C. S. Lewis – A Life
Page 22
For Lewis, people too easily confuse goodness with kindness, and so approach the problem of pain from a false perspective. The “goodness” of God means that we must see ourselves as true objects of his love, not as objects of an indifferent divine welfare project. There are, Lewis suggests, four ways of thinking about this love of God for us: the love of an artist for what has been created, the love of a human being for an animal, a father’s love for a son, and a man’s love for a woman. After exploring the notion of God’s love for humanity, Lewis expresses his wonder at “why any creatures, not to say creatures such as we, should have a value so prodigious in their Creator’s eyes.” Our problem is that we want to be left alone, not loved as passionately as this. “You asked for a loving God: you have one.”442
Lewis insists that these notions must be understood in terms of the Christian way of thinking—which for Lewis (as for Augustine and Milton before him) involves the recognition of human sinfulness and rebellion. Lewis’s own spiritual journey, in which the conquest of his fixation on independence is prominent, spills over into his analysis. Indeed, there are points at which everything fits together so well for Lewis that he does not quite see the need to explain them in more detail to his readers. This perhaps helps us understand the occasional stalling of the argument, its change of mood and pace, the logical shortcuts, and the imaginative leaps which are not fully bridged by argument.
Lewis then makes an essentially Christological move, hinted at in the epigram he chose to place at the beginning of his work: George MacDonald’s remark that “the Son of God suffered unto the death, not that men might not suffer, but that their sufferings might be like His.” The incarnation of God in Christ, for Lewis, must be the focus of a Christian answer to the problem of pain:
The world is a dance in which good, descending from God, is disturbed by evil arising from the creatures, and the resulting conflict is resolved by God’s own assumption of the suffering nature which evil produces. The doctrine of the free Fall asserts that the evil which thus makes the fuel or raw material for the second and more complex kind of good is not God’s contribution but man’s.443
In a later section of the book, Lewis considers what may be learned from suffering. This is not understood to be a defence of God in the face of suffering, but an attempt to ask how we can work with suffering. Suffering can show us when we take wrong turns, or do bad things. It can bring home to us the frailty and transience of our existence, and challenge our belief that we can get by on our own. Pain thus helps to shatter the illusion that “all is well,” allowing God to plant “the flag of truth within the fortress of a rebel soul.” And it can help us make good choices. This might be taken to imply that Lewis sees pain as some kind of “moral instrument” to make us better people (a slightly puzzling criticism later levelled against him by his Oxford colleague Austin Farrer). But the context suggests otherwise.
The book has many strengths, not least its elegant style, clear exposition, and Socratic analysis of the concepts that lead to the formulation of the “problem of pain.” Yet the reader is left wondering if there is a disconnection between the intellect and the emotions. In a letter to his brother, Warnie, written while working on the book, Lewis seems to suggest that the experience of pain in “actual life” has no bearing on the essentially intellectual issue under discussion:
N.B. If you are writing a book about pain and then get some actual pain . . . it does not either, as the cynic wd. expect, blow the doctrine to bits, nor, as a Christian wd. hope, turn into practice, but remains quite unconnected and irrelevant, just as any other bit of actual life does when you are reading or writing.444
Lewis here seems to suggest that the experience of pain is irrelevant to any discussion about its significance. Intellectual thought is presented as detached from the world of experience. It is a curious statement, reflecting an equally curious thought. Lewis’s highly intellectual approach to the problem of pain seems to be totally disconnected from the experience of pain. So what if Lewis were to experience suffering, either himself or in someone whom he loved, whose pain he felt as his own? There is a sense in which The Problem of Pain laid the groundwork for the emotional maelstrom of A Grief Observed. But we shall have more to say of this later in our narrative.
Dedicated to the Inklings, The Problem of Pain gradually became accepted as a classic Christian response to the problem of pain. Its faults are well known—its overstatements, simplifications, and omissions. Yet many of its readers found a voice that was sympathetic to their concerns, and reassuring in its responses. It won Lewis many admirers, but did not make Lewis famous. Yet it proved to be a critical link in the chain that soon led to the emergence of that fame. And Lewis was wise enough to know that fame could be destructive.
Did Lewis anticipate this development? More important, did he fear it? Would he be able to cope with his looming celebrity status—or would it destroy him in an “orgy of egoism”? An important development in Lewis’s personal life around this time is probably linked to this concern. In 1941, Lewis wrote to Father Walter Adams (1869–1952), an Anglican High Churchman with a reputation as an outstanding spiritual director and confessor, asking if he would be open to offering him some spiritual guidance and direction. Adams was based at the Society of St. John the Evangelist (often referred to as the “Cowley Fathers”), a ten-minute walk from Magdalen College.
In early 1930, Lewis had declared that Greeves was his “only real Father Confessor.”445 This comment, possibly written before Lewis’s conversion, refers to Lewis’s long habit of disclosing personal confidences to Greeves, which he felt he could share with no one else. Yet as Christianity came to play a larger role in Lewis’s life, he may well have felt the need to have a more spiritually discerning confidant. Greeves, as far as I can see, never learned about Adams.446
Lewis made his first confession to Adams in the final week of October 1941, anxious about an “orgy of egoism.”447 The two would meet every Friday thereafter. We know virtually nothing of their conversations, other than of Adams’s persistent emphasis on the “three patiences”—“patience with God, patience with my neighbour, with oneself.”448
Adams was a subtle and important influence in moving Lewis away from the Low Churchmanship he had inherited from the Church of Ireland, and helping him discover the importance of liturgy and the regular reading of the Psalter as an aid to personal devotion.449 Lewis made it clear from the outset that he felt Adams was “much too close to Rome,” and that he “couldn’t follow him in certain directions.”450 Yet Adams became a critical spiritual friend to Lewis, playing a low-profile role in helping Lewis cope, initially with fame, and then with its aftermath.
Lewis’s Wartime Broadcast Talks
The war brought changes to many British institutions, including the state broadcaster, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). It became clear by the middle of 1940 that the BBC would play a key role in maintaining national morale. A shortage of newsprint led to an increasing number of people relying on BBC radio transmissions for information and entertainment. On 1 September 1939, the BBC had ceased regional radio broadcasts,451 and concentrated all its resources on a single domestic radio broadcasting service, now known as the “Home Service.” Religion was widely recognised to be an integral and important aspect of the national fabric, and the BBC saw itself as having a duty to offer both religious instruction and inspiration in the darker moments of the war.
The rise of radio led to certain “voices” becoming popular and highly recognisable during the war. C. H. Middleton (1886–1945) became the BBC’s “voice of gardening,” and authored the wartime bestseller Digging for Victory. Dr. Charles Hill (1904–1989), the “radio doctor,” became the “voice of medicine.” But there was no “voice of faith”—a sensible, engaging, and authoritative voice that commanded confidence and elicited affection.
And such a voice was sorely needed. Partly to solve a scheduling problem, the BBC Religious Programmes Department was launching
a new series of “broadcast talks” on religious themes. But who could deliver them? Early in 1941, Dr. James Welch, a commissioning editor at the BBC, began to search for a voice that could speak to the spiritual anxieties and concerns of the British people during the war. It proved a difficult task.
One particular difficulty was the tensions that were then beginning to emerge between the BBC and the leadership of the various Christian churches.452 The BBC saw itself as a national broadcaster, speaking to the people of Great Britain. It did not see itself as the voice of the established Church of England. The churches tended to be concerned with safeguarding their own interests, being preoccupied with congregational attendances and questions of their respective social status. While national church leaders—such as William Temple (1881–1944), Archbishop of Canterbury—were welcomed as speakers on the BBC, it became clear that the BBC began to prefer speakers who would not speak from any denominational agenda or platform, but would simply present a transdenominational vision of Christianity to the nation as a whole. But who could do this?
Then Welch came across a book by an Oxford don—reassuringly, a layman. He liked what he read. The book was The Problem of Pain. Lewis could not have known it, but the “mere Christianity” that he was increasingly advocating—though not then by that name—was precisely what the BBC was looking for.453 Lewis was a layman, and would thus be seen as being outside the power structures (and power struggles) of the denominations. Welch noted that Lewis wrote well. But could he speak? What would he be like in front of a microphone? Would he end up being yet another ponderous and pretentious “churchy” voice, whose tone would disincline people to listen to its content?
There was only one way to find out. Welch had never met Lewis, but decided to take a risk. He wrote to Lewis, complimenting him on The Problem of Pain, and inviting him to speak for the BBC. Would Lewis consider speaking on a topic such as “The Christian Faith As I See It—by a Layman”? Lewis could be sure of a “fairly intelligent audience of more than a million.”454
Lewis replied cautiously. He would like to give such a series of talks, but would have to wait until the university vacation.455 Welch then passed Lewis over to his colleague Eric Fenn (1899–1995), who would handle the arrangements from that point onwards.456
In the meantime, Lewis found himself becoming involved in another area of war work—speaking at Royal Air Force (RAF) stations. This suggestion came from W. R. Matthews, dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, who had a fund at his disposal which he proposed to use to establish a visiting lectureship. The RAF was at this point attracting some of the finest of the country’s young men, and Matthews wanted to make sure that they had access to Christian teaching and encouragement. He had no doubt about whom he wanted to fill this role. He proposed that Lewis should be offered the position.
Maurice Edwards, chaplain in chief of the RAF, agreed to put this proposal to Lewis, and travelled to Oxford to discuss it with him. Edwards was not entirely sure that Lewis was the right person for this job. Lewis was used to teaching the best university students in Britain. How would he cope with “plodders”—young men who had left school at sixteen, and who had no intention of doing anything even remotely academic? Lewis probably had similar misgivings. Nevertheless, he accepted the offer. It would, he believed, be good for him, forcing him to translate his ideas into “uneducated language.”
Lewis’s first speaking engagement was at No. 10 Operational Training Unit, a Royal Air Force training base for the bomber command based at Abingdon, about a fifteen minute’s drive south of Oxford. Afterwards, Lewis took a gloomy view about his talks. “As far as I can judge they were a complete failure.”457 But they weren’t, and the RAF asked for more. Gradually, Lewis learned how to adapt his style and vocabulary to meet the needs of an audience he had never encountered before.
Lewis’s reflections on how a speaker should “learn the language of the audience” are contained in an important lecture given to clergy and youth leaders in Wales in 1945. The lecture bristles with insights and wisdom, clearly learned the hard way—through experience. Lewis seemed to regard two points as especially important: discovering how ordinary people speak, and translating your ideas into their way of speaking.
We must learn the language of our audience. And let me say at the outset that it is no use at all laying down a priori what the “plain man” does or does not understand. You have to find out by experience.458
It is not hard to imagine Lewis engaged in discussion and debate with a hard-nosed, no-nonsense, tough-talking aircrew, learning how his academic style did not connect with them—and resolving to do something about it.
You must translate every bit of your Theology into the vernacular. This is very troublesome, and it means you can say very little in half an hour, but it is essential. It is also of the greatest service to your own thought. I have come to the conviction that if you cannot translate your thoughts into uneducated language, then your thoughts were confused. Power to translate is the test of having really understood one’s own meaning.459
Lewis would put into practice in his broadcast talks precisely the ideas he learned the hard way through lecturing for the RAF.
In the meantime, the arrangements for the broadcast talks were going ahead smoothly. As Lewis had requested, these would take place in August 1941, deep in the university vacation, when he could fully devote his thoughts and time to them.460
By the middle of May, Lewis had more or less worked out his approach. The talks would be apologetic, not evangelistic, preparing the ground for the gospel, rather than explicitly presenting it. Lewis decided he would offer a “praeparatio evangelica rather than evangelium” which would “attempt to convince people that there is a moral law, that we disobey it, and that the existence of a Lawgiver is at least very probable.”461 But Lewis still had to face the ordeal of a microphone test. Would his voice come over well on the air?
In May 1941, Lewis sat down in front of a microphone to undertake a “voice test” at the BBC. It was, he remarked, a surprise to hear himself speak. “I was unprepared for the total unfamiliarity of the voice.”462 But the BBC was satisfied. There would be no difficulty in understanding Lewis on air. In the end, some complained about his “Oxford accent,” and asked him to change it. Lewis retorted that he wasn’t aware of having any accent. Anyway, if he changed it, it would just end up being a different accent. Why make such a fuss about “simply accidental phenomena”?463
Yet changes continued to be made. Eric Fenn remarked that Lewis’s proposed title for the series of talks was “a little dull.”464 An alternative title was eventually agreed upon: “Inside Information.” The dates and titles of the four talks were to be:
6 August: “Common Decency”
13 August: “Scientific Law and Moral Law”
20 August: “Materialism or Religion”
27 August: “What Can We Do about It?”465
However, two further changes had to be made. First, Leslie Stannard Hunter, bishop of Sheffield, who was due to give the next series of four talks following Lewis, asked if he could delay the series by a week, due to previous commitments. This left the BBC with a week without its regular religion talk. Fenn asked Lewis if he would fill this vacant slot by doing a fifth session. Realising that it was too late for Lewis to write an additional talk, Fenn suggested he might like to respond to questions raised by listeners.466 Lewis agreed to this proposal.
The final change concerned the title of the talks. “Inside Information” was criticised in an internal BBC memorandum in July as “rather unseemly.”467 After some hasty consultations, the title was revised to “Right and Wrong: A Clue to the Meaning of the Universe?”468 In the view of many, this revised title was far better than any of its predecessors.
Although Lewis scripted all these talks himself, the final versions were developed in dialogue with his producer, Eric Fenn. At times, this seems to have led to a certain coolness between the two, particularly when Lewis felt that Fe
nn’s proposed changes were intrusive. However, Lewis eventually seems to have realised the value of Fenn’s experienced ear. What Lewis had not appreciated was that, unlike a book, a radio talk has to be understood the first time around.
The first talk was transmitted live from Broadcasting House in London at 7.45 on the evening of Wednesday, 6 August 1941, immediately following a fifteen-minute news broadcast at 7.30. Every broadcaster knows that the “slots” most likely to attract large audiences are those following popular items—and during wartime, news broadcasts attracted a considerable following. If Lewis had any hopes that his programme might benefit from the large audiences that news broadcasts traditionally attracted, he would have been disappointed. This particular news broadcast was aimed at listeners in Nazi-occupied Norway, who could pick up the BBC on 200 kHz long wave. It was in Norwegian.
Yet despite this far-from-ideal beginning, Lewis secured and retained a large audience. The rest, as they say, is history. Lewis became the “voice of faith” for the nation, and his broadcast talks achieved classic status. Fenn was delighted with their success. Although he commented that the second talk was somewhat “turgid,” Fenn wisely sugared this pill by inviting Lewis to contribute a second series, to be broadcast for the Home Service on Sundays in January and February 1942.469
Once more, these talks proved enormously successful. After reading the draft scripts in December 1941, Fenn declared them to be “first class,” especially praising the “clarity” of their expression and the “inexorableness” of their argument.470 Lewis developed these talks in dialogue with four clergy colleagues, wishing to ensure that he spoke for Christianity as a whole, rather than simply from his own perspective. The clergy were Eric Fenn (Presbyterian); Dom Bede Griffiths (Roman Catholic); Joseph Dowell (Methodist); and an unknown clergyman of the Church of England, who may possibly have been Austin Farrer, by then an Oxford colleague of Lewis’s.