Andrew Lazo: Did C.S. Lewis get his own conversion story wrong?

0:00The CS Lewis Podcast with Alice Demograph Hello and welcome to the show that brings you the thought and theology of CS Lewis with me, Ruth Jackson. You can discover more about Lewis by visiting premierunbelieveball.com where you can also find lots of great articles, resources and podcasts. That's premierunbelieveball.com. I'm here once again with the incredible Andrew Lazo priest and CS Lewis scholar and if you haven't heard our first episode then do check it out because Andrew talks about lots of his exciting own experience of Lewis, what an impact Lewis had on his personal life, his intellectual life, his romantic life. But Andrew tell us about early prose joy which was Lewis's very first spiritual autobiography. How was it discovered? It's a wonderful question and it goes back to that marvelous resources treasure trove

1:00of material on CS Lewis and several of the other inklings and their influences. A place called the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College. They have the wardrobe from Lewis's nursery, Tolkien's writing desk. They have Lewis's own books that you can actually handle and look at. They also have a really deep archive and early prose joy is a photocopy from one of Lewis's notebooks and it's an account of Lewis's conversion from atheism to theism. It's a complete account and it seems even from the very first paragraph that Lewis thought his conversion was done. He converted from being an atheist to an empirical theist and so it comes before his conversion to Christianity. And it layed in a folder for many years and I overheard a discussion on it and that's how we kind of got started taking a look at it. Yes, so how did you get involved? I guess there's one thing hearing a discussion thinking, oh, that's interesting. But what was your involvement then?

2:01My involvement with early prose joy comes because I have bad manners and I was raised poorly whenever I visit the Wade Center. I sit close enough to the front desk that I can eavesdrop on phone calls and conversation. I love Lewis and have had the good fortune to kind of have his whole chronology at my fingertips. And I think I have a gift for remembering long passages and remembering certain lines. And I've come to the Wade Center so often that those wonderful people, Laura Stannifer and so many others, but especially Laura, the archivist, brilliant archivist there, were friends. And so sometimes if there's a question that they don't find, I'm willing to kind of ask a question. So Laura and Heidi Trude were talking about this manuscript once called an early autobiographical fragment of Surprise by Joy. And they couldn't figure it out because at the beginning there's clearly some passages from Surprise by Joy like Milton's flowering bush.

3:03But at the end of it there's a phrase from Pilgrim's Regress. Well Surprise by Joy, he was published in 55, Pilgrim's Regress in 32, 33. And so in one document you have both. And they said, we don't know what that is. And I said, fatal question. Can I have a look? And once I did, it was just in his photocopy in Lewis's handwriting and it had never been transcribed. Well, I had the good fortune of being there for a couple of weeks doing my work on Troy David Men into our faces. But it was intriguing enough of thing. And I know a little bit about Lewis's handwriting that I shoved everything aside. And I just began to transcribe it. And when I did, I made some remarkable discoveries. I want to talk about those remarkable discoveries because they really are remarkable. But tell us first, what was it like transcribing his handwriting? You know, it's kind of like reading Shakespeare or learning a foreign language. Once you get the hang of it, you start to see what the characters are.

4:07I actually ended up emailing Walter Hooper who made a clear copy and sent that along. His handwriting is fairly distinctive, but it's pretty clear. But here I need to bow to my colleague and my dear friend, Professor Charlie Star, Charlie W. Star, who has in his own work on some of Lewis's unpublished material taught himself the markers of Lewis's handwriting over the course of his life. So he can look at a manuscript and sometimes just by the way that Lewis makes an F can tell you within six months often when Lewis wrote it without any other markers. And so his handwriting has a particular style and it was really fun to kind of try to figure out what he was saying. Marge Meade recently retired as the Associate Director of the Wade Center has done loads with his handwriting as well. So it's great to get together with her and say, what is this word? And in the transcript that you wrote up, you've got like the crossings out and brackets

5:09and things like that as the original manuscript is, haven't you? We had one shot at publishing it and what I wanted to do for the Scholarly magazine is reproduce exactly what I saw on page. If it was a double underline, we did a double strike through, we reproduced that. If he had a carrot and another word, we managed to do that. I hope someday to do the kind of clean copy and include the other in the appendix and do some more work on early prose joy. But it's really remarkable to see his own thought process and what he crosses out and what he has. Now let's talk about some of these discoveries because what first made you realize that early prose joy wasn't just another unpublished manuscript, perhaps something that you'd overheard in conversation over and over again and just that, oh that's interesting, let's move to one side. But that actually genuinely changed CS Lewis scholarship. What was it that made you realize this was like? I must admit I kind of jumped up and screamed a little bit when I discovered this.

6:11Lewis famously says in surprise by joy, you must picture me there in my rooms at Modeling night after night, the moment my mind lifted even for a second from my work sensing the unrelenting approach of him who I most earnestly desired, not to meet. Finally what I last, what I greatly feared at last came upon me and in Trinity term 1929, I knelt and prayed and admitted that God who was God, surely the most dejected and reluctant convert in all of England. So what I found in early prose joy was the startling fact in the last paragraph. Lewis describes clearly his conversion to theism and there are some markers that he includes in surprise by joy so much so that I think he had early prose joy notebook open on his knee as he wrote surprise by joy. But in the very last paragraph he said that in the year and the month that this conversion happened, it was the year and the month that he learned to dive.

7:15Now I spoke in the last episode about the glory of C.S. Lewis's letters, one of the great things they do is they give us chronological markers and I thought I can find that and I found that he learned to dive in all likelihood in late June of 1930. That's when I leapt up and said Lewis got it wrong. Well fortunately Chris Mitchell then the director of the Wade Center who has since gone on to glory had just been visiting with Alistair. He had been visiting with Professor McGrath and had a proof copy of the book and told me that Alistair suggested that the theistic conversion and the Christian conversion were closer in time. Trinity term could be as early as April 1929 and we know that his Christian conversion was September 31. But Alistair very wisely saw from reading the letters and everything else that nothing seems to have happened spiritually in 29 but something definitely did in 1930 and then

8:15I found that on the page. So why how important is it correcting Lewis's conversion date? I guess someone might hear what you're saying, read what Alistair's written in his book and think, well that's interesting. Lewis was wrong, no big deal. Why does it matter beyond historical accuracy? It's not just about correcting it, is it? Absolutely. Historical accuracy though does really matter and Lewis's chronology in particular I think is important especially because of the couple of conversions. But even the chronological accuracy is key because frankly some of the earlier biographers play fast and loose with dates and there are many many mistakes in some of the earliest scholarship on Lewis and so that in and of itself. The date in some ways doesn't matter at all. Lewis was terrible with numbers, that's no surprise. There's a couple of really gross numbers mistakes in surprise by joy. But the key thing is his conversion and his conversion to theism if he's right and surprised

9:21by joy happened before his father's death rather than after. Now there's this curious letter from the 1950s where Lewis is writing to a friend who's his father just died and he said, I myself found myself very much helped in the weeks and the months following my father's death, helped spiritually by my father. Well what happens is Albert Dyes in September of 29. By February 3rd Lewis writes to Owen Barfield and he said the absolute is beginning to act like God. You better come before the weekend or you'll find me in a monastery. Later on he writes about his new religious outlook and then finally we have this conversion and so Lewis is getting closer and closer but I think in some ways his conversion is on some level also grappling with his father's death. We also know as Alistair points out that he begins going to church and begins attending college chapel and that's in 1930 and so we want to know those things clearly and now

10:26we have a much clearer view. Now a German scholar, friend of mine, Norbert Feinden-Degen will it disagree with me? He thinks it happened in July but I'm convinced it happened in the first 10 days of June 1930 and so if you read what happens after that you begin to see Lewis's life more clearly and clarifying things as one of Lewis's great missions and I think that we should handle his materials of clarity as well. Yeah and his interesting is that you mentioned Albert Dying, his father Dying because surprised by joy was written while Mrs. Moore was dying so is that significant as well then that this other autobiographical piece was written while someone else was dying? Now Lewis's life is marked by particular tragedies as a young man as a nine-year-old not only did his mother die, his grandfather died, his uncle died and a cousin died all with him three or four years and after his mother died this is so pointed he prayed for her healing from cancer and when the worst happened, Lewis said I prayed for a miracle and resurrection didn't happen to her

11:33and that was a key part of Lewis losing his faith and maybe in some ways sparking his interest in joy which he calls having and wanting or building the temple of the God had flown. Absence played a huge part and so we see with Flora's death a beginning of the joy with Albert's death a writing of early prose joy I will write down and then the published pilgrims regress. Mrs. Moore he called his mother, his adopted mother and her death I think helped to spark surprise by joy and then Joy Daverman's death it sparks the last of his autobiographical efforts in a grief observed so I think the death of a parent figure or somebody really huge had a real effect in his life early prose joy helped put some of that puzzle together. The CS Lewis podcast with Alistair Mugraff

12:43The CS Lewis podcast with Alistair Mugraff What are some of the other really significant things that came out of this document for you? You know perhaps the most important and there's a really good book coming out a woman named Lillian Lyndon is writing a new book about idealism and CS Lewis in early prose joy he talks about his philosophical development in a way that's much more clear than in surprise by joy when he came to Oxford in 25 he started teaching philosophy and he said I realized I didn't have one myself and you get it much less narrative form and much much more straightforward there's some real implications really pros joy rhetorical implications how did he write it so in fact in the intro to to the actual text I suggested seven things that we should start to look at and scholars have begun taking up some of those things yeah I actually interviewed Lillian so you can find that on

13:47the podcast she said some fascinating things but so how does it chart his philosophical journey he goes from and I'm not a philosopher so it's a foreign language but he goes from atheism he goes through Barclay and idealism he goes through absolutism I think perhaps most relevant the last kind of phase he goes through is solipsism and I took Latin so that I can understand what Lewis is saying solo ipsoos only one self and Lewis goes through this phase of only himself as materialism comes to the point and he can't posit that there's any other being in the universe which is why kneeling and praying is to address somebody else and to admit that there's more than himself it's really like he says learning how to dive he says later that learning how to dive is not about doing something it's about stopping doing something stopping the resistance allowing it to go in he talks about the going up heading to n hill we were just there a few days ago and unbuckling and letting

14:53God come in it's a little bit like like used to us being a dragon and so he's allowing that to come in and that begins a real process for him and it's a crucial moment of getting over himself and allowing God to come in and you wrote beautifully in your introduction to early prose joy you see the very private Lewis wrote repeatedly about this most personal of life events obviously talking about his conversion in different forms whether that's atheism atheism to theism or theism to Christianity why do you think he did write so much about something that was so private when he didn't that wasn't really what he wanted to do necessarily you know I've given a little thought to this I'm not quite sure but I think in part because of his great privacy those stories still want to get and it's such a crucial story and he also in early prose joy says I want to describe that process because I think that others are probably on that path and as mere Christianity attests mere

15:56Christianity book one and two are basically his mapping out his own journey from atheism to theism and then Christianity so I think that because it would serve that's part of why he said it because perhaps he was too private the war really wounded him yeah and he never really spoke about that there are many things that really went unsaid the one time warning asked him his brother war and asked him about his very strange relationship with Mrs. Moore Lewis just shut him down he wouldn't answer and so I think he kept a lot of things inside which is kind of like squeezing the balloon it's going to come out somewhere else and so I also think that he thought that his that that account made up others yeah because he says doesn't he my own experience matters because it's everyone else's experience as well right right so why did he keep rewriting his conversion story do you think obviously we see a prose joy which he never presumably didn't want to see the light of day because it was never published and presumably who would have had an opportunity if he'd wanted to

17:01and then we obviously see Pilgrim's regress and then we see surprised by joy and perhaps there may be another unpublished manuscript somewhere else but why is it constantly being rewritten do you think so I think that he doesn't publish early prose joy because he thought his conversion was done with a conversion to empirical theism and I read somewhere where Lewis said as nearly as I can tell my conversion was entirely a rational process but one doesn't just convert one's mind right once a whole person and an integrated person hopefully so I think that he writes that to describe the mental process and thinking that his conversion is done but there's a third part of his conversion his conversion to Christianity and so at some points it becomes moot but I think there's a larger thing and it's tied into my recent work on to we have faces Lewis is telling the story throughout his life of love I'm sorry of joy the the having and wanting we have three now autobiographies early prose joy Pilgrim's regress surprised by joy but if his all of those are the story of the search

18:05for joy you see that search for joy in dimer you see that search for joy at 1927 his book blank narrative poem you see it in his 1919 collection of poems spirits in bondage and as early as 1916 he writes a poem called joy and if the theme of joy is what he's writing about in various forms not just autobiographies you find that theme picked up in a lot of the narnia chronicles and everything else you really see him searching and speaking about it until he have faces as well and then had a wonderful conversation I thought it would lend your library years ago a valester about and if you're going to allow to we have faces in some of the others I think as I said a grief observed is a story about his life but what and then but it's until we have faces that he realizes what his whole story is really about it's not about joy but about what joy points to

19:08at the end of surprised by joy and joy David minutes on the scene helping him edit this he writes this maybe the month after he starts writing to be a faces he says that joy serves only has a pointer to something other and outer and as we'll discuss in another episode I think what he's talking about that's other and outer is love and what happens in tillia faces is he realizes that his story is not about lack and desire and wanting but not having I don't think his story is about longing I think his story he realizes is about fulfillment and that ultimate fulfillment is in the four loves and now because of this work I think that Lewis's entire corpus is not about joy but about love and we'll talk more about that later but I think that's a really huge pointer that comes out of his autobi what I call the autobiographical impulse or the autobiographical arc that goes over his whole life and you're absolutely right we're going to spend some time talking about

20:10it because it's so important and it's what you've devoted a lot of your work to you but if we can I'd love to just go back to that phrase empirical theist because I think I'm writing saying that's the only time Lewis uses it and he says I'm an empirical theist I arrived at God by induction which as you say most conversion experiences involve at least an element of emotion or something that's not purely induction so why was the case for Lewis why was he dragged almost kicking and screaming into becoming a Christian and then I suppose perhaps the emotion followed later yeah well remember his educational background here I quote by G.K. Chesterton I think it really casts a good light over what Lewis experienced and this could could well describe Lewis's schooling Chesterton just half generation earlier says the Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting it's been found difficult and left untried and in surprise by joy and elsewhere Lewis talks about being taught

21:15by people who assumed that Christianity just was wrong one of several religions you know Sir James Fraser the golden bow other things like this and it's at age where everybody assumes that Christianity is not true and the scientific method wins and Nietzsche is right that God is dead and Freud is right that guilt is just neurosis and Lewis had never really met belief and so he tries to find answers to questions and he reads everything he can to get away from Christianity but the other writers he said sounded really tinny to me they didn't seem to have that tang of real life George McDonald was a huge influence G.K. Chesterton was a huge influence and what he found was that atheism of his generation was too easy and it's in a way that's similar to my own looking for more in Christianity that real depth was in Christians and in Christianity and once you

22:16really examined the philosophy of that he was led there and nowhere else and his philosophical journey stops when he becomes a Christian he finds what he was looking for now he develops as a thinker but he's no longer looking because he has found the answer as Orwell says I know now Lord why you give no answer you yourself are the answer and when Lewis found that answer that's when he found his intellectual spiritual home so what did he mean then by that phrase empirical theorist empirical meaning proven by thoughtful rational process and he comes to the belief that there is a God if you have read or at least tried to read me Christianity he ends up at the beginning of early prose joy where Lewis leads us at the end of book one of right and wrong as a clue to the meaning of the universe so Lewis goes through that thinking either no God or God either an

23:18imprint so no God or God okay God impersonal God or personal God okay try impersonal doesn't work personal God okay personal God many gods or one God well one God and of those monotheistic religions Islam Judaism Christianity which one is distinctive and that's where he comes with the tricotomy right Lord lunatic liar that that Jesus makes claims that nobody else makes but he brings us to theism at the end of book one and then begins to look at the applications of Christ in book two of Christianity and that's empirical theism he walks you through logically and disallows every other option because they don't make sense so he's not gunning for the answer God in fact he's gunning for everything but that but he gets to the ineluctible unavoidable conclusion that the only sensible way to explain what's going on inside of me and all around the universe

24:21is that there must be a God and that's where he stops the thing that I love about Lewis though is although he's a thousand miles from Jesus Christ and certainly more than a year from believing in Jesus and a year and a half from communicating from receiving communion in a church he starts going to college chapel and he starts going to church because he said I thought we're not to fly one's flag that's the great gift of Lewis he believes and then he does something about it and that's why he's my master because I can preach all day long on Sunday and read all the theology but unless that changes my life and the lives of my ears it's just vain words and you I want to hear a little bit more about your story perhaps some of the parallelisms between your own story and Lewis's conversion because I think there are some parallelisms can I can ever say that in the same way that there was for Alistair McGraph and Lewis but we are out of time in this episode so we're going to delve into that a little bit more in the next episode but thank you so much for joining me this has

25:23just been such a pleasure and I feel like we could go on about this stop for days. Brian and speaking about Lewis I'm just fulfilling a long debt he said of George McDonald and I say about him I owe him as much as one man can know another and so thank you for helping me page so a little bit of that debt back. Oh Andrew it's such a pleasure and thank you so much for joining us today on the CS Lewis podcast with me Ruth Jackson and the incredible CS Lewis scholar and priest Andrew Lazo you can find out more about CS Lewis by visiting premier unbelievable.com where you can also see articles resources podcasts that's premier unbelievable.com thank you so much for listening and see you next time. This series is also available as a podcast for more information bonus content and to subscribe to the CS Lewis podcast visit csluaspodcast.com