LETTERS[Though Ihave reprinted only Lewis's own letters here, Ihave attempted to place them in their context by citing t
LETTERS
[Though I have reprinted only Lewis's own letters here, I have attempted to place them in their context by citing the sources of the letters from the various correspondents which Lewis was answering, or who were answering him. Thus the sub-divisions (a), (b), (c) and so forth.)1
THE CONDITIONS FOR A JUST WAR
(a) E. L. Mascall, `The Christian and the Next War', Theology, vol. XXXVIII (January 1939), pp. 53-58.(b) C. S. Lewis, `The Conditions for a Just War', ibid. (May 1939), pp. 373-74:Sir, In your January number Mr Mascall mentions six conditions for a just war which have been laid down by 'theologians'. I have one question to ask, and a number of problems to raise, about these rules. The question is merely historical. Who are these theologians, and what kind or degree of authority can they claim over members of the Church of England? The problems are more difficult. Condition 4 lays down that `it must be morally certain that the losses, to the belligerents, the world, and religion, will not outweigh the advantages of winning'; and 6, that `there must be a considerable probability of winning'. It is plain that equally sincere people can differ to any extent and argue for ever as to whether a proposed war fulfils these conditions or not. The practical question, therefore, which faces us is one of authority. Who has the duty of deciding when the conditions are fulfilled, and the right of enforcing his decision? Modern discussions tend to assume without argument that the answer is `The private conscience of the individual,' and that any other answer is immoral and totalitarian. Now it is certain, in some sense, that `no duty of obedience can justify a sin', as Mr Mascall says. Granted that capital punishment is compatible with Christianity, a Christian may lawfully be a hangman; but he must not hang a man whom he knows to be innocent. But will anyone interpret this to mean that the hangman has the same duty of investigating the prisoner's guilt which the judge has? If so, no executive can work and no Christian state is possible; which is absurd. I conclude that the hangman has done his duty if he has done his share of the general duty, resting upon all citizens alike, to ensure, so far as in him lies, that we have an honest judicial system; if, in spite of this, and unknowingly, he hangs an innocent man, then a sin has been committed, but not by him. This analogy suggests to me that it must be absurd to give to the private citizen the same right and duty of deciding the justice of a given war which rests on governments; and I submit that the rules for determining what wars are just were originally rules for the guidance of princes, not subjects. This does not mean that private persons must obey governments commanding them to do what they know is sin; but perhaps it does mean (I write it with some reluctance) that the ultimate decision as to what the situation at a given moment is in the highly complex field of international affairs is one which must be delegated. No doubt we must make every effort which the constitution allows to ensure a good government and to influence public opinion; but in the long run, the nation, as a nation, must act, and it can act only through its government. (It must be remembered that there are risks in both directions: if war is ever lawful, then peace is sometimes sinful.) What is the alternative? That individuals ignorant of history and strategy should decide for themselves whether condition 6 ('a considerable probability of winning') is, or is not, fulfilled? - or that every citizen, neglecting his own vocation and not weighing his capacity, is to become an expert on all the relevant, and often technical, problems?2
THE CONFLICT IN ANGLICAN THEOLOGY
(a) Oliver C. Quick, `The Conflict in Anglican Theology', Theology, vol. LXI (October 1940), pp. 234-37.(b) C. S. Lewis, ibid. (November 1940), p. 304:Sir, In an admirable letter contributed to your October number Canon Quick remarks, ` "Moderns" of every kind have one characteristic in common: they hate Liberalism.' Would it not be equally true to say, more shortly, ` "Moderns" of every kind have one characteristic in common: they hate?' The matter deserves, perhaps, more attention than it has received.3
MIRACLES
(a) Peter May, `Miracles', The Guardian (9 October 1942), p. 323.Sir, - In answer to Mr May's question, I reply that whether the birth of St John Baptist were a miracle or no, it was not the same miracle as the birth of our Lord.'
Of the natural conversion of water into wine, what I said was: `God creates the vine and teaches it to draw up water by its roots and, with the aid of the sun, to turn that water into a juice which will ferment and take on certain qualities.'2
4
MR C. S. LEWIS ON CHRISTIANITY
(a) W. R. Childe, `Mr C. S. Lewis on Christianity', The Listener, vol. XXXI (2 March 1944), p. 245.(b) C. S. Lewis, ibid. (9 March 1944), p. 273:I agree with Mr W. R. Childe that it is no use to say `Lord, Lord', if we do not do what Christ tells us: that,indeed, is one of the reasons why I think an aesthetic religion of `flowers and music' insufficient.'
5
A VILLAGE EXPERIENCE
C. S. Lewis, `A Village Experience', The Guardian (31 August 1945), p. 335:Sir, -I think your readers should, and will, be interested in the following extract from a letter I have just received; the writer is an invalid lady in a village:`This used to be a God-fearing village with a Godfearing parson who visited and ran the Scouts ("Lovely troop we 'ad. And you should have 'eard our choir of a Sunday," says my bricklayer host). The young were polished up and sent to Sunday school, their parents filled the church to the brim. Now they have an octogenarian. No harm in that! My late uncle - at that age was going as strong as most two-year-olds. But this one - I noted for myself, seeing him pass - has been dead for years ... He does not visit the sick, even if asked. He does nothing. And-listen-he stuck up a notice in the church: No children admitted without their parents or an adult. The village ... went instantly Pagan. I must get away from it. Never before but in the vile pagan West Indies have I been without so much as an extorted Holy Sacrament. (Can one forbid the church to a Crissom child? - legally, I mean? Pass me a Bishop.)'6
CORRESPONDENCE WITH AN ANGLICAN WHO DISLIKES HYMNS
(The `correspondence' consists of two letters from Erik Routley to Lewis (an Anglican), and two letters from Lewis, all of which were published together in The Presbyter, vol. VI, No. 2 (1948), pp. 15-20. Lewis's letters appeared over the initials `A. B.')(a) Summary of a letter from Erik Routley to Lewis (dated 13 July 1946), p. 15:`... The Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland is opening a file of new hymns to which modern hymnwriters are to be asked to contribute. I have been asked to write to you and ask if you will be a member of the panel to whom new hymns may be submitted in order that their merit may be assessed ...'(b) C. S. Lewis to Erik Routley (dated 16 July 1946), p. 15: Dear Mr Routley,The truth is that I'm not in sufficient sympathy with the project to help you. I know that many of the congregation like singing hymns: but am not yet convinced that their enjoyment is of a spiritual kind. It may be: I don't know. To the minority, of whom I am one, the hymns are mostly the dead wood of the service. Recently in a party of six people I found that all without exception would like fewer hymns. Naturally, one holding this view can't help you.7
THE CHURCH'S LITURGY, INVOCATION, AND INVOCATION OF SAINTS
(a) E. L. Mascall, `Quadringentesimo Anno', Church Times, vol. CXXXII (6 May 1949), p. 282.Sir, - I hope Mr Every has not misunderstood me. There is, I believe, a prima facie case for regarding devotions to saints in the Church of England as a controversial question (see Jewel,-
Apologia Ecclesiae Anglicanae, Pt. 11, ch. xxviii, Homilies, Bk. II, Peril of Idolatry, Pt. III; Laud,",
Conference with Fisher, Sect. XXIII; Taylor,
I implore priests to remember what Aristotle tells us about unconscious revolution (iroAXdicic XavOdva pe7dXrl ywoµePf perd8aaic r(3v voµiµwv Politics 1 303 a 22).11
8
THE HOLY NAME
(a) Leslie E. T. Bradbury, `The Holy Name', Church Times, vol. CXXXIV (3 August 1951), p. 525.(b) C. S. Lewis, ibid. (10 August 1951), p. 541:Sir,-Having read Mr Bradbury's letter on the Holy Name, I have a few comments to make. I do not think we are entitled to assume that all who use this Name without reverential prefixes are making a `careless' use of it; otherwise, we should have to say that the Evangelists were often careless. I do not think we are entitled to assume that the use of the word Blessed when we speak of the Virgin Mary is `necessary'; otherwise, we should have to condemn both the Nicene and the Apostles' Creed for omitting it. Should we not rather recognize that the presence or absence of such prefixes constitutes a difference, not in faith or morals, but simply in style? I know that as their absence is `irritating' to some, so their frequent recurrence is irritating to others. Is not each party innocent in its temperamental preference but grossly culpable if it allows anything so subjective, contingent, and (with a little effort) conquerable as a temperamental preference to become a cause of division among brethren? If we cannot lay down our tastes, along with other carnal baggage at the church door, surely we should at least bring them in to be humbled and, if necessary, modified, not to be indulged?9
MERE CHRISTIANS
(a) R. D. Daunton-Fear, `Evangelical Churchmanship', Church Times, vol. CXXXV (1 February 1952), p. 77.(b) C. S. Lewis, `Mere Christians', ibid. (8 February 1952), p. 95:Sir, - I welcome the letter from the Rural Dean of Gravesend, though I am sorry that anyone should have rendered it necessary by describing the Bishop of Birmingham as an Evangelical. To a layman, it seems obvious that what unites the Evangelical and the Anglo-Catholic against the `Liberal' or `Modernist' is something very clear and momentous, namely, the fact that both are thoroughgoing supernaturalists, who believe in the Creation, the Fall, the Incarnation, the Resurrection, the Second Coming, and the Four Last Things. This unites them not only with one another, but with the Christian religion as understood ubique et ab omnibus."
10
CANONIZATION
(a) Eric Pitt, `Canonization', Church Times, vol. CXXXV (17 October 1952), p. 743.(b) C. S. Lewis, ibid. (24 October 1952), p. 763:Sir, -I am, like Mr Eric Pitt, a layman, and would like to be instructed on several points before the proposal to set up a `system' of Anglican canonization is even discussed. According to the Catholic Encyclopaedia, `saints' are dead people whose virtues have made them `worthy' of God's `special' love. Canonization makes dulia 'universal and obligatory'; and, whatever else it asserts, it certainly asserts that the person concerned `is in heaven'.Unless, then, the word `canonization' is being used in a sense distinct from the Roman (and, if so, some other word would be much more convenient), the proposal to set us a `system' of canonization means that someone (say, the Archbishops) shall be appointed(a) To tell us that certain named people are (i) `in heaven', and (ii) are `worthy' of God's `special' love.(b) To lay upon us (under pain of excommunication?) the duty of dulia towards those they have named.Now it is very clear that no one ought to tell us what he does not know to be true. Is it, then, held that God has promised (and, if so, when and where?) to the Church universal a knowledge of the state of certain departed souls? If so, is it clear that this knowledge will discern varying degrees of kinds of salvation such as are, I suppose, implicit in the word `special'? And if it does, will the promulgation of such knowledge help to save souls now in via? For it might well lead to a consideration of `rival claims', such as we read of in the Imitation of Christ (Bk. III, ch. lviii), where we are warned, `Ask not which is greater in the kingdom of heaven ... the search into such things brings no profit, but rather offends the saints themselves.'Finally, there is the practical issue: by which I do not mean the Catholic Encyclopaedia's neat little account, of `the ordinary actual expenses of canonization' (though that too can be read with profit), but the danger of schism. Thousands of members of the Church of England doubt whether dulia is lawful. Does anyone maintain that it is necessary to salvation? If not, whence comes our obligation to run such frightful risks?11
PITTENGER-LEWIS AND VERSION VERNACULAR
(a) W. Norman Pittenger, `Pittenger-Lewis', The Christian Century, vol. LXXV (24 December 1958), pp. 1485-86.(b) C. S. Lewis, `Version Vernacular', ibid. (31 December 1958),p.1515.Sir: Thank you for publishing my `Rejoinder to Dr Pittenger' (Nov. 26). Now would you, please, complete your kindness by publishing the statement that 'popularn' (p. 1360) is either my typist's or your printer's error for `populum'?An article on `translation' such as Dr Pittenger suggests in his letter in the Dec. 24 issue certainly needs doing, but I could not usefully do it for Americans. The vernacular into which they would have to translate is not quite the same as that into which I have translated. Small differences, in addressing proletarians, may be allimportant.In both countries an essential part of the ordination exam ought to be a passage from some recognized theological work set for translation into vulgar English - just like doing Latin prose. Failure on this paper should mean failure on the whole exam. It is absolutely disgraceful that we expect missionaries to the Bantus to learn Bantu but never ask whether our missionaries to the Americans or English can speak American or English. Any fool can write learned language. The vernacular is the real test. If you can't turn your faith into it, then either you don't understand it or you don't believe it.12
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT AND DEATH PENALTY
(a) C. S. Lewis, `Capital Punishment', Church Times, vol. CXLIV (1 December 1961), p. 7:Sir, - I do not know whether capital punishment should or should not be abolished, for neither the natural light, nor scripture, nor ecclesiastical authority seems to tell me. But I am concerned about the grounds on which its abolition is being sought.To say that by hanging a man we presumptuously judge him to be irredeemable is, I submit, simply untrue. My Prayer Book includes an exhortation to those under sentence of death which throughout implies the exact opposite. The real question is whether a murderer is more likely to repent and make a good end three weeks hence in the execution shed or, say, thirty years later in the prison infirmary. No mortal can know. But those who have most right to an opinion are those who know most by experience about the effect of prolonged prison life. I wish some prison chaplains, governors and warders would contribute to the discussion.The suggestion of compensation for the relatives of the murdered man is in itself reasonable, but it ought not to be even remotely connected with the case for or against capital punishment. If it is, we shall be giving countenance to the archaic, and surely erroneous view that murder is primarily an offence not against society but against individuals.Hanging is not a more irrevocable act than any other. You can't bring an innocent man to life: but neither can you give him back the years which wrongful imprisonment has eaten.Other correspondents have pointed out that a theory of punishment which is purely exemplary or purely reformatory, or both, is shockingly immoral. Only the concept of desert connects punishment with morality at all. If deterrence is all that matters, the execution of an innocent man, provided the public think him guilty, would be fully justified. If reformation alone is in question, then there is nothing against painful and compulsory reform for all our defects, and a Government which believes Christianity to be a neurosis will have a perfectly good right to hand us all over to their straighteners for `cure' to-morrow.