Edited by C.S.Lewis, Collins: Fount Paperbacks, 1947/1983

Here’s an enigma. C.S.Lewis may have been more influenced, at least in formative theological thinking, by George MacDonald, than by anyone else. His indebtedness to MacDonald’s three volumes of ‘Unspoken Sermons’ ‘is almost as great as one can owe to another.’ Yet, Lewis would not give Macdonald a first or second grade ranking to him as a literateur. Most theologians wouldn’t give MacDonald a high ranking as a theologian either. So why was Lewis enamoured of his ideas – and why is MacDonald making a comeback in the religious bookshops.

You hear echoes of MacDonald all through Lewis’s writings. Consider Jeremy Taylor’s idea/phrase, used by MacDonald to describe God’s judgment: ‘He threatens terrible things if we will not be happy.’ Can you find a better summary-quote for Lewis (particularly the Lewis, say, of The Problem of Pain)?

Well, you be the judge. Consider these quotes, selected almost at random from Lewis’s anthology of MacDonald’s writings:

* Man’s first business is ‘What does God want me to do?’ not ‘What will God do if I do so and so?’ [quote # 29]

* All that is not music is silence [41]

* A man is in bondage to whatever he cannot part with that is less than himself [57]

* Man finds it hard to get what he wants, because he does not want the best; God finds it hard to give, because He would give the best, and man will not take it [130]

* The infinite God, the great one life, than whom is no other – only shadows, lovely shadows of Him [141]

* All that is not God is death [146]

* Oh the folly of any mind that would explain God before obeying Him! That would map out the character of God instead of crying, Lord, what wouldst thou have me to do? [207]

* There is one kind of religion in which the more devoted a man is, the fewer proselytes he makes: the worship of himself [262]

* It is the heart that is not yet sure of its God that is afraid to laugh in His presence [319]

* No work noble or lastingly good can come of emulation any more than of greed: I think the motives are spiritually the same [328]

* You will be dead so long as you refuse to die [363].

Rowland Croucher.