Wednesday, April 19, 2006

C. S. LEWIS A CALVINIST?

This from Jeremy Weart:

I was reading one of Lewis' final interviews before he died and I came
Across an interesting section whereby I think Lewis was a Calvinist for
A short time:

Wirt: In your book Surprised by Joy you remark that you were brought
into the faith kicking and struggling and resentful, with eyes darting
in every direction looking for an escape. You suggest that you were
com-
pelled, as it were, to become a Christian. Do you feel that you made a
decision at the time of your conversion?

Lewis: "I would not put it that way. What I wrote in Surprised by Joy
was that 'before God closed in on me, I was offered what now appears a
moment of wholly free choice.' But I feel my decision was not so
important. I was the object rather than the subject in this affair. I
was decided upon. I was glad afterwards at the way it came out, but at
the moment what I heard was God saying, 'Put down your gun and we'll
talk.'"

Wirt: That sounds to me as if you came to a very definite point of
decision.

Lewis: "Well, I would say that the most deeply compelled action is also
the freest action. By that I mean, no part of you is outside the
action.

It is a paradox. I expressed it in Surprised by Joy by saying that I
chose, yet it really did not seem possible to do the opposite."

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