The philosopher of law David Luban recounts how, when taking an introductory philosophy course as a college freshman, he cited C. S. Lewis’ The Abolition of Man in a paper. The professor responded in “vehement red pen in the margin” of the paper, “C. S. Lewis is not a philosopher!” Michael L. Peterson's book “on the Christian philosophy of C. S. Lewis” (ix) is in effect a rejoinder to Luban's teacher.
Peterson, who is Professor of Philosophy of Religion at Asbury Seminary and has long been active in the Society of Christian Philosophers, acknowledges that Lewis was not professionally a philosopher, though he studied philosophy and served as a tutor in philosophy for a year at University College, Oxford. Rather, Lewis was a philosopher in the sense of someone who sought a reasonably believed and rationally articulated worldview. By “worldview”—a term whose prominence in Peterson's book is signified by its presence in the title—Peterson means “a comprehensive and coherent set of beliefs about the deepest matters—the nature of reality, humanity, morality, and meaning” (4). In the first two chapters, Peterson traces Lewis’ search for such a worldview, passing through various forms of materialism and idealism and culminating in orthodox Christianity, a process that Lewis called “almost entirely philosophical” (quoted, 31). For the rest of his life, Lewis never ceased to employ philosophical modes of thought in grounding, explaining, and defending his Christian worldview.
Peterson devotes his remaining ten chapters to “offering a systematic philosophical treatment of Lewis’ overall Christian worldview” (2), basing his account in Lewis’ fiction as well as his nonfiction religious works. At times he strengthens Lewis’ arguments by drawing on other like-minded philosophers, such as Alvin Plantinga, or by examining philosophical critiques of Lewis, such as those of John Beversluis.
Chapters 3 through 5 present three arguments from Lewis for the existence of God. These are not deductive arguments but “abductive” arguments, arguments to the best explanation of something. Thus, for Lewis, our desire for ultimate meaning and fulfillment is best explained by Christian theism, as also are the reliability of rational thought and the human experience of “moral phenomena,” that is, that “we make ethical judgments, praise and blame, and have feelings of obligation and guilt, and all in reference to an assumed standard” (61).
Chapter 6 considers the Incarnation, in particular Lewis’ “Liar, Lunatic, or Lord trilemma” in Mere Christianity—the argument that either Jesus was what he said he was or he was a madman or a liar, neither of which seems plausible. Peterson explicitly leaves out of consideration what I take to be the most likely alternative, namely that the Gospels, especially John, put divine claims into the mouth of Jesus on the basis of early Christians’ experience of the risen Jesus. Chapter 7 concerns the “social God” of the Trinity and the creation of finite persons for fulfillment by “participation in the divine fellowship” (95). Chapter 8 addresses the problem of evil, including a treatment of A Grief Observed that shows how bereavement led Lewis to a deeper understanding of the mystery of evil than he expresses in The Problem of Pain.
Subsequent chapters treat science and religion, the salvation of non-Christians, prayer (especially petitionary prayer), and heaven and hell (largely a reflection on The Great Divorce). It is on the efficacy of petitionary prayer, a question over which Lewis struggled greatly, that Peterson expresses his one criticism of Lewis, rejecting Lewis’ Boethian view of God's timeless eternity in favor of a theory of divine everlastingness, as developed by Nicholas Wolterstorff and others. Three appendices contain a useful chronology of Lewis’ life; a previously unpublished correspondence between Lewis and an American professor, Thomas Van Osdall, which sheds some light on issues discussed in the book; and a glossary, mainly of philosophical terms.
What then would Peterson's book enable us to say to Luban's professor? No, it is not time to insert an article on C. S. Lewis between C. I. Lewis and David Lewis in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. But Lewis was a philosophically sophisticated Christian thinker, and professional philosophers should look past his reputation as a popularizer and engage seriously with his arguments. Peterson's book will be helpful to any teacher or student who wants to deepen that engagement.
