Remembering C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis died this day in 1963. He’s my favorite author. If you’re interested, here’s a guest post I got to write for the Better World Books blog last year, on C.S. Lewis and specifically his autobiography Surprised By Joy.

And here’s a great quote by Lewis I just read this morning, from God In The Dock. This is from a public Q and A session in April, 1944. Lewis’ answer to the question of faith VS. works in salvation is great. He somehow finds a way to stake out a clear position, but that’s clear only to those who really care about the debate. I don’t agree as much with the “highly technical” nature of the matter, but that’s OK.

“The controversy about faith and works is one that has gone on for a very long time, and it is highly a technical matter. I personally rely on the paradoxical text: ‘Work out your own salvation…for it is God that worketh in you.’ It looks as if in one sense we do nothing, and in another case we do a damned lot. ‘Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,’ but you must have it in you before you can work it out. But I have no wish to go further into it, as it would interest no one but the Christians present, would it?”