The Intellectual World of C. S. Lewis

Marking the 50th anniversary of Lewis’ death, The Intellectual World of C. S. Lewis sees leading Christian thinker Alister McGrath offering a fresh approach to understanding the key themes at the centre of Lewis’ theological work and intellectual development.

• Brings together a collection of original essays exploring important themes within Lewis’ work, offering new connections and insights into his theology
• Throws new light on subjects including Lewis’ intellectual development, the uses of images in literature and theology, the place of myth in modern thought, the role of the imagination in making sense of the world, the celebrated 'argument from desire', and Lewis’ place as an Anglican thinker and a Christian theologian
• Written by Alister McGrath, one of the world’s leading Christian thinkers and authors; this exceptional pairing of McGrath and Lewis brings together the work of two outstanding theologians in one volume

Alister E. McGrath is Professor of Theology, Ministry and Education, and the Head of the Centre for Theology, Religion & Culture at King’s College London, having previously been Professor of Historical Theology at Oxford University, UK. He is one of the world’s leading theologians, and is in constant demand as a speaker at conferences throughout the world. McGrath is the author of some of the most widely used theology textbooks, including the bestselling Christian Theology: An Introduction, 5th edition (2010, Wiley-Blackwell), and author of books including Mere Theology: Christian Faith and the Discipleship of the Mind (2010), and C. S. Lewis: A Life (2013).

Acknowledgments vii

A Brief Biography of C. S. Lewis ix

Introduction 1

1. The Enigma of Autobiography: Critical Reflections on Surprised by Joy 7

2. The “New Look”: Lewis’s Philosophical Context at Oxford in the 1920s 31

3. A Gleam of Divine Truth: The Concept of Myth in Lewis’s Thought 55

4. The Privileging of Vision: Lewis’s Metaphors of Light, Sun, and Sight 83

5. Arrows of Joy: Lewis’s Argument from Desire 105

6. Reason, Experience, and Imagination: Lewis’s Apologetic Method 129

7. A “Mere Christian”: Anglicanism and Lewis’s Religious Identity 147

8. Outside the “Inner Ring”: Lewis as a Theologian 163

Works by Lewis Cited 185

Index 187

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