality of God, but understanding the significance requires us to look elsewhere.

For most of my adult life I have lived within a thirty-minute drive from the ocean. As a teenager in Southern California I loved to go to the beach and body surf. Having lived the past 30+ years in Northern California I still love to go to the ocean. Several times a year Kay & I will leave home early on a Saturday morning and drive the 20+ miles to Half Moon Bay, get an extra hot latte and sit on the beach taking in the beauty and power of the Pacific (alas in the Bay Area it is far too cold to swim in). The power and beauty of the vast ocean with its roaring surf pounding our ears powerfully affects both of us. But no matter how many times we make the trek to the beach we get only a tiny, tiny, glimpse of the grandeur of this body of water. To cross it by jet plane takes over 11 hours. And even then we only see patches of the surface that are not obscured by the clouds. When I am in Guam and have a chance to go diving I am immersed in a world which is indescribably different and has its own beauty and strangeness. But even here at 40 feet below the surface of the water I grasp only an infinitesimal amount of what lies beneath the surface of the ocean. I certainly cannot use my experience as a universal guide to either cross the sea, or to explore beneath the waves. To get a better sense of the ocean I must look beyond my experience to the experience of others, others who have charted what is to me uncharted territory. My experience of the ocean is real but restricted so greatly that it would not help me if I tried to fly, sail, or dive without relying on the experience of many, many others.

Spiritually speaking Lewis insists that when we turn from our real personal experience to a map we are turning from the real to something that is less real. In speaking of spiritual experience, when we turn from our own encounter with God we are shifting our vision from something that is personal and real to something that is less real, something abstract. To press the analogy here we are turning our eyes from the grandeur of the ocean to a colored paper representation. We are turning from our experience to theology.

Theology is very much like a map, a map gives us a broad lay of the land or the ocean. Behind the map is the experience of thousands of individuals. Likewise when we turn to theology, particularly the creeds of the church, we are looking at the maps which have guided believers through the centuries. As Lewis observed, theology and personal experience must exist side-by-side.

Doctrines are not God: they are only a kind of map. But that map is based on the experience of hundreds of people who really were in touch with God—experiences compared with which any thrills or pious feelings you and I are likely to get on our own are very elementary and very confused. And secondly, if you want to get any further, you must use the map. . . a vague religion—all about feeling God in nature, and so on—is so attractive. It is all thrills and no work: like watching the waves from the beach. But you will not get to Newfoundland by studying the Atlantic that way, and you will not get eternal life by simply feeling the presence of God in flowers or music. Neither will you get anywhere by looking at maps without going to sea. Nor will you be very safe if you go to sea without a map.⁷

And yet that is precisely what we (in my experience) are content to do.

Decades ago when I was at my first interview for a job as a theology professor I went through several “grillings.” I had met with the faculty for a couple of hours, then with the college president and came though just fine. But my toughest interview was with about a dozen students in the dining hall. (The denomination was one which emphasized spiritual experience over theology.) One of the students was particularly anxious about taking theology and asked me “Why should I take theology?” “Why isn’t it enough to love Jesus and obey his commandments?” At the time I had already been studying theology for about fifteen years. And I was blinded sided by the question. It is not often that you are asked to justify your entire discipline. Her attitude mirrors the advice Lewis got in preparing for his broadcast talks: “the ordinary reader does not want Theology; give him plain practical religion.”

But this is not just the attitude of anxious students and ordinary churchgoing Christians. This attitude infects even those who are in ministry.

Several years ago my wife, Kay, and I were seated at a table with a couple of retired missionaries. During the conversation I was asked, “So, what do you do for a living?” I replied “ I’m a theologian.” The wife looked at me incredulously and said, “Why would anyone want to do that? It is so boring.” I tried my best but without success to disabuse her attitude. For her and innumerable others Theology is dull, boring and unrelated to life. The discipline is filled with Ivory Tower academics who isolate themselves from reality.

Lewis argued that this type of attitude is fundamentally wrongheaded.

. . . Theology is like the map. Merely learning and thinking about the Christian doctrines, if you stop there, is less real and less exciting than [a personal spiritual experience]. Doctrines are not God: they are only a kind of map. But that map is based on the experience of hundreds of people who really were in touch with God—experiences compared with which any thrills or pious feelings you and I are likely to get on our own are very elementary and very confused. And secondly, if you want to get any further, you must use the map. You see, what happened to that man in the desert may have been real, and was certainly exciting, but nothing comes of it. It leads nowhere. There is nothing to do about it. In fact, that is just why a vague religion—all about feeling God in nature, and so on—is so attractive. It is all thrills and no work: like watching the waves from the beach. But you will not get to Newfoundland by studying the Atlantic that way, and you will not get eternal life by simply feeling the presence of God in flowers or music. Neither will you get anywhere by looking at maps without going to sea. Nor will you be very safe if you go to sea without a map.

In other words, Theology is practical: especially now. In the old days, when there was less education and discussion, perhaps it was possible to get on with a very few simple ideas about God. But it is not so now. Everyone reads, everyone hears things discussed. Consequently, if you do not listen to Theology, that will not mean that you have no ideas about God. It will mean that you have a lot of wrong ones—bad, muddled, out-of-date ideas. For a great many of the ideas about God which are trotted out as novelties today are simply the ones which real Theologians tried centuries ago and rejected. To believe in the popular religion of modern England is retrogression—like believing the earth is flat.⁸

 He goes on to say,

But as soon as you look at any real Christian writings, you find that they are talking about something quite different from this popular religion. They say that Christ is the Son of God (whatever that means). They say that those who give Him their confidence can also become Sons of God (whatever that means). They say that His death saved us from our sins (whatever that means).

There is no good complaining that these statements are difficult. Christianity claims to be telling us about another world, about something behind the world we can touch and hear and see. You may think the claim false, but if it were true, what it tells us would be bound to be difficult—at least as difficult as modern Physics, and for the same reason.⁹

1. C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: HarperOne, 2001), viii. [↩]
2. Ibid, ix. [↩]
3. Roger Lancelyn Green & Walter Hooper, C. S. Lewis: A Biography (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: New York, 1974), 229. [↩]
4. C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: HarperOne, 2001), 153. [↩]
5. Ibid, 153. [↩]
6. Charles A. Briggs, The Defense of Professor Briggs (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1893), 30. [↩]
7. C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: HarperOne, 2001), 154–155. [↩]
8. C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: HarperOne, 2001), 154–155. Note: I spend a whole chapter in my forthcoming book Recovering the Forgotten Trinity, on concepts of God that are found in the Church that are fundamentally wrongheaded and often heretical. [↩]
9. C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: HarperOne, 2001), 156. [↩]