Trivia Question: Which of the following individuals died on November 22, 1963?
A. John F. Kennedy, U.S. President
B. Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World and other works
C. C.S. Lewis, author of the Chronicles of Narnia and other works
D. All of the above.
The answer is D. They all died on November 22, 1963.
On November 22, 1963, the world was shocked by the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy by Lee Harvey Oswald. With all of the publicity surrounding Kennedy’s death, it wasn’t until a few days later that people learned that two literary figures had died the same day. C.S. Lewis, the author of Mere Christianity, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Screwtape Letters, and Alduous Huxley, the author of Brave New World, had both died that day too. The news about Kennedy eclipsed the news about the others at first. (My friend Brian Lowther was born on that day. He’s not a famous literary or political figure yet, but maybe one day.)
Peter Kreeft, a philosophy professor, wrote an interesting play called Between Heaven and Hell in which Lewis, Kennedy, and Huxley meet each other on the way to their final destinies and have an intellectual discussion about their various philosophies. The play is probably too academic for many audiences, but I thought it was an interesting idea. Philosophy books can be pretty dry and a dialogue approach can make it more engaging. I won’t say how the book ends or if it ends, but I’m attaching an Amazon link to the cover in case some of you are interested in buying this book. It’s available in print and Kindle editions.
If you’ve been reading this week, you know I’ve been posting about my first and only nonfiction book, Genesis and the Thoughtful Christian. The reason I chose to emphasize that book this week and The Sign of the Sword next week is that both were inspired, to some extent, by the work of C.S. Lewis and since Lewis’ death date is this week and his birthday is next week, the last two weeks of November seemed a good time. These are some slightly edited excerpts from the introduction of Genesis and the Thoughtful Christian that reference Lewis:
The first excerpt:
Most of my favorite Christian authors are former skeptics who either clawed their way back to faith or fought kicking and screaming against it before finally reaching a point of surrender. C.S. Lewis, Philip Yancey, and Lee Strobel have all been faithful friends to me in my explorations, and I suppose I envy them sometimes. One of the great fears of my young adulthood was of losing my faith and plummeting headlong into a dark pit of existential despair. My mentors, it seemed, had faced that darkness and emerged from it with a greater sense of certainty than they’d ever thought possible. I wonder sometimes if they ever really beat their doubts completely or if they just learned to manage them. Perhaps they reached a tipping point where they realized that their skepticism was no more substantial than they used to think belief in God was.
This second excerpt :
In a theology textbook, I read about three models of the relationship between faith and reason: reason then faith, faith alone, and faith seeking understanding.[1] The assumption behind “reason then faith” is that you can reason your way to God. Some Christians who speak on the scientific evidence for Christianity seem to be operating on the assumption that people make faith decisions rationally rather than emotionally. In most instances, that is probably not the case, but there are some people who cannot embrace belief in God without an intellectual search. C.S. Lewis is a classic example. Lewis once told an audience that the intellectual path to faith is not the only path or even the best path, but it is a path.
The label “faith alone” is misleading for the second approach because nobody believes anything for no reason at all. If “reason then faith” is a head-first approach to faith, “faith alone” is a heart-first or heritage-first approach. People come to faith as a result of life experiences, faith communities, or upbringing. The “faith-seeking-understanding” starts out heart-first or heritage-first but is given the kind of intellectual reinforcement it needs to operate in foreign territory. I think there are probably personality differences that determine which of the three you’re drawn to, but that’s another topic.
[1] John Newport, Life’s Ultimate Questions (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1989), 415-416.
[2] Ibid., 428-429.