Debating the old professor: C.S. Lewis and the advent of Aslan

By Elizabeth V. Glass

2005

On a winter night in 1948, C.S. Lewis defended his argument for the existence of Narnia. No, he didn’t try to prove the reality of other worlds behind wardrobe doors. In fact, at that point he had not even written The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. But he did defend his case for the existence of supernatural realities, of things powerful and present that we cannot see—in other words, the existence of God.

On February 2 of that year, Lewis attended a meeting of the Oxford University Socratic Club, an organization whose purpose was to debate issues related to Christianity. In the spirit of Socrates himself, the club was committed to “follow the argument wherever it led them.” The primary speaker for the evening was Elizabeth Anscombe, a brilliant young philosopher at Oxford, who read a paper attacking Lewis’ argument against naturalism in his recent book Miracles. (Naturalism is the belief that all that exists is the material world, and that all things can be explained without God and the supernatural.)

Although Anscombe herself was a Roman Catholic who embraced the existence of God, she found Lewis’ argument against naturalism fundamentally flawed. While Lewis lore has piled up like so many fur coats in his proverbial wardrobe, what is clear is that an exciting debate ensued that evening that has grown to legendary proportions over the years.

In his role as president of the Socratic Club, Lewis had gained a reputation as a formidable debater. But the results of the Lewis-Anscombe debate are themselves hotly contested. Some biographers recount it as “The Night That Lewis Lost.” Others, fearful of tarnishing his image as a scholar and defender of the faith, vehemently defend him. Still others claim that the debate was so disturbing to Lewis that he retreated from formal apologetics, turning to fiction instead. They cite the fact that it was soon after the debate with Anscombe that he began writing The Chronicles of Narnia. Did the celebrated Oxford intellectual and Christian apologist dodge the issues by sneaking into fairy tales, turning himself into the Old Professor of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe?

What emerges is a tangle of criticism and controversy. Like a battle on many fronts, there are multiple factors to weigh in interpreting Lewis’ contribution to academic as well as children’s literature. Some scholars turn their spectacles towards the actual issue that Lewis and Anscombe engaged, whether naturalism can be a coherent worldview. Other critics set their sights on how the encounter with Anscombe affected Lewis’ literary career. Did it shake his confidence in rational apologetics for the faith, or did he emerge personally unscathed but rhetorically defeated? To what degree was Anscombe on target in her criticism of his central argument in Miracles? Decades after the battle between Lewis and Anscombe, all of these queries recently held center stage yet again.

Among the spires of Oxford, England, the controversies of the legendary debate were brought to life by a dramatic re-enactment of the famous Socratic Club encounter. It was performed this past July at Oxbridge 2005, a summer convening of Lewis scholars and fans organized by the C.S. Lewis Institute and held every three years. The re-enactment gave the audience the opportunity to assess for themselves the merits of the arguments presented by Lewis and Anscombe. Adding to the historic significance of the re-enactment was the attendance of Professor Basil Mitchell, who knew Lewis, and succeeded him as President of the Socratic Club.

The script for the event, prepared by Dr. Jerry Walls, professor at Asbury Theological Seminary, and Phillip Tallon, graduate of Asbury Seminary and PhD candidate at St. Andrew’s University, Scotland, relied on several sources. Included by the editors were documents such as C.S. Lewis’ original chapter in Miracles against naturalism, Anscombe’s paper, Lewis’ revised chapter written after the debate, and notes taken by members of the Socratic Club. By weaving these sources together, Tallon and Walls were able to present a version of the debate true to the essence of the original. Staged at St. Aldate’s Church, Oxford, the script was convincingly delivered by British actors Robin Meredith and Christine Way. The performance itself served as a gateway into the world of Lewis and Anscombe, allowing the audience to step through the snow and join the lively professor alongside the cigar-smoking Anscombe.

Following the re-enactment, Gary Habermas of Liberty University interviewed world-renowned philosopher Antony Flew. Habermas has debated Flew publicly, developing a close friendship with him over the past few years. Professor Flew shared reflections on both the content and the significance of the 1948 debate. He attended Oxford and was present the night of the original debate at the Socratic Club. He recalled that Lewis seemed obviously distressed after the encounter, hurrying away across a bridge, while Anscombe exuberantly displayed a sense of triumph. The chat with Flew allowed the audience not only to hear first hand memories of the atmosphere of the debate, but also to catch a glimpse of the inner debate in Flew’s own recent life.

Flew is the son of noted Methodist theologian R. Newton Flew, but he is recognized as one of the most outspoken and influential atheists of our time. Lately, though, he has described himself as “an atheist with some very important questions,” and has shifted to deism. While deism is a form of belief in God, it does not accept special revelation like many major world religions would claim through their prophets and scriptures. Having represented the naturalistic worldview for so long, Flew’s transition to belief in God has caused a momentous stir in the academic community. In addition to making national news, the story even provided a joke for late night TV’s Jay Leno.

While Lewis and Anscombe went hammer and tong over the issue of whether reason requires a supernatural explanation, Flew was persuaded to belief in the supernatural by the imprint of intelligent design in the natural order. In other words, Lewis was firmly convinced that human reason can only be explained by the existence of the supernatural, while Flew was similarly persuaded by the evidence for ultimate reason and design in our universe. In this dramatic transition of thought, Dr. Flew exemplifies the spirit of the Socratic Club in following the argument wherever it leads, even after decades of embracing an opposing worldview.

Although Professor Flew now affirms the existence of God, he cited doctrines like the belief in hell into explain his rejection of Christianity and other major religions. At the conclusion of the interview with Flew, a new debate ensued that was much in the spirit of Lewis. Beginning with Dr. David Baggett of King’s College, Pennsylvania, a line of challengers rebutted Flew’s statements denying the plausibility of Christianity. The questioners included Peter Kreeft, noted Lewis scholar and professor of philosophy at Boston College, and Charles Colson, who had presented at the conference earlier in the week. Almost 50 years after the night at the Socratic Club, naturalism and supernaturalism again held the floor, stirring a lively exchange. For now, Flew remains unconvinced of the plausibility of special revelation as it is understood in Christianity.

If the dialogue with Antony Flew provides a snapshot of the contemporary dynamics of the debate, how should we portray the significance of the original Lewis-Anscombe encounter? Were The Chronicles of Narnia C.S. Lewis’ means of running away from reason and escaping into fantasy? Philosopher Victor Reppert doesn’t think so. He recently addressed the question in an essay published in The Chronicles of Narnia and Philosophy. Reppert establishes the point that far from creating a split between faith and reason, Lewis actually integrates them in his famous stories. Comparing one of his most quoted arguments in Mere Christianity with portions of The Chronicles of Narnia, Reppert finds that Lewis utilized the medium of children’s fiction to communicate the same truths found in his philosophical writings. To illustrate this fusion of reason and imagination, Reppert listens in as the Old Professor evaluates Lucy’s story of having visited another world through the wardrobe.

“Logic!” said the professor half to himself. “Why don’t they teach logic in these schools? There are only three possibilities. Either your sister is telling lies, or she is mad, or she is telling the truth. You know she doesn’t tell lies and it is obvious that she is not mad. For the moment then and unless any further evidence turns up, we must assume that she is telling the truth (LWW, Chapter 5, p.131 and The Chronicles of Narnia and Philosophy, 266).

In this passage, Reppert discovers that Lewis is using essentially the same argument in two venues. In Mere Christianity, Lewis argued that three possibilities emerge from Jesus’ claim to be divine: either he was a lunatic, a liar, or he was telling the truth. And, as described above, the scene in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe employs the same reasoning about Lucy’s unbelievable journey into Narnia.

What, then, may we conclude from this? The claim that Lewis simply backed into his wardrobe just doesn’t hold. Reppert even suggests that “the Narnia books can themselves be seen as works of broadly Christian apologetics.” This implies that Lewis intentionally infused his fiction with rational portrayals of transcendent truth. Far from splitting reason and faith, as his critics suppose, Lewis brilliantly synthesized the two.

It is only when we understand his commitment to myth as an appropriate illumination of truth that we fully appreciate the scope of his harmonization.

Lewis understood myth as, “at its best, a real though unfocused gleam of divine truth falling on human imagination.” This description protects the concept of myth from misunderstanding. Lewis makes clear that myth is not a falsehood, nor is it underdeveloped “misunderstood history” formed by a backward group of people to convey their identity and beliefs. Instead, Lewis finds that myth—storytelling that uses the imagination—can sometimes communicate Truth more wholly than other avenues. Myth puts hands, feet, and sometimes even paws on abstract principles, making them easier to see, mimic, and listen to. It binds together right thinking with right action by whispering stories of heroes and traitors. And anytime truth is present, reason is present; so it is possible for made up stories to reflect that “unfocused gleam of divine truth” in ways that exercise rational discernment.

At the end of the day, Lewis’ motives for writing The Chronicles of Narnia are most clearly found when Lewis is primarily understood as literary scholar. The debate with Anscombe merely served to better hone his arguments in his book Miracles. For Lewis, there is creativity in the call to serve truth. Known for enjoying walks around Oxford, Lewis established well-worn paths through many different terrains, whether group debate or popular writing, philosophical treatises or literary criticism, children’s books or epic poems. By also becoming familiar with a variety of terrains, we are best equipped to guide others to Narnia. Truth may be clothed in myth, as Lewis famously dressed it, or in scientific evidence, like that which persuaded Antony Flew. However its advent comes about, following the argument wherever it leads is similar to walking the Road to Emmaus: Truth will appear beside us, much as Aslan did to the children who journeyed through the wardrobe.

Elizabeth V. Glass was a student at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky at the time of this article being published.