Clive Staples Lewis

“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not because I see it, but because by it, I see everything else” (Lewis, Brainy). Clive Staples Lewis, better known as C. S. Lewis, was born in Strandtown, Northern Ireland on November 22, 1898, to Albert and Flora Lewis. Albert Lewis, his father, was a district attorney while Flora Lewis, his mother, maintained the household (Gresham). When he was still young, tragedy struck his family with the death of his mother. Because of his father’s depression at the loss of his wife, C. S. Lewis was sent to a boarding school with his brother. The head master of the school was a violent and callous man who was constantly looking reasons to beat the children. Even though Lewis’s headmaster punished him cruelly, Lewis was smart. He was able to maintain good grades throughout the entirety of his schooling. As Lewis grew he switched to a different school and ultimately went on to obtain a university education. There he became a great scholar and a great writer. Before his conversion to Christianity, his books lacked depth, but after his conversion from atheism to Christianity, his greatest works were written. Some of his greatest works include The Chronicles of Narnia, The Screwtape Letters, and The Space Trilogy. The conversion of Clive Staples Lewis was constitutive for the making of his greatest Christian literary works.

“With my mother’s death all settled happiness, all that was tranquil, reliable, disappeared from my life. There was to be much fun, many pleasures, great stabs of Joy; but no more of the old security. I was sea and islands now, the great continent had sunk like Atlantis” (Lewis, pg. 25). When Lewis was young, his parents raised him to believe in God...

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...are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself (Lewis, Mere Christianity)

In this quote from Mere Christianity, he writes about his own conversion and growth in Christ. He explains to the readers of his book how God moves in one’s own life. Lewis would never have been able to write such easily understood metaphors for God’s movement had he not been converted. This is why his conversion was the key to his greatest writings.