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A Note on the Date of C.S. Lewis's Conversion to Theism

A Note on the Date of C.S. Lewis's Conversion to Theism A Note on the Date of C.S. Lewis’s Conversion to Theism Brendan Wolfe The most famous claim in Alister McGrath’s justly respected 2013 biography of C.S. Lewis concerns the latter’s changes in religious outlook. In his chapter ‘The Most Reluctant Convert’, McGrath highlights incon- sistencies in Lewis’s account of his progression from non-theism to philosophical theism to Christianity. To the dating of the first conversion, McGrath offers a revision, which can be reinforced by a small, academic observation. Two decades after the events in question, Lewis wrote in Surprised by Joy, That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. The association with Trinity, the third of the University of Oxford’s three terms, implies the spring of 1929. McGrath, however, notes that other events and epistolary evidence suggest that a year later is the likelier date. That the annals of http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Inklings Studies Edinburgh University Press

A Note on the Date of C.S. Lewis's Conversion to Theism

Wolfe, Brendan
Journal of Inklings Studies , Volume 9 (1): 2 – Apr 1, 2019
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Publisher
Edinburgh University Press
Copyright
Copyright © Edinburgh University Press
ISSN
2045-8797
eISSN
2045-8800
DOI
10.3366/ink.2019.0028
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Abstract

A Note on the Date of C.S. Lewis’s Conversion to Theism Brendan Wolfe The most famous claim in Alister McGrath’s justly respected 2013 biography of C.S. Lewis concerns the latter’s changes in religious outlook. In his chapter ‘The Most Reluctant Convert’, McGrath highlights incon- sistencies in Lewis’s account of his progression from non-theism to philosophical theism to Christianity. To the dating of the first conversion, McGrath offers a revision, which can be reinforced by a small, academic observation. Two decades after the events in question, Lewis wrote in Surprised by Joy, That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. The association with Trinity, the third of the University of Oxford’s three terms, implies the spring of 1929. McGrath, however, notes that other events and epistolary evidence suggest that a year later is the likelier date. That the annals of

Journal

Journal of Inklings Studies – Edinburgh University Press

Published: Apr 1, 2019

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