Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Confessing our Secrets: Liturgical Theōsis in the Thought of C.S. Lewis

Confessing our Secrets: Liturgical Theōsis in the Thought of C.S. Lewis While others have persuasively argued for the centrality of theōsis to C. S. Lewis’ theology, little attention has been paid to the sources through which Lewis came to his peculiar understanding of the doctrine as liturgical in the sense of being creative and contributive. Through a comparative reading of the painter scene in The Great Divorce and Ransom's vision of the Great Dance in Perelandra, this essay seeks to outline the contours of Lewis’ conception of theōsis, bringing Lewis’ intimate knowledge of medieval theological sources to bear on his conception of the doctrine. After exploring the centrality of theōsis to the whole of Lewis’ theology, the second sections explores Lewis’ thoughts on friendship, as well as Dante's influence, so as to arrive at a better understanding of the Beatific Vision as both mediated and unmediated. In the final section it becomes apparent that Lewis’ conception of theōsis, imaginatively epitomised in Ransom's Vision of the Great Dance, is largely incomprehensible apart from what he calls in The Discarded Image ‘the medieval system’, with particular reference to pseudo-Dionysius’ The Celestial Hierarchy. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Inklings Studies Edinburgh University Press

Confessing our Secrets: Liturgical Theōsis in the Thought of C.S. Lewis

Eklund, Erik
Journal of Inklings Studies , Volume 10 (2): 24 – Oct 1, 2020
Download PDF
24 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/edinburgh-university-press/confessing-our-secrets-liturgical-the-sis-in-the-thought-of-c-s-lewis-p5ay755bE4
Publisher
Edinburgh University Press
Copyright
Copyright © Edinburgh University Press
ISSN
2045-8797
eISSN
2045-8800
DOI
10.3366/ink.2020.0076
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

While others have persuasively argued for the centrality of theōsis to C. S. Lewis’ theology, little attention has been paid to the sources through which Lewis came to his peculiar understanding of the doctrine as liturgical in the sense of being creative and contributive. Through a comparative reading of the painter scene in The Great Divorce and Ransom's vision of the Great Dance in Perelandra, this essay seeks to outline the contours of Lewis’ conception of theōsis, bringing Lewis’ intimate knowledge of medieval theological sources to bear on his conception of the doctrine. After exploring the centrality of theōsis to the whole of Lewis’ theology, the second sections explores Lewis’ thoughts on friendship, as well as Dante's influence, so as to arrive at a better understanding of the Beatific Vision as both mediated and unmediated. In the final section it becomes apparent that Lewis’ conception of theōsis, imaginatively epitomised in Ransom's Vision of the Great Dance, is largely incomprehensible apart from what he calls in The Discarded Image ‘the medieval system’, with particular reference to pseudo-Dionysius’ The Celestial Hierarchy.

Journal

Journal of Inklings Studies – Edinburgh University Press

Published: Oct 1, 2020

There are no references for this article.