It may have begun with a toy garden in the lid of a cookie tin. C. S. Lewis’s brother Warnie had put moss, twigs, and flowers in the lid, and made a garden-forest for his younger sibling. Lewis said that it was the first beauty he had ever known. He stated, “As long as I live my imagination of Paradise will retain something of my brother’s toy garden.”[1] For Lewis the life of imagination and joy started early.
Of course, people are not brains on a stick. We, like Lewis, are not simply computers, processing data in a logical sequence. Instead, people are created as beings with thoughts, affections, and desires. Because of this fact, when one interacts with unbelief, whether in the life of the believer or the unbeliever, he is doing apologetics and does well to engage the whole person. Moreover, we live on this side of the Enlightenment. We live in a world that is disenchanted, a world often reduced to matter and chance. C. S. Lewis, quite easily the most influential popular apologist of the last century, resisted this reductionism and brought enchantment to the whole person though his use of imagination in his apologetics.
While imagination was always a part of his life, Lewis argued that his imagination was “baptized” after reading George MacDonald’s Phantastes..[2] While we may tend to associate the exercise of imagination with fiction and storytelling (e.g., The Screwtape Letters, The Space Trilogy, The Chronicles of Narnia), it is actually much broader than that but also would include illustrations, metaphors, and the like, which we see throughout Mere Christianity. Even the way that Lewis constructs his arguments in Mere Christianity, some of which we will review in this article, is an exercise of imagining, which refers fundamentally to forming or envisioning a mental concept or picture about a given thing. Thus, while he certainly appeals to one’s morality and one’s reason, he also challenges one’s “unbaptized” imaginations.
Lewis seeks to bring this part of the human person in line with the Truth as well. Certainly much of what Lewis does can be considered imaginative, in as much as it opens up creative possibilities for those engaging with his work. Within this particular article, I will look at Lewis’s imaginative use of illustration and metaphor in Mere Christianity. That said, Lewis’s imaginative illustrations generally accomplish two things incredibly well: (1) They tap into a rich shared experience of his readers, and (2) orient his readers towards longings they are not always able to articulate themselves.
Right Illustrations
Lewis’s precise choice of illustrations is striking not only in Mere Christianity but also throughout all his writings. While all illustrations and metaphors break down at some point, Lewis’s tend to maintain an enduring quality. As one author noted, “Lewis was successful in creating a knowledgeable, familiar, and trustworthy persona through his use of multiple tones, and he blended rational argument with imagination to create memorable metaphors and analogies that not only supported his assertions, but also captivated his reader’s imaginations and intellects.”[3] The Catholic apologist Avery Cardinal Dulles also states about Lewis, “Gifted with a lively imagination, he had an extraordinary facility for finding apt analogies from common life to illustrate abstract philosophical points.”[4] Lewis was a master of utilizing his imagination for the benefit of his readers.
For example, think on Lewis’s illustration of theology as a map and how it balances important points on various levels. He notes how often people are inclined to personal experiences. One might exclaim how beautiful the beach was with its majestic waves. And yet no matter how real a persons’ experience was, it is minimal compared to the entirety of the ocean. The individual cannot experience the whole ocean—however, he or she can know about it. Thus, Lewis writes,
Now, Theology is like the map. Merely learning and thinking about the Christian doctrines, if you stop there, is less real and less exciting than the sort of thing my friend got in the desert. Doctrines are not God: they are only a kind of map. But that map is based on the experience of hundreds of people who really were in touch with God—experiences compared with which any thrills or pious feelings you and I are likely to get on our own are very elementary and very confused. And secondly, if you want to get any further, you must use the map.[5]
This use of imagination takes an abstract topic and places it well within the shared experiences of his readers. Theology is not only like a map, but it very much is a map for those seeking to understand God more fully.
Another well-known illustration in Mere Christianity occurs in his chapter “The Obstinate Toy Soldiers.” Comparing humanity to tin soldiers, he notes Christ’s own uniqueness. He writes, “The Man in Christ rose again: not only the God. That is the whole point. For the first time we saw a real man. One tin solider—real tin just like the rest—had come fully and splendidly alive.”[6] He is saying a lot in this illustration, not least of which is about the incarnation.
Pulling imagery from our childhood and play, Lewis again appeals to shared experiences. Whether intentional or not, he helps us understand that our imagination is not a sign of immaturity. Instead, imagination, like anything in our life, has been effected by sin and needs renewal. When we were children, we hoped that our toys could come alive. Lewis, stirring our imaginations, tells us there is something right in that creative thought. He brings us back to the source of creativity, the Creator Himself.
Pointing to Something More
Even though Lewis’s work in Mere Christianity and elsewhere is full of logic and reason, he does not use imagination in a utilitarian sense. Unlike others versed in philosophy who use an metaphor or story as a hypothetical or a rigid thought experiment, Lewis is almost playful in his imagination. Lewis often not only orients his readers to reality but the realest reality. He presses his readers to imagine what the real world—supernatural and all—contains. His use of imagination is strikingly applicable precisely because it taps into a deep seat of human understanding and longing for what exists.
Even more, Lewis engages with imagination precisely where others are hesitant: in the area of theology. Most theology students know how fraught with danger metaphors for the Trinity can be. And yet Lewis employs imagination vividly with respect to the doctrine of the Trinity. He describes Christianity, which is rooted in the Trinitarian God, as a “dynamic, pulsating activity, a life, almost a kind of drama.”[7] He continues,
The whole dance, or drama, or pattern of this three-Personal life is to be played out in each one of us: or (putting it the other way round) each one of us has got to enter that pattern, take his place in that dance. There is no other way to the happiness for which we were made. Good things as well as bad, you know, are caught by a kind of infection. If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them.[8]
Lewis is evoking the readers’ imagination, helping them envision what a Christian life, rooted in the Trinity may look like. Of course, Lewis’s use of imagination is not separate from another prominent theme in his works: joy. Often, he uses illustrations to appeal to our imaginations, seeking to elucidate our longing and recognition of joy. Thus, if we want real joy, we need to participate in the “drama” and “dance.” We must participate in communion with the source of joy.
Lewis understands man’s longing for real transformation and ultimate reconciliation. In his chapter on “Making and Begetting,” he discusses what man’s divine image-bearing means, suggesting that it is much like the relationship of a statue to the image of a man. He concludes the chapter, writing, “That is precisely what Christianity is about. This world is a great sculptor’s shop. We are the statues and there is a rumour going round the shop that some of us are some day going to come to life.”[9] Again calling readers to imagine themselves as statues, Lewis engages with the imagination of what can be possible in the Christian life. Lewis helps give imaginative vision to our longing for something more.
Conclusion
Lewis does not bifurcate reason from imagination. Instead, he weds the two, as we all do in different ways, whether we recognize it as such, demonstrating their complementary relationship in the service of apologetics. When we read Mere Christianity, we sense that not only are our minds effected but also our hearts. In doing so, Lewis offers a profound apologetic that speaks to the whole person.
A new generation of apologists would do well to pick up Lewis’s mantle and engage in this discipline in a similar manner. Of course, Lewis is a tough act to follow. One of the markings of his use of imagination is his deceptively simple style. I say deceptively because I think to make use of imagination in the way he does is nothing short of brilliance. And yet he does so in a way that is communicable to people of all ages and backgrounds.
Further, he does not presume to divorce imagination from reason. He holds the two in careful balance. He forces the reader to think through the logical implications of their own beliefs as well as the proposed beliefs of Christianity. But he does so while expanding his reader’s visions of possibility through a rich imagination. To follow Lewis in his practice of apologetics is a difficult one but all the more needed in our reductive and disenchanted times.
[1] C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1966), 17.
[2] Lewis, Surprised by Joy, 172.
[3] Gary L. Tandy, “The Stylistic Achievement of Mere Christianity,” Sensucht: The C.S. Lewis Journal, 5/6 (2011–2012), 129.
[4] Avery Cardinal Dulles, “Mere Apologetics,” First Things, June 2005, https://www.firstthings.com/article/2005/06/mere-apologetics.
[5] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (San Francisco, HarperCollins, 1952), 154.
[6] Lewis, Mere Christianity, 180.
[7] Lewis, Mere Christianity, 175.
[8] Lewis, Mere Christianity, 176.
[9] Lewis, Mere Christianity, 159.
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