C.S. Lewis has become a staple in much of the protestant world, often quoted in sermons and held up as one of those thinkers in whose opinion we can ‘really’ trust.[1] And I confess that I like Lewis; his writing is generally engaging and easy to read. But once we start to think about what’s happening in the background theologically, we enter a whole new realm. The aspect of Lewis’s writing that particularly grabs my attention is what he thinks about demons. I’m going to briefly look at three of Lewis’s books, Screwtape Letters,[2] Perelandra, and The Great Divorce.
But firstly, context. Lewis is loved by evangelicals/charismatics partly because he’s one of the early 20th century thinkers who, as well as being easy to read, isn’t in the liberal academic camp. To be clear, by liberal, I mean a theological position about the authority of scripture and the reality of the supernatural, rather than a sort of political identification. We see an example of theological liberalism in the work of Rudolf Bultmann, who writes,
Just as mythological are the presuppositions of the expectation of the Kingdom of God, namely the theory that the world, although created by God, is ruled by the devil, Satan, and that his army, the demons, is the cause of all evil, sin and disease.[3]
Bultmann believes that in the ‘modern era’, it is simply foolish to uphold the beliefs in the supernatural because this goes against the accounts of modern science.[4] But this is very different to most Christian accounts, and certainly to what Lewis sees as being true.[5] The appearance of demons and the supernatural in Lewis’s writing is different to many of the prevailing voices at the time, so perhaps it’s no wonder that the theme of demons does appear in different ways in his writing.
One of Lewis’s famous works is The Screwtape Letters. This is structured as a series of letters from a senior demon, Screwtape, writing to his nephew, a junior demon called Wormwood, and giving him advice on his duties as a ‘tempter’. In Screwtape, demons are perpetually trying to undermine humans and prevent them from forming a close relationship with ‘the enemy’, or as most people would refer to him, God.[6] But Lewis isn’t only trying to describe the existence of demons, he’s also trying to oppose the concept of demons and the demonic as ‘sexy’. Think of the TV series Good Omens, with David Tennant playing the cool demon.[7] This is the idea that is popular when Lewis is writing too, and we can trace that idea back to Milton’s Paradise Lost.[8] In Screwtape Lewis picks the least sexy thing he can think of, bureaucracy – what he calls the ‘lowerarchy’. The point he’s making is that bureaucracy is boring, no one dreams of being a civil servant (I’m sorry),[9] but as a part of the government machine, it is powerful. So following Lewis here, we end up, unlike with Bultmann and Milton, believing demons are very real but not to be admired.
Another place we see Lewis’s view of the demonic is in his Space Trilogy, especially Perelandra.[10] In Perelandra, the ‘man’ Watson slowly becomes the ‘un-man’, a demon-possessed creature who stops exhibiting human needs, like sleep.[11] Instead, the ‘un-man’ embarks on a near constant conversation with ‘The Green Lady’, twisting the truth. In many ways, the approach taken mirrors what we see in The Screwtape Letters.
Along with a few other references to demons in his other works, such as in Mere Christianity, Lewis puts what looks like a consistent picture together of his view of the demonic. But when we crack open The Great Divorce, the demons are notably absent and for a book that seems to start in Hell, or maybe purgatory, this seems an odd choice. In The Screwtape Letters, Hell is ruled over by the demons and the ‘father below’, but The Great Divorce doesn’t even mention them.[12]
And so now we have two different images of the demonic in Lewis’s work: one of the powerful ruling demons of Hell who wield enormous influence over the lives of humans, and a second where the classically-portrayed domain of the Devil and his demons stand out due to their absence. This divide is where Lewis’ theology is, to me, most thought-provoking. With Lewis being a classicist rather than a theologian, he doesn’t seem to aim for consistency. When I studied Lewis, Judith Wolfe suggested that Lewis’ theology is one of ‘images’. What this means is that he conceptualises theological ideas via an artistic medium, in this case, his writing, thus making it accessible to a wide audience (us lot). In turn, each of Lewis’s works addresses specific ideas or concerns, but this also means these images sometimes directly contradict one another. When discussing demons, this is obvious and also really interesting.
In Mere Christianity Lewis explicitly makes the point that he is ‘only a layman’.[13] This is what makes him so fascinating and so quotable. He’s fascinating, and he’s inconsistent. He isn’t putting together a coherent theology, and that’s okay, just so long as we don’t use Lewis to try and create a consistent theology, because if we try, we can’t help but fail.
[1] Does this say much, that the person without any theological training is held so highly?
[2] Technically this wasn’t originally a book, but it is now so let’s roll with it.
[3] Rudolph Bultmann, Jesus Christ and Mythology, (SCM Press LTD, London, 30 Jan 2012) 14-15
[4] Bultmann, Jesus Christ and Mythology, 15
[5] The why behind my agreement with Lewis and disagreement with Bultmann is a different topic, and if you want a blog post on that, drop me a line.
[6] C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, The Guardian, (1942) Letter II.
[7] Interestingly, here there is a distinct contrast to Michael Sheen as the lightly wet angel (anything but cool)
[8] David Loewenstein writes that Satan in Milton is a ‘figure of immense passion and energy, Satan appears as a courageous and charismatic military leader capable of arousing his fallen legions. He is moreover, a remarkably skilful rhetorician. Like other epic heroes...’ see, Milton-Paradise lost, (Cambridge; New York, Cambridge University Press, 1993) 58.
[9]And as Wesley Kort points out “We generally share a dim view of bureaucracy and of bureaucrats” see Wesley A. Kort, Reading C.S. Lewis: a commentary, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015) 69.
[10] If I’m being totally honest I don’t recommend it (but it’s a Marmite sort of book so you might love it)
[11] C.S. Lewis, Perelandra, (Harper Collins Publishers, London, 2005) 152-153.
[12] Unlike Parelandra, this book I highly recommend
[13] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, (Harper Collins Publishers, London, 1952) 54.