Philosophy Commons^™

C.S. Lewis: An Overlooked 1963 Monograph By Roger Lancelyn Green, William O'Flaherty

Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016

The first full-length (and authorized) biography of Lewis was published in 1974. One of its authors was Roger Lancelyn Green. Few are aware of (or have even seen) a monograph he wrote before Lewis's death about Jack's life and writings. While Jack saw and approved of the manuscript in 1960 it wasn't released until the same year he died. The purpose of this talk is to reveal what information and insights this trusted friend presented in this rare monograph about Jack at the end of his career.

Whimsy And Wisdom: Fairyland As A Window To Reality In The Fiction Of Chesterton And Macdonald, Jessica D. Dooley

Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016

A comparison of how fairyland is employed in the fiction of G.K. Chesterton and George MacDonald, and the role fairyland plays in the personal development of their fictional characters, reveals parallels and important divergences between the two writers' philosophies. Their treatments of fairyland share the context of fixed moral standards that are clearly understood by fairyland's habitants and visitors, but disclose the authors' differing definitions of the relationship between personal responsibility and consequences. Fairyland, with its mysterious, imperative rules, and glorious generosity of rewards, provides a framework for explicating with startling clarity the dangerous immediacy of the consequences of moral …

The Pedagogical Value Of The Screwtape Letters For A New Generation, Brenton Dickieson

Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016

C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters launched a genre of demonic epistolary fiction. Intriguingly, we have seen Screwtape-style letters about psychotherapy, (anti-) creativity, pedagogy, and scientific research. Evidently, Screwtape continues to be relevant among contemporary writers, but is it relevant to students? From the results of a spiritual perspective survey and various teaching methods in a secular undergraduate class, and including the analysis of ninety-five student-created Screwtape letters of cultural critique, we see that the genre of demonic epistolary fiction gives space for creative cultural critique and the contentprovides inspiration for that critique -- even for generically spiritual, nonreligious, or …

Hidden Heroes In Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings, Jan Prewitt

Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016

Joseph Campbell in his seminal book The Hero with a Thousand Faces says in the final chapter, "The Hero Today," that unlike the classical hero, the modern hero faces a world that does not embrace a single mythology. "Then all meaning was in the group, in the great anonymous forms, none in the self-expressive individual; today no meaning is in the group -- none in the world: all is in the individual" (334). That does not mean, however, that there are no heroes in the modern world or that the modern world requires no heroic figure -- quite the contrary. …

"Take Away The Supernatural And What Remains Is The Unnatural": Power, Secularization, And G.K. Chesterton's Villains, J. Cameron Moore

Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016

Chesterton claims in Heretics that denial of the supernatural leads ultimately to the unnatural, and much of his work explores the consequences of suppressing or ignoring the fundamental religious dimensions of the human person. Indeed many of Chesterton's villains spurn religion altogether in their pursuit of social progress. In this paper, I examine the antagonists in The Ball and the Cross, Manalive, and The Flying Inn in light of their rejection of the supernatural.

In their attempts to recreate themselves and their societies, Chesterton's villains demonstrate a clear link between secularization, the loss of human freedom, and the deathly disfiguring …

Casting Truth In An Imaginary World: The Intertwining Of Reason And Imagination, Sharon Kotapish

Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016

When writing The Chronicles of Narnia, did C.S. Lewis deliberately turn from the world of reason and abandon logical argument? Or did he gravitate toward imaginative fiction because story may be the best way to communicate certain kinds of truth? Just as the Narnia tales reflect major themes in Lewis' overtly Christian nonfiction works, many of the truths taught by Jesus through parable are paralleled in the Apostle Paul's expository letters. By reading a passage from Lewis'' nonfiction writing along with a reflected passage from the Chronicles, our understanding and appreciation of both are deepened.

The Necessity Of The Terrible Good In The Works Of C.S. Lewis And Charles Williams, Kimberly Moore-Jumonville

Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016

Through characters like Eustace, Psyche, and Orual, and others, Lewis reminds us that transformation from what we now are is a necessity if we wish to know God. We must relinquish the lies we blindly wear and be stripped to the bone; ironically, we have to go under the water so that we don't drown or die of thirst. Pauline, of Charles Williams's Descent into Hell, "was not yet prepared to accept the terror of good" (107), but she learns that "the Lord does things in the midst of a fire" (93). Pauline's salvation lies in relinquishing her fear to …

Nothing Can Come Between God And You: Uncle Tom's Cabin, George Macdonald And Shusaku Endo, Miho Yamaguchi

Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016

Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe depicts the ways that God reveals Himself when evil seems triumphant and God appears to be silent. George MacDonald and Shusaku Endo apparently read this novel and deeply sympathized with its theology -- and subsequently developed its ideas and episodes in their own writings. In their views, nothing can come between God and each person; therefore, even apparent enemies can never victimize anyone -- they can only help us ultimately to be more closely united with God. They also illuminate that God never deserts people who feel weakest in faith.

Gandalf And Merlin, Aragorn And Arthur: Tolkien's Transmogrification Of The Arthurian Tradition And Its Use As A Palimpsest For The Lord Of The Rings, Mark R. Hall

Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016

Certainly J.R.R. Tolkien was very much aware of the Arthurian tradition that existed during the medieval period and even earlier, especially as depicted by Thomas Mallory in Le Morte d'Arthur. The affinities of the characters of Aragorn and Gandalf with Arthur and Merlin are too obvious not to notice, yet transformed in such a way by Tolkien that they are infused with new meaning and purpose. It is this transmogrification that connects Tolkien's work with the past and provides the palimpsest for the world he creates in his epic adventure depicted in The Hobbit and The Lord of the …

Facts And Meanings: From Word To Myth, David Rozema

Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016

The 1948 Anscombe-Lewis Debate is often cited as an example of how two of England's finest minds of the twentieth century -- C.S. Lewis and Ludwig Wittgenstein -- would have debated had they ever had the chance. Anscombe was a student of Wittgenstein's, and their debate is a case in point for showing the distinction between investigating a proposition's truth and investigating its sense, its meaning. Using remarks from the works of both men, I will show that their understanding of the meaning of language -- from single words to complete stories, including myths -- is remarkably similar; and immensely …

Further Responses To Lewis's 'Lost Aeneid', Richard James

Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016

For almost fifty years, since his death in 1963, C.S. Lewis, Lazarus-like, has continued through his literary executors to come forth from his literary grave, providing an almost unending, vast landscape of multimedia productions from multi-volume collections of personal letters and anthologies of essays to four major Hollywood film productions; from miscellaneous small action figures and early reader literacy booklets connected to the Narnian movies to highly technical on-stage renditions of the demonic Screwtape and the verbally combative, but highly successful off-Broadway drama, Freud's Last Session.

But beyond all of these highly visible projects, this paper will provide some reflections …

Feminine Leadership: Spenser's Britomart And Lewis's Reason, Jonathan Himes

Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016

Scholars have debated the apparent sexism in many of Lewis's statements and in his views on female clergy. Without addressing these particular issues of importance in Lewisian studies, this paper will analyze Lewis's choice of a female virgin in the role of Reason who topples the giant Spirit of the Age in his early allegory, The Pilgrim's Regress. Besides the obvious influence of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress on this work and the feminine figures of the divine in George MacDonald's fiction as another influence, Edmund Spenser's female knight Britomart may have provided Lewis with the idea of a strong feminine …

Romance And The Pocket Pistol: The Armed Poet In The Man Who Was Thursday, Jessica D. Dooley

Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016

“But the more [Syme] felt this glittering desolation in the moonlit land, the more his own chivalric folly glowed in the night like a great fire. Even the common things he carried with him – the food and the brandy and the loaded pistol – took on exactly that concrete and material poetry which a child feels when he takes a gun upon a journey or a bun with him to bed. The swordstick and the brandy-flask, though in themselves only the tools of morbid conspirators, became the expressions of this own more healthy romance.”

Chesterton’s poet-protagonists bear arms as …

Grief Observed: Pain And Suffering In The Writings Of C.S. Lewis And Frederick Buechner, Victoria S. Allen

Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016

No abstract provided.

Devils In My Heart: Chesterton's View Of Human Nature Through Father Brown, Mark Eckel

Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016

“I had murdered them all myself.” Father Brown perhaps comes closest to true, biblical mystery. While a crime may have been solved, the good padre still wondered after the human penchant toward sin. Sherlock Holmes fans are used to deductive reasoning; a scientific analysis, assessing problems from the outside, in. Father Brown became the murderer because he was a murderer. Chesterton’s sleuth, a Catholic priest, saw people as they were, from the inside out. The mystery of our own nature continues: “The heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful, a puzzle that no one can figure out.”

In this paper I …

C.S. Lewis, Platonism, And Aslan's Country: Symbols Of Heaven In The Chronicles Of Narnia, H. Dennis Fisher

Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016

C.S. Lewis held the conviction that all humans have meaningful images embedded in their minds that are often expressed in myths and legends. The richness of the Narnia Chronicles is often traceable to mythic patterns and philosophic thought employed by Lewis.

In The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis envisions heaven through the symbolic presentation of “Aslan’s Country.” Every other world is linked to it as a peninsula is connected to a mighty continent. It can be reached only through magic or more often “the door of noble death.” Its boundaries expand according to the exploration quests of its inhabitants. Hence, …

Creation And Sub-Creation In Leaf By Niggle, J. Samuel Hammond, Marie K. Hammond

Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016

In his essay On Fairy Stories and his poem Mythopoeia, J.R.R. Tolkien describes the concept of sub-creation. The story Leaf by Niggle, published as a companion and complement to the essay, illustrates this concept and shows how it relates to Creation. In particular, the story presents Tolkien’s ideas about art, employment, and responsibility toward neighbors. It paints a perceptive portrait of the author himself. Moreover, it offers inspiration for artists, writers, scholars, and all who engage in constructive labor, and gives guidance to those who (like the author) feel the pressure of too much work. Perhaps most importantly, this …

Mental Pictures: Shapes And Colors In The Thought Of G.K. Chesterton, William L. Isley Jr.

Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016

Although Chesterton is not what would normally be considered a systematic thinker, his writings exhibit a marked consistency of thought by means of a series of recurrent images. In order to understand how Chesterton thinks, therefore, it is best to follow these series of images. An examination of the contrasting images he uses to critique as modes of madness both Impressionism in The Man Who Was Thursday and Rationalism in The Flying Inn will demonstrate the validity of this approach to Chesterton. A brief conclusion will argue that epistemological sanity for Chesterton entails three crucial elements: externality, commonality and Christian …

Guidelines For Spiritual Reading From C.S. Lewis, Richard James

Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016

To several of his correspondents who asked of him, “What can I read to strengthen my faith?”, C.S. Lewis would provide a spiritual reading list of authors and their books which had helped him grow in his own Christian life. The primary purpose of this paper is to discuss these spiritual reading lists which included devotional books, apologetics, books of poetry, essays, sermons, commentaries, plays, allegories, spiritual autobiography and even novels. For evaluation the individual lists themselves and their provenance will be discussed including a timeline of authors on the lists and information about the recipients. In closing, suggestions will …

Painting In Prose: Ardent Pre-Raphaelitism In George Macdonald's Landscapes, Cynthia Demarcus Manson

Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016

Although not a visual artist, George MacDonald can be recognized for composing prose landscapes in his literary works that are Pre-Raphaelite in principle and style. MacDonald created word paintings that reference specific Pre-Raphaelite artworks; his landscapes show the shared influence of John Ruskin’s art theory, and he employs compositional techniques that correspond to the symbolic realism in early Pre-Raphaelite canvases. An awareness of MacDonald’s Pre-Raphaelitism adds to the appreciation of both his fiction and non-fiction.

Dream Cities And Cardboard Worlds: Sayers' Moral Vision In Murder Must Advertise, Frances Fowler-Collins

Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016

Murder Must Advertise represents a turning point in Dorothy L. Sayers’s development as a writer and Christian thinker. Previously, she had depicted sinful individuals, but here she expands her moral vision to encompass social sin on a grand scale, focusing on advertising. The novel’s major structural device is the comparison of two groups: an advertising agency and a drug trafficking ring. Although these groups differ superficially, Sayers suggests they are fundamentally similar, as each is a “dream city” based on an illusion. They resemble each other in three ways. In both, a small group of people operates behind the scenes …

Mere Mathematics: The Role Of Mathematics In The Apologetic Works Of C.S. Lewis, Matt D. Lunsford

Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016

Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963) was one of the intellectual giants of the 20^th century and arguably the most influential Christian author of that period. In spite of his own personal lack of success in the area of mathematics, C.S. Lewis exhibited a lofty appreciation of the discipline as demonstrated by numerous references to mathematics and to mathematical objects, and by his recurrent use of mathematical terminology in his apologetic writings. This paper will explore two broad categories of the role of mathematics in these works: 1) the relationship between mathematics and certain laws, and 2) the use of geometry …

Learning In The Shadowlands: The Educational Vision Of C.S. Lewis, Brian Hudson

Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016

C.S. Lewis is considered by many as one of the great thinkers and apologists of the twentieth century. His writings have touched and encouraged millions of individuals over the last seven decades. Lewis’s writings cover a wide range of topics but at his core he was a teacher. Even in his children’s literature, readers can clearly perceive that Lewis was always concerned with human growth and flourishing. He was concerned with how people learn and what inspires them to pursue a clear knowledge of God in the world they live. Today’s culture is marked with a loss of true education. …

Sucking Life: The Principle Of Hell In C.S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters, Kimberly Moore-Jumonville

Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016

Screwtape’s training of Wormwood in the art of deception exposes the tempters’ desire to consume “the other” completely into the self. This insatiable appetite to devour is revealed to be the ruling principle of Hell, where one must eat or be eaten. As competitors, Screwtape and Wormwood can never comprehend the reality of Heaven, which exists by the opposite principle. If the rule of Hell is to consume the other, the rule of Heaven is to serve and celebrate the other. In The Screwtape Letters C.S. Lewis succeeds in depicting the choice to succumb to appetite or submit to a …

Human Enhancement And The Abolition Of Man, Stephen A. Phillips

Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016

Over 60 years ago C.S. Lewis wrote a book about the importance of values in education. In The Abolition of Man Lewis began by exploring the importance of values in education, but by the end Lewis addressed how the relentless pursuit of the conquest of nature divorced from traditional values could result in the conquest of mankind by nature and the destruction of what it means to be human. However, what he imagined might happen by the hundredth century A.D. is beginning to be possible in the twenty-first. Preliminary successes in gene therapy suggest that germ line gene therapy capable …

The End For Which We Are Formed: Spiritual Formation Through C.S. Lewis, Robert Moore-Jumonville

Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016

For years readers have practiced spiritual formation through C.S. Lewis, without using that term. This paper first will lay out Lewis’s definition of spiritual formation. We have no choice whether or not we are being formed spiritually. The soul of each of us is shaped through the sum of our creaturely choosing: choices which are transforming us moment by moment into either a more heavenly or more hellish being. Always pastoral in his concern, Lewis offers a compelling spiritual theology of human nature. As spiritual mentor, he wins us over by willingly siding with us in our trenches of battle. …

Race With The Devil: A Journey From The Hell Of Hate To The Well Of Mercy, Joseph Pearce

Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016

No abstract provided.

Warren And Jack - Brothers And Friends, Constance Rice

Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016

My paper is about Warren Lewis, C.S. Lewis’s older brother, and the impact Warren had on his brother’s life and writing and his important contribution to The Inklings. Warren Lewis is often overlooked by scholars or is spoken of only in regards to his struggle with alcoholism. As a brother and friend, he plays an integral part in C.S. Lewis’s life.

Through The Lens Of The Four Loves: The Concept Of Love In The Great Divorce, Paulette Sauders

Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016

Even though C.S. Lewis wrote his non-fiction book, The Four Loves, later than his fiction, I content that he had been using the concepts of love that he finally wrote about in that book to shape his characters in all of his fiction. I will be examining his fictional The Great Divorce to discover which characters personify the kinds of love and their perversions discussed in The Four Loves as a way to better understand the novel as well as Lewis’s perceptions of love.

Hidden Images Of Christ In The Fiction Of C.S. Lewis, Peter J. Schakel

Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016

No abstract provided.