CS Lewis was a Calvinist? / Douglas Wilson

[BlackPhilomath]

The whole theme of "The Great Divorce" was how important one's choices in life (and perhaps even after) are. He believed heavily in total free will, and he openly rejected the doctrine of total depravity many times. How could he have possibly been a Calvinist while denying these two things?

[pkidtim]

Wilson simply wants Lewis to be a Calvinist. Lewis clearly believed in "free will." If there is any doubt about that...just read "Mere Christianity" in the "Shocking Alternative" chapter (pg. 47).

[tonyforeman]

A 'time-travel' Calvinist who 'sounds awfully Arminian': a Calvinist in spirit even if not in his writings. This is wishful thinking on a grand scale by Mr Wilson.

[bruceschweyer]

Clive Staples Lewis is a good man. He might not know everything, but he was one of England's literary giants.

[CasperLCat]

“The happiness God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him ...” - Mere X’ty.

So the answer is NO, as anyone who cares about Lewis’s ideas (rather than one’s own) could tell you in 5 seconds.

Keep talking around and around the question, Doug. Maybe by the time you’ve done everything except answer the question, the audience will have forgotten what it was.

[matthewturner]

I used to think that Doug Wilson is a well read intelligent man, and he probably is but his assumption that Lewis was a Calvinist is absolutely absurd. When would have to do a lot of creative mental gymnastics to arrive at that conclusion. Also, the arrogance of Wilson saying that Lewis is now a Calvinist is quite in line with Calvinistic arrogance.

[DrgnSlyr]

Funny. Twenty years ago Calvinists couldn't say anything good about Lewis. Now he's one of them!?

[Kuudere-Kun]

How would you reconcile Susan's fate with Calvanism? She was an anointed Queen by Aslan, but clearly fell away.

[joshisnotGreat]

"Pilgrim's Progress, if you ignore some straw-splitting dialogues on Calvinist theology and concentrate on the story, is first class." - C.S. Lewis, Letter to Margaret Gray from Magdalene College, 9 May 1961

[guitar-jprp]

"if God’s moral judgement differs from ours so that our “black” may be His “white”, we can mean nothing by calling Him good; for to say “God is good, ” while asserting that His goodness is wholly other than ours, is really only to say “God is we know not what”. And an utterly unknown quality in God cannot give us moral grounds for loving or obeying Him. If He is not (in our sense) “good” we shall obey, if at all, only through fear – and should be equally ready to obey an omnipotent Fiend. The doctrine of Total Depravity – when the consequence is drawn that, since we are totally depraved, our idea of good is worth simply nothing – may thus turn Christianity into a form of devil-worship." C.S. Lewis

[fredflintstone]

I have questions about CS Lewis in general regarding Christianity. I suppose the future will answer the question as to whether he really was one or not.

In 'Reflections on the Psalms' Lewis proposed that Moses as well as Israel in general may have inherited their view of monotheism at least in part from a previous Pharaoh, Pharaoh Alchenaten, which lends itself to the idea that Judaism actually sprang from Pagan roots which a view that at least gained some popularity during the 20th century. Where's God in this? YHWH? Rather than look to the biblical revelation of how Israel came about, here Lewis leans toward pagan origins as if God might in part use Pagan religions to teach his people. A more consistent theme in the OT is that God separated his people from the Pagans and insisted that they take no part in pagan beliefs, or worship, don't even learn their ways. He dealt directly with their teaching and worship. But those without faith of course will want to gravitate toward secular influences for worship. Thank you Mr. Lewis.

In 'The world's last night', Lewis wrote, "Say what you like, ” we shall be told, “the apocalyptic beliefs of the first Christians have been proved to be false. It is clear from the New Testament that they all expected the Second Coming in their own lifetime. And worse still, they had a reason, and one which you will find very embarrassing. Their Master had told them so. He shared, and indeed created, their delusion. He said in so many words, ‘this generation shall not pass till all these things be done.’ And he was wrong. He clearly knew no more about the end of the world than anyone else.”
It is certainly the most embarrassing verse in the Bible. Yet how teasing, also, that within fourteen words of it should come the statement “But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.” The one exhibition of error and the one confession of ignorance grow side by side. That they stood thus in the mouth of Jesus himself, and were not merely placed thus by the reporter, we surely need not doubt. Unless the reporter were perfectly honest he would never have recorded the confession of ignorance at all; he could have had no motive for doing so except a desire to tell the whole truth. And unless later copyists were equally honest they would never have preserved the (apparently) mistaken prediction about “this generation” after the passage of time had shown the (apparent) mistake. "

As is with a number of heretical claims, Lewis is a bit slippery in his presentation leaving himself a back door to slip out of like in how he presented the idea that spirit beings move the human pieces on the game board of life in 'The great Divorce'. If anyone has an issue with this non biblical view, all he had to claim was that it was a 'dream'. Or in this case precluding his view with, 'Say what you like, we shall be told'... The trouble is that he does end up making the assertion that Jesus presented bad information.

This is a sloppy eisegesis of the text by Lewis being made operating under the presupposition that the second coming of Christ was not the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple at AD70 which did fit the criteria of Christ's prophesy, and that it could only apply to the third return of Christ which has yet to come. A cursory look at the text shows that Jesus was talking about the former coming because he was describing the event that would happen within 35 years or so. Lewis also assumes that saying on which particular day and what hour it would happen not being known to Christ would also have to mean that he didn't have any idea at all of the time frame so saying 'this generation shall not pass' would have to be wrong. So here he's claiming that Jesus throws out interesting contradictions which basically means he was wrong. He stated something he didn't know as a fact which of course would have made Jesus a false prophet which would have landed Him in sin making him an unworthy sacrifice for the cross.
For my money, Lewis is painting Jesus as an error prone man. That's not part of any Christian view I'm aware of.
Lewis's remaining praise is that since the negative was reported in the bible, this gives the bible more credibility. Instead I would have had Lewis consider at least in part a preterist view and that the mistake was made by Lewis, not by Jesus.

[JoeWhettam]

He does actually say he isn't Calvinist. In a letter in the book of his letters

[lfcizdabest]

Awful long video to a question where a simple "no" would have sufficed.

[psychenous]

After listening to this summation of Lewis and having read most of his works I would more readily conclude Lewis to be at least a fundamentalist, not necessarily Calvinist. Fundamentalism is not to be confused with Calvinism. My father is Arminian and is as fundamentalist as they come. Also I have a friend named Dave who is somewhat of a follower of both schools of thought and he too is fundamentalist. The fact that Lewis seemingly made Arminian and Calvinistic statements demonstrates this.

[YusefAlTahir]

CS Lewis was converted by two roman catholics. gk chesterton and jrr tolken were the two greatest influences on his conversion and Lewis was a very catholic anglican

[FroggyalwaysTCG]

Seems audacious to interpret CS Lewis through the lens of any systematic and then claim he supports it. Everything I've ever read seems to point to him having the simplest writing and speaking to understand. The works themselves are amazing but none require a decoder ring to find hidden layers. His yes was yes and his no was no. CS Lewis was nothing close to a calvinist.

[fredflintstone]

I disagree with Mr. Wilson. I do believe that CS Lewis was acquainted to some degree with Calvinism but actually promoted Arminianism as his own personal belief. In 'Mere Christianity' he wrote a chapter on the classic Arminian view that God looks down through the corridors of time and sees how a person will respond to the gospel and puts the name in the book of life, and predestines them accordingly. In the writing he did not call this 'a' view, but a helpful view of how to reconcile the conflict in one's mind. This moves the ultimate control of salvation out of God's hands and back into the hands of the human as the Arminian is determined to do. This precludes God from having absolute sovereign control over the salvation of a human which is in opposition to Calvinism. So no, CS Lewis was no Calvinist. Did he understand it? Perhaps, but it was not the foundation for his belief in how God saves. He was most definitely a synergist.

[sonofjay]

"Sovereignty and freedom is reconciled at the highest level and we can't do the math". This is a superb statement and perfectly sums up my convictions as a non-Calvinist. Bravo Doug Wilson. I assert that the problem with Calvinism, as I understand it, is going too far in trying to figure out the math and thus, ending with a different God who takes pleasure in creating beings prepared for everlasting torment.

[phileoblack]

One of the most profound C.S. Lewis teaching on Free will is found in Screwtape Letters. Letter 27 to be exact. Lewis wrote, "God does not forsee the humans making their free contributions in a future, but sees them doing so in His unbounded Now. And obviously to watch a man doing something is not to make him do it." It seems as if Lewis' reasoning in Perelandra and Mere Christianity on Sovereignty and Free Will is more in line with the Molinist position. 

[timonestory]

Mr. Billingsley: Did you REALLY LISTEN to what Douglas said? If Lewis subscribed to the 39 points of Anglican doctrine, how can anyone legitimately claim him as a Catholic? To say that he "pilfered stuff" from various sectors of Christianity is simply careless reasoning. Christ's followers get their "stuff" from the Bible-- so of course some of them have similar points.