s he understood it, as equally as flawed. One wonders what he might have said had his vague acceptance of evolution been shaken earlier. There is a wealth of suggestive possibilities in his 1951 lament: ‘I wish I were younger.’14
C.S. Lewis on materialistic thoughts
‘If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents—the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else’s. But if their thoughts—i.e. of materialism and astronomy—are merely accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents. It’s like expecting that the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milkjug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset.’
C.S. Lewis (1898–1963), The Business of Heaven, Fount Paperbacks, U.K., p. 97, 1984.
- C.S. Lewis and the Great Myth: They love the Myth so take care how you expose it
- G.K. Chesterton: Darwinism is ‘An attack upon thought itself’
- C.S. Lewis: creationist and anti-evolutionist
- J. I. Packer, ‘Still Surprised by Lewis’ in Christianity Today, vol. 42, 7 September 1998. Return to Text
- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Glasgow: Fontana, 1975, p.6. Return to Text
- Ref. 2, p.173. Return to Text
- C.S. Lewis, ‘Answers to Questions on Christianity’, in God in the Dock, ed. by Walter Hooper, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1970, pp.57–58. Return to Text
- C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms, London and Glasgow: Collins, 1974, p.22. Return to Text
- Ref. 2, p.54. Return to Text
- C.S. Lewis, ‘Fern-seeds and Elephants’ in Christian Reflections, ed. by Walter Hooper, Glasgow: Collins, 1983. Return to Text
- C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy, London and Glasgow: Fontana, 1953, p.182. Return to Text
- C.S. Lewis, ‘On the Reading of Old Books’, in God in the Dock, ed. by Walter Hooper, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1970, p.203. Return to Text
- Cited in J. Ryan Duncan, The Magic Never Ends, Nashville, 2001, p.27. Return to Text
- C.S. Lewis, All My Road Before Me: The Diary of C.S. Lewis, 1922–1927, ed. by Walter Hooper, London: HarperCollins, 1991, p.361. Return to Text
- C.S. Lewis on Creation and Evolution: The Acworth Letters, 1944–1960’, www.asa3.org/aSA/PSCF/1996/PSCF3-96Ferngren.html Gary Ferngren and Ronald L. Numbers have put together a most helpful treatment of Lewis’ views on evolution. Return to Text
- C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, London and Glasgow: Fontana, 1975, especially pp.57–76. Return to Text
- C.S. Lewis on Creation and Evolution: The Acworth Letters, 1944–1960’, www.asa3.org/aSA/PSCF/1996/PSCF3-96Ferngren.html Return to Text
- Cited in A. N. Wilson, C.S. Lewis: A Biography, London; Collins, 1990, p.210. Return to Text
- Ref. 2, p.34. Return to Text