Does anybody have a good understanding of Lewis’s view of Catholicism? Dr. Peter Kreeft once sayed that Lewis made a remark to J.R.R. Tolkien on this issue, something like “You couldn’t understand what it’s like to be born in Belfast Ireland” implying that he had cultural bias and couldn’t come to terms with it. This always seemed strange to me because Lewis’s thought is so great that it doesn’t seem likely that he would just willingly accept his protestant bias just because he was born in Belfast. I know he had an abnormal marriage arrangement and thought that it might have something to do with it. What are your thoughts? I’m a huge C.S. Lewis fan, The Abolition of Man was incredible!
We are ***all ***culturally conditioned. The reality is that most Catholics are Catholic because they were born Catholic and brought up in a Catholic environment. Ditto for Protestants, Orthodox, Moslems, Buddhists etc.
Lewis was born and raised in Northern Ireland as a Protestant. For someone brought up in that environment, he was very broad minded in his writings. His criticisms of the Catholic Church were few and far between.
Secondly he lived in pre-Vatican II times, dying on the same day as President Kennedy was assassinated, 11 November 1963, right in the middle of Vatican II, his death virtually going unnoticed as a result. So he didn’t have the luxury of a more open Church to think about. Incidentally I don’t think the serially adulterous Kennedy walked into heaven either, Catholic or not, President or otherwise. The law applies to everyone, regardless of rank.
Third he fought in the First World War, and lived through the Second World War, in which Christians of all denominations fought both with and against each other. I suspect that may have had something to do with his intellectual atheism at some time.
Finally, my own Protestant pastor once said to me in his office that he sometimes wondered if Protestants get into heaven. My own view is that they are in the very upper reaches of purgatory, almost heavenly. I’d be laughed out of court by Protestants of course, but I’ve had two experiences which make me wonder, apart from the fact I found from experience he was nearly always right in what he said. About a month after his funeral, I was looking at a photograph of him on the wall of one of his son’s homes, and I had this distinct sense of him having a rather turgid, sweaty time. At the time I was still Protestant, so Purgatory wasn’t in my vocabulary, but I think I was getting an indication that’s where he was.
Secondly a couple of years after he died, he appeared one night and said, “We’re not in heaven. Oh, we’re not suffering any pain, so you don’t have to worry about that. In fact, it’s pretty good around here. But we’re not in heaven.” Then he disappeared. I had a similar experience when my (Baptist) father-in-law died. I’ve never mentioned it to the wife, who is also Baptist, as it’s impossible to prove these things.
I suspect he and CS Lewis are hanging around the Pearly Gates with quite a large crowd. Unfortunately I think they’re going to stay there unless the church reunifies, formally.
That’s my opinion. After all they don’t belong to the Catholic Church and rejected it, whatever their background. In most cases they did not partake of the Lord’s body and blood in the full sense, some blasphemed the Petrine Office, and at the least denied it. Fnally quite a few told unconfessed lies, knowingly or unknowingly, about Catholics and the Catholic Church.
There must be some consideration of these things, in direct contravention to Christ’s own words.
