Did CS Lewis believe the whole Bible?

Most biographies of Mr. Lewis, including the recent one titled "The Narnian," mention this crucial evening. Mr. Lewis walked and talked with Mr. Tolkien AND one other friend about spiritual subjects. There wasn't exactly an altar call; but Lewis wrote that he came away from that long conversation beginning to believe in Jesus Christ as Lord.

By the way, if you ever see the big-screen movie of "Shadowlands" with Anthony Hopkins portraying Mr. Lewis, don't be fooled by the ending. The script makes the ending look as if Mr. Lewis had _permanently_ lost his faith beyond recovery because of his wife's death, but this is NOT true.
 
Actually, it is true that C.S. Lewis did not intend to make The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe an "allegory" (which is a novel with a Christian or Biblical meaning).

As for him not writing it when he was a believer, this could be true or it could not be. However, he had been a believer as a child, and so those truths were apart of who Lewis became to be, athiest or otherwise.

He wrote it originally as a letter, as we know, to a little girl named Lucy. There are moments when God can write through us without us even being aware that that is happening.

His influence is possible on people and events who may not even be aware of his existence. It is his world after all. Lewis might not have known at the time - in his own belief system, or in his life what an impact his little children's book of fantasy would have on the world. But I'm pretty sure God did.

So you see, it doesn't matter what point in Lewis' spiritual journey he was at specifically, the outcome was the same. Perhaps it was even apart of his heart exploring the mysteries and magic of God.
 
An allegory is a literary form wherein characters directly stand for ideas, concepts, or principles. It doesn't have to have a Christian theme - in fact, many Greek plays were allegories.

Lewis was most certainly and definitely Christian by the time he wrote Lion. I've seen those critiques that contend that Lewis wasn't Christian because he included magic in the stories. They're ludicrous on the face of them, and (sadly) exhibit just how shallow the thinking of some Christians is. If you're going to say that any exercise of magic in any story context indicated evil, then you'll have to indict George MacDonald as well, who was Christian to the core, a literary mentor to Lewis, and filled his fairy tales with magic.
 
Where some Christians don't want magic even in a safely "firewalled" setting, lots of NON-Christians don't want JESUS in their fantasy. I know some unbelievers who are HUGE Narnia fans--and yet are in _desperate_ denial of Aslan being Jesus. They want Him to be just one small-g god among many. I don't know what they'll do if the later movies remain true to Mr. Lewis and keep making Aslan's identity more and more obvious.

I guess it has to be repeated that, although Mr. Lewis in truth did not have the whole Christian message directly in mind when he had that first thought of a Faun in the snow, even if his story had been _only_ for entertainment with NO Christophany, it still would have been informed one way or another by the Christian views he did already hold by then.
 
call me naiive, but what does the faun in the snow have to do w/ whether or not it's a christian-based allegory???

and yes, i have seen "shadowlands," and don't worry, i wasn't fooled by the ending. i don't believe that anyone who is truly a christian can ever lose their faith...especially after writing books such as "mere christianity" and "the screwtape letters"!!! (not to mention CON, where Lewis had to stay in touch w/ his child-like faith mentality)
 
What I'm saying is that the visual image of Tumnus was the very first concept Mr. Lewis had for Narnia. This image, by itself, certainly was NOT anything specific to Christianity; and if the thought of Aslan had not come to Mr. Lewis, he might have merely written a fairytale for amusement. Such a fairytale doubtless would not have had anything like the spiritual value of the Chronicles as we know them; but since Mr. Lewis WAS a dedicated Christian by this time, whatever he wrote would have been at least influenced by his faith. (He himself said in an essay that a good purpose could be served by "latently" Christian books--books written by Christians about not-particularly-spiritual subjects, yet still in various ways reflecting the Christian worldview.)

Although the Anthony Hopkins version of "Shadowlands" did not do Mr. Lewis justice, there was an earlier, lower-budget version which did much better. That earlier version starred Joss Ackland as Mr. Lewis.


Joseph Ravitts, author of "Southward the Tigers"
 
Copperfox said:
Mr. Lewis did not consider any part of the Bible to be a LIE; nor did he imagine that God didn't care what went into it. But, as a result of everything that had formed his journey to faith, Mr. Lewis was inclined to believe that much of Scripture was intended metaphorically. I don't consider as much of it to be metaphorical as Mr. Lewis did; but he did hold to all doctrines necessary for salvation.

As for parents who think fantasy is bad: a further word on why Mr. Lewis felt free to indulge in fantasy. During Mr. Lewis' lifetime, though there certainly was some popular interest in the occult, it was NOWHERE NEAR as widespread or influential as it is now. In those days, a dry, soulless materialism was far more predominant--so much so, that ANY notion of the supernatural might be made an ally to Christianity insofar as it drew people away from dead, cold atheism. If Mr. Lewis were on Earth NOW, and only now beginning to write his fiction, I believe that he would still write something like the Chronicles of Narnia--but that, in view of present-day conditions, he would take more care to distinguish God-originated power from demonic occult power. Still, it shouldn't be hard to figure out that his use of the word "magic" in the existing Chronicles was much broader semantically than what a conscientious Christian has in mind when associating "magic" with evil spirits.
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I still think that cold atheism is the biggest threat even now. Very few people can or would practice occult. A lot more try to deny everything spiritual.
About the topic, I have read Mr. Lewis' Mere Christianity and I'm sure that he believed in God.
 
Yes, Darth Sparhawk, Mr. Lewis did believe in God. And you are right about the unceasing menace of cold atheism...but the thing is that NOW atheism is contriving to ABSORB OCCULTISM INTO ITSELF, creating what Screwtape called The Materialist Magician. People who don't believe there is any God or Devil are still practicing what amounts to sorcery--only, they find other things to call it, like mind control or thought projection or guided visualization. So you might say that the former cold atheism is now a hotly-spiced atheism.


Joseph Ravitts, author of "Southward the Tigers"
 
Copperfox said:
What I'm saying is that the visual image of Tumnus was the very first concept Mr. Lewis had for Narnia. This image, by itself, certainly was NOT anything specific to Christianity; and if the thought of Aslan had not come to Mr. Lewis, he might have merely written a fairytale for amusement. Such a fairytale doubtless would not have had anything like the spiritual value of the Chronicles as we know them; but since Mr. Lewis WAS a dedicated Christian by this time, whatever he wrote would have been at least influenced by his faith. (He himself said in an essay that a good purpose could be served by "latently" Christian books--books written by Christians about not-particularly-spiritual subjects, yet still in various ways reflecting the Christian worldview.)

Although the Anthony Hopkins version of "Shadowlands" did not do Mr. Lewis justice, there was an earlier, lower-budget version which did much better. That earlier version starred Joss Ackland as Mr. Lewis.


Joseph Ravitts, author of "Southward the Tigers"
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(I have the Shadowlands, but I think it's boring, and I've never gotten past the first thirty minutes) Is the part you're talking about in your last paragraph, does the program start with a little boy running through a house, and it has a wardrobe in it? If so, I've seen that one and thought it was excellent.
 
The Joss Acklund version of "Shadowlands" begins at or around the time of Joy's death, and then immediately turns back in time to tell the story.
 
Copperfox said:
Yes, Darth Sparhawk, Mr. Lewis did believe in God. And you are right about the unceasing menace of cold atheism...but the thing is that NOW atheism is contriving to ABSORB OCCULTISM INTO ITSELF, creating what Screwtape called The Materialist Magician. People who don't believe there is any God or Devil are still practicing what amounts to sorcery--only, they find other things to call it, like mind control or thought projection or guided visualization. So you might say that the former cold atheism is now a hotly-spiced atheism.


Joseph Ravitts, author of "Southward the Tigers"
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Yes, thank you, I haven't noticed that. So it might be said that now atheism reveals its true face. It is a trickery of the Enemy.
 
Trickery indeed. And here we can see a _moral_ difference between atheism and agnosticism. The agnostic, if he is honest, will merely say, "I do not know the answer at this time." The atheist says, "I _know_ that there is nothing TO know!" The Scripture "The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God' " is aimed only at real atheists; any agnostic who honestly wishes to know more than he does will find God ready to accommodate his questions. After all, his very _desire_ to know more is God's gift--what some call "prevenient grace."
 
What is troubling is that atheists lack basic beliefs about good and evil... I have noticed that they slowly start to develop fondness of weird and ugly things... :(
 
I believe it was Franky Schaeffer, son of the Calvinist philosopher Francis Schaeffer, who wrote about the way that a loss of belief in God has been parallelled by a loss in the desire for artistic beauty.

Now, in the Soviet Union, they clung to art as a _substitute_ for faith; but perhaps that worked for them because they had a long history of artistic achievements predating the Communist takeover. I do know that _American_ atheism certainly has been accompanied by a love of ugliness and filth.
 
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