C.S. Lewis and Karl Barth: Happy Dogmatism Meets Tenacious Tolerance

***I suppose I first learned of the inevitable idolatrous tendency of protestant liberalism (and apologetic approaches to theology generally) from Karl Barth. He convinced me that unless we allow the God borne witness to in Holy Scripture to speak for Himself, we find ourselves speaking in His place, and so, wittingly or not, we make a “god.”

Now that I am writing on C.S. Lewis, I find in him something of that distinctive, hard-nosed dogmatism I found in Barth. Note this passage from Mere Christianity: “Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive. . . . And half of you already want me to ask me, ‘I wonder how you’d feel about forgiving the Gestapo if you were a Pole or a Jew?’ So do I. I wonder very much. . . .I am not trying to tell you in this book what I could do―I can do precious little—I am telling you what Christianity is. I did not invent it.”

Those words could as easily have been written by Karl Barth. Dogmatism is justly associated with the darker dimensions of human nature and behavior; the furrowed brow, the protruded neck vein, the angrily pointed finger. But in Lewis and Barth, dogmatism puts on a happy face. Lewis found a way to let Christianity be itself while pursuing Christian unity. He shied away from internecine Christian squabbles. He found it unseemly. Barth loved a good debate, but also enjoyed good faith ecumenical dialogue and insisted that theology, above all else, is a “happy science,” because it deals, first and last, with Good News.