Collected Letters Volume Three: Narnia, Cambridge and Joy 1950–1963. Walter Hooper

would be a bit hard to believe in Our Lord without believing in the Father, seeing that Our Lord spent most of his time talking about the Father. Also God.

      Yours sincerely,

      C. S. Lewis

      

       TO JOHN ROWLAND (TEX): TS

      52/213.

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford. 6th November 1952.

      My dear Rowland,

      There was no need at all to write, but it was nice of you to do so. I don’t forsee being in Brighton, but will certainly look you up if I am. No addresses to Literary Groups though!

      Yours,

      C. S. Lewis

      

TO MRS JOHNSON (W):²³⁷

      Magdalen etc,

      Oxford. Nov. 8 1952

      Dear Mrs. Johnson

      I am returning your letter with the questions in it numbered so that you’ll know wh. I am answering.

(1.)²³⁸ Some call me Mr. and some Dr. and I not only don’t care but usually don’t know which.

(2.)²³⁹ Distinguish (A) A second chance in the strict sense, i.e. a new earthly life in which you cd. attempt afresh all the problems you failed at in the present one (as in religions of Re-Incarnation). (B) Purgatory: a process by which the work of redemption continues, and first perhaps begins to be noticeable after death. I think Charles Williams depicts B, not A.

(3.)²⁴⁰ We are never given any knowledge of ‘What would have happened if…’

(4.)²⁴¹ I think that every prayer which is sincerely made even to a false god or to a v. imperfectly conceived true God, is accepted by the true God and that Christ saves many who do not think they know Him. For He is (dimly) present in the good side of the inferior teachers they follow.

      In the parable of the Sheep & Goats (Matt. XXV. 31 and following) those who are saved do not seem to know that they have served Christ. But of course our anxiety about unbelievers is most usefully employed when it leads us not to speculation but to earnest prayer for them and the attempt to be in our own lives such good advertisements for Christianity as will make it attractive.

(5.)²⁴² It is Christ Himself, not the Bible, who is the true word of God. The Bible, read in the right spirit and with the guidance of good teachers will bring us to Him. When it becomes really necessary (i.e. for our spiritual life, not for controversy or curiosity) to know whether a particular passage is rightly translated or is Myth (but of course Myth specially chosen by God from among countless Myths to carry a spiritual truth) or history, we shall no doubt be guided to the right answer. But we must not use the Bible (our fathers too often did) as a sort of Encyclopedia out of which texts (isolated from their context and not read without attention²⁴³ to the whole nature & purport of the books in which they occur) can be taken for use as weapons.

(6.) Kill means murder. I don’t know Hebrew: but when Our Lord quotes this commandment he uses Gk phoneuseis (murder)²⁴⁴ not apokteinein (kill)²⁴⁵

[(7.)]²⁴⁶ The question of what you wd. ‘want’ is off the point. Capital punishment might be wrong tho’ the relations of the murdered man wanted him killed: it might be right tho’ they did not want this. The question is whether a Xtian nation ought or ought not to put murderers to death: not what passions interested individuals may feel.

(8.)²⁴⁷ There is no doubt at all that the natural impulse to ‘hit back’ must be fought against by the Xtian whenever it arises. If one I love is tortured or murdered my desire to avenge him must be given no quarter. So far as nothing but this question of retaliation comes in ‘turn the other cheek’ is the Christian law. It is, however, quite another matter when the neutral, public authority (not the aggrieved person) may order killing of either private murderers or public enemies in mass. It is quite clear that our earliest Christian writer, St Paul, approved of capital punishment—he says the ‘magistrate’ bears & should bear ‘the sword’.²⁴⁸ It is recorded that the soldiers who came to St John Baptist asking, ‘What shall we do?’²⁴⁹ were not told to leave the army. When Our Lord Himself praised the Centurion²⁵⁰ He never hinted that the military profession was in itself sinful. This has been the general view of Christendom. Pacifism is a v. recent & local variation. We must of course respect & tolerate Pacifists, but I think their view erroneous.

(9.)²⁵¹ The symbols under which Heaven is presented to us are (a) a dinner party,²⁵² (b) a wedding,²⁵³ (c) a city,²⁵⁴ and (d) a concert.²⁵⁵ It wd. be grotesque to suppose that the guests or citizens or members of the choir didn’t know one another. And how can love of one another be commanded in this life if it is to be cut short at death?

(10.)²⁵⁶ Whatever the answer is, I’m sure it is not that (‘erased from the brain’). When I have learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now. In so far as I learn to love my earthly dearest at the expense of God and instead of God, I shall be moving towards the state in which I shall not love my earthly dearest at all. When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased. If you and I ever come to love God perfectly, the answer to this tormenting question will then become clear, and will be far more beautiful than we cd. ever imagine. We can’t have it now.

(11.)²⁵⁷ Thanks v. much: but I haven’t a sweet tooth.

(12.)²⁵⁸ Not that I know of: but I’m the last person who wd. know.

(13.)²⁵⁹ There is a poor barber whom my brother and I sometimes help. I got up one day intending to go to him for a hair-cut preparatory to going to London. Got a message putting off London engagement and decided to postpone hair-cut. Something, however, kept on nagging me to stick to it–‘Get your hair cut.’ In the end, said ‘Oh damn it, I’ll go.’

      All good wishes.

      Yours

      C.