The Works of C. S. Lewis

C. S. Lewis — Regress, Abolition, Miracles and Mere Christianity together

C. S. Lewis

Enormous, tawny, gentle, and not at all safe.

Catch rate: Not found in the wild
Base research: 340
Stat total: 400

Base stats

Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.

Stamina108

Contend102

Defend92

Popularity98

Total400

Why these numbers

The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.

Stamina 108

STAMINA — Very high. It is a career’s worth of books, from a young atheist’s pilgrim to a broadcaster.

Contend 102

CONTEND — Very high. It argues from the mind, from conscience and from delight, and it is hard to refuse all three.

Defend 92

DEFEND — Solid. Each of the four books covers a flank the others leave open.

Popularity 98

POPULARITY — Very high. It is read in every language a church exists in.

Cited for this book

This is Lewis’s work as one book. A young atheist’s allegorical road, a warning about what education does to conscience, a hard argument that nature cannot explain thought, and a broadcaster’s plain case for the faith. He said he was dragged into the faith kicking and struggling, and he spent thirty years explaining, clearly, why he had gone.

Development

A book develops as it is read — the fragment becomes the work, the work becomes the corpus.

Mere Christianity→
Lv 70

The Works of C. S. Lewis

Moves learned

By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.

Lv	Move	Type	Cat.	Pwr	Acc	PP
70	The Sound of the Wind in the Trees	Presupposition	Argument	94	100%	10
72	A Moderate Religion Is as Good as None	Rationality	Argument	88	100%	10
74	Scribbling “Darkness” on the Wall	Bible	Argument	86	100%	15
76	Where Did I Get Just and Unjust?	Natural Theology	Argument	94	100%	10

The quotes behind its moves

How to read these. In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other. Each thing a book can do in a debate is a move, and most moves carry a real quotation — the words the book puts on the table when it uses that move.

Strong against lists the opposing books and arguments a move was written to answer. Used against one of them, it hits much harder than usual: ×2 means twice the normal force, ×4 four times. It is the game’s way of saying: this is the sentence that answers that argument. Open an entry to read why.

“If minds are wholly dependent on brains, and brains on biochemistry, and biochemistry (in the long run) on the meaningless flux of the atoms, I cannot understand how the thought of those minds should have any more significance than the sound of the wind in the trees.”
C. S. Lewis, “Is Theology Poetry?” (1944), in Essay Collection and Other Short Pieces, p. 21, as quoted by John Piper, Desiring God, “C. S. Lewis, Romantic Rationalist” (2013). Short excerpt from an in-copyright work, used under fair use.in copyright · fair use

The Sound of the Wind in the Trees

PresuppositionArgument · power 94 · 100% accurate

In the gameLewis’s final test of the naturalist. If minds depend on brains and brains on chemistry and chemistry on the drift of atoms, there is no reason to think the mind’s thoughts mean any more than the wind does. And that includes the thought that they are only wind.

“A moderate religion is as good for us as no religion at all — and more amusing.”
C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (1942), p. 43, as quoted by Roger Nicole, Ligonier, “God in the Dock: The Apologetics of C. S. Lewis.” Short excerpt from an in-copyright work, used under fair use.in copyright · fair use

A Moderate Religion Is as Good as None

RationalityArgument · power 88 · 100% accurate

In the gameScrewtape, a senior devil, writing to his nephew. The tempter does not need to make anyone an atheist. A religion that has been made moderate does the same work, and is more amusing to watch.

“A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word ‘darkness’ on the walls of his cell”
C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (1940), p. 41, as quoted by Roger Nicole, Ligonier, “God in the Dock: The Apologetics of C. S. Lewis.” Short excerpt from an in-copyright work, used under fair use.in copyright · fair use

Scribbling “Darkness” on the Wall

BibleArgument · power 86 · 100% accurate

In the gameA man refusing to worship God takes nothing from God, Lewis says. It is like a lunatic trying to put out the sun by writing the word darkness on the wall of his cell.

“But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? . . . Atheism turns out to be too simple”
C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Book 2, Part 1, as quoted by Tim Keller, The Gospel Coalition, “The Faith to Doubt Christianity” (2012). Short excerpt from an in-copyright work, used under fair use.in copyright · fair use

Where Did I Get Just and Unjust?

Natural TheologyArgument · power 94 · 100% accurate

In the gameLewis was an atheist because the universe seemed cruel and unjust. Then he stopped and asked where his idea of just and unjust had come from. To call the world unfair he needed a standard outside the world, and an atheist has no such standard to offer.

Strong against

×3Existence Precedes Essencean argument · why?

Sartre says there is no good a priori, and he honestly bears the cost. Lewis asked how he had got his idea of unjust in the first place, and found that atheism was too simple to account for it. A universe with no good in it could not have given anyone the idea.

×3The Absurdan argument · why?

Lewis was an atheist because the universe seemed cruel. Then he asked where he got his idea of cruel. Camus’s anger at a silent universe is real, and it needs a standard the silence cannot supply. Lewis found the standard was the thing pointing past the silence.