Wright on Lewis
19 April 2007 by Gil
(via Think Christian):
I just came across an interesting retrospective on C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity by N.T. Wright. Those who know me will find it entirely predictable that I would post on an article that binds together two writers who have significantly shaped my thinking, likely on more subjects than I am aware.
Wright characterizes Mere Christianity as a ‘fine, but leaky building’, structurally solid in most places but in danger of collapse in others. Wright’s two main points of critique are Lewis’ views on eschatology and (not surprisingly) his failure to understand Jesus’ historical context. Since Mere Christianity was a significant lifeline in my own spiritual journey I remain a little wary of efforts to critique it.
I can appreciate Wright’s critique on Lewis’ view of Jesus. The Jesus that you meet in Mere Christianity does not seem all that rooted to the hopes and expectations of the people of Israel. This leads Wright to a dismissal of Lewis’ famous ‘liar, lunatic or Lord’ argument for the divinity of Christ, a dismissal that I’m not totally sure I buy. He argues that Jesus wasn’t claiming to be God when he offered to forgive sins, he was just offering outside the temple what everyone knew was only available inside the temple. As I read the gospels there seems to be a recurring theme that Jesus seems to casually do things that his contemporaries would have assumed only God could do. Forgiveness of sins is one of these but Jesus also reinterprets the entire OT law on the basis of his own authority.
Wright also critiques Lewis’ vision of heaven, arguing that it sounds more like Platonic philosophy than New Testament theology. I think Wright may be splitting hairs on this one but there is probably some link between Lewis’ idea of earth being the Shadowlands and Plato’s impression that the material world was the shadow cast by the metaphysical world. I think you could read either Lewis or Wright and come up with a far more hopeful (and practical) view of the end than a lot of what passes for Christian eschatology today.
Wright comes out with a mixture of admiration and hesitancy in his assessment of Lewis’ effort.
“Lewis himself would have been the first to say that of course his book was neither perfect nor complete, and that what mattered was that, if it brought people into the company, and under the influence (or “infection”) of Jesus Christ, Jesus himself would happily take over—indeed, that Jesus had been operating through the process all along, albeit through the imperfect medium of the apologist.”
those are some interesting thoughts to chew on Gil.
you knwo when I read your comments here I wonder if we have allowed our cultural tendency toward the fantastic to color our view of who Jesus is. in other words do we sorta need Jesus to be more fantastic than he real is? I know that is going to sound wrong because how could god be anything less than fantastic but if we can admit that we allow our veiw of Christ to be shped by our own cultural and philosophical ideas could it be that one of the subtle nuances that needs addressing is our need to dramatic, fabulous God/Man who supercedes all of our expectations and who then ultimately has a really hard time identifying with real humanity? I don’t know just wondering…
Lewis has met Jesus. They are great friends. Patiently, generously; with great care to make the profound simple and accessable, he invites you in to meet his, “great friend”.
This is my second encounter with the words of Mr. Wright. He doesn’t impress me much. He seems to be a cheerfully arrogant sort who deludes himself into thinking that the only a proper understanding of the historical Jesus will lead to right conclusions about the devine Jesus. Further only a few people, like him, in the last fifty years or so, have come to rightly understand the historical Jesus.
He comes across as a modestly convicted, anthropological celebrity stalker; best appreciated through abstinence.
You know I love Lewis, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that I’m writing, here.
I think your reading of the Gospels makes more sense than whatever Wright is doing. The scandal of Christ was that He was doing what only God can do - forgiving sins as though each one was directed at Him. That alone (oh, and where Christ refers to Himself as “I AM”
seems to throw the teachers into an uproar more than anything else He was doing. Hanging out with the dirty bacon-eaters wasn’t such a big deal, I think, but forgiving people like it was your business was the heresy.