The C.S. Lewis Memorial at Westminster Abbey

On 22nd November 2013, the fiftieth anniversary of C.S. Lewis’s death, Westminster Abbey unveiled a memorial stone to Lewis in Poets’ Corner. Here are some photos from the event, which was part of a two-day conference in commemoration of the life and impact of C.S. Lewis.
A few links and resources:

• C.S. Lewis books
• Apologetics 315 resources on C.S. Lewis
• Lewis in Poet’s Corner website

C.S. Lewis on Progress

"We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man."

—C. S. Lewis
Mere Christianity pp. 28-29

C.S. Lewis on Christianity

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."

- C.S. Lewis

Apologist Interview: Michael Ward

Today's interview is with Michael Ward, Professor of Apologetics at Houston Baptist University and director of HBU's new C. S. Lewis Centre in Oxford. Michael is a leading expert on the works of C.S. Lewis. He talks about his background, the influence of C. S. Lewis, Lewis's Oxford home, the C. S. Lewis Centre in Oxford, why Lewis had an impact apologetically, the rational and the imaginative, Lewis in Poet's Corner, HBU's apologetics program, areas where Christians can make an impact, advice for Christian apologists, and more.

Books by Michael Ward include:
• Planet Narnia
• The Narnia Code
• Heresies and How to Avoid Them: Why It Matters What Christians Believe (editor)
• The Cambridge Companion to C. S. Lewis (editor)
• Imaginative Apologetics (contributor)

Full Interview MP3 Audio here (33 min)

Enjoy.
Subscribe to the Apologetics 315 Interviews podcast here or in iTunes.

Sunday Quote: C.S. Lewis on Philosophy

"Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy must be answered... The learned life then, is for some, a duty."
- C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis on Daily Devotion

‎"That is why daily praying and religious reading and churchgoing are necessary parts of the Christian life. We have to be continually reminded of what we believe. Neither this belief nor any other will automatically remain alive in the mind. It must be fed."

—C.S. Lewis

Mere Christianity (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 125.

HT: KS

Peter S. Williams on C.S. Lewis vs the New Atheists

Today's interview is with Christian philosopher, apologist and author Peter S. Williams. He talks about his most recent book C.S. Lewis vs. the New Atheists, Lewis's views as an atheist, the arguments that the new atheists have neglected, the impact of Lewis for the last 50 years, the "mere Christianity" approach (is it enough?), the argument from desire, the argument from reason, arguments by the new atheists, the moral argument, elements in Lewis's journey to Christianity, where to start when reading Lewis, and more.

Full Interview MP3 Audio here (45 min)
Check out the trailer for C.S. Lewis vs the New Atheists here.
Pick up C.S. Lewis vs the New Atheists here.

Enjoy.
Subscribe to the Apologetics 315 Interviews podcast here or in iTunes.

Book Review: C.S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason by Victor Reppert

It was with much anticipation that I began reading Victor Reppert's book C.S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason.  Shortly after discovering the discipline of apologetics, theArgument from Reason (AFR) was one of the first arguments I remember coming across and I recall wondering, "Why don't more apologists use this argument?" 

It was with this question, and others like it, that I began reading Reppert's book and not only did I find the answers to a number of my questions, but it became apparent to this reviewer that the AFR is a much richer argument than I had previously imagined.  However, I want to be sure to point out that this book is not just for those interested in the AFR.  Lewis enthusiasts will also greatly benefit from it's pages as Reppert addresses questions about Lewis's apologetic methodology and further dispels some of the various myths that surround Lewis and his history.  These include Lewis's supposed loss of confidence in apologetic arguments and the popular claim that philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe demonstrated Lewis's AFR to be invalid.

Scholar Interview: Louis Markos

Today's interview is with Lou Markos, Professor in English and Scholar in Residence at Houston Baptist University. And he's a C.S. Lewis expert. He talks about literary apologetics (or cultural apologetics), why and how Christians should write and be involved in culture, his recent book On the Shoulders of Hobbits: The Road to Virtue with Tolkien and Lewis, the different approaches of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, how we need cultural apologists today, HBU's apologetics program, advice for apologists, and the biggest apologetic lesson he has learned from C.S. Lewis.

Full Interview MP3 Audio here (52 min)
Books by Louis Markos include:

• Apologetics for the Twenty-first Century

• From Achilles to Christ: Why Christians Should Read the Pagan Classics

• On the Shoulders of Hobbits: The Road to Virtue with Tolkien and Lewis

• A To Z With C. S. Lewis

• Lewis Agonistes: How C.S. Lewis Can Train Us to Wrestle with the Modern and Postmodern World

Enjoy.
Subscribe to the Apologetics 315 Interviews podcast here or in iTunes.

C.S. Lewis on the Question of Truth

‎"One of the greatest difficulties is to keep before the audience's mind the question of Truth. They always think you are recommending Christianity not because it is true, but because it is good. And in the discussion they will at every moment try to escape from the issue ‘True-or False’ into stuff about a good society, or morals, or incomes of Bishops, or the Spanish inquisition, or France, or Poland—or anything whatever. You have to keep forcing them back, and again back, to the real point. Only thus you will be able to undermine...their belief that a certain amount of ‘religion’ is desirable but one mustn't carry it too far. One must keep on pointing out that Christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important."

—C.S. Lewis
God in the Dock, 1945, p. 101. [HT: Arthur K]

C.S. Lewis on Reasoning to Atheism

‎"Supposing there was no intelligence behind the universe, no creative mind. In that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen, for physical or chemical reasons, to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I call thought. But, if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? It's like upsetting a milk jug and hoping that the way it splashes itself will give you a map of London. But if I can't trust my own thinking, of course I can't trust the arguments leading to Atheism, and therefore have no reason to be an Atheist, or anything else. Unless I believe in God, I cannot believe in thought: so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God."

—C.S. Lewis
The Case for Christianity, p. 32.

C.S. Lewis Original Audio Recording

Here is part of the only surviving audio recording of C.S. Lewis's broadcast talks. The New Men is the last episode in Beyond Personality, the third series. It was broadcast on BBC radio on 21st March 1944. The transcripts of all three series were published as the classic apologetic work Mere Christianity. Original audio and more info found at the BBC website here. Book by C.S. Lewis here.

Find it and share it on YouTube here.
Full MP3 audio here (15 min)

Enjoy.

C.S. Lewis on Learning

‎"If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavourable. Favourable conditions never come."

—C.S. Lewis
"Learning in War-Time"

C.S. Lewis on Motivation

"I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of my life to press on to that other country and to help others do the same."

- C.S. Lewis
Mere Christianity, p. 121.

C.S. Lewis on the Meaning of Morality

"If 'good' or 'better' are terms deriving their sole meaning from the ideology of each people, then of course ideologies themselves cannot be better or worse than each other. Unless the measuring rod is independent of the things measured, we can do no measuring, For the same reason it is useless to compare the moral ideas of one age with those of another: progress and decadence are alike meaningless words."

- C.S. Lewis
Christian Reflections, p. 73

C.S. Lewis on Christianity

"If Christianity is untrue, then no honest man will want to believe it, however helpful it might be; if it is true, every honest man will want to believe it, even if it gives him no help at all."

- C.S. Lewis
Essay, Man or Rabbit

C.S. Lewis on Books by Christians

"We can make people (often) attend to the Christian point of view for half an hour or so; but the moment they have gone away from our lecture or laid down our article, they are plunged back into a world where the opposite position is taken for granted. As long as that situation exists, widespread success is simply impossible. We must attack the enemy's line of communication. What we want is not more little books about Christianity, but more little books by Christians on other subjects--with their Christianity latent. You can see this most easily if you look at it the other way round. Our Faith is not very likely to be shaken by any book on Hinduism. But if whenever we read an elementary book on Geology, Botany, Politics, or Astronomy, we found that its implications were Hindu, that would shake us. It is not the books written in direct defence of Materialism that make the modern man a materialist; it is the materialistic assumptions in all the other books. In the same way, it is not books on Christianity that will really trouble him. But he would be troubled if, whenever he wanted a cheap popular introduction to some science, the best work on the market was always by a Christian."

- C.S. Lewis
God in the Dock, p. 93. [HT:TM]

Sunday Quote: C.S. Lewis on Miracles

"Those who assume that miracles cannot happen are merely wasting their time by looking into the texts: we know in advance what results they will find for they have begun by begging the question."

- C.S. Lewis

Miracles (New York: Macmillan, 1947, 1978), p. 4.

Sunday Quote: C.S. Lewis on Eternity

"Christianity asserts that every individual human being is going to live for ever, and this must be either true or false. Now there are a good many things which would not be worth bothering about if I were going to live only seventy years, but which I had better bother about very seriously if I am going to live for ever."

- C. S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)

Sunday Quote: C.S. Lewis on Naturalism

"If all that exists is Nature, the great mindless interlocking event, if our own deepest convictions are merely the by-products of an irrational process, then clearly there is not the slightest ground for supposing that our sense of fitness and our consequent faith in uniformity tell us anything about a reality external to ourselves. Our convictions are simply a fact about us-like the colour of our hair. If Naturalism is true we have no reason to trust our conviction that Nature is uniform."

- C.S. Lewis, Miracles, p.109