It does not yet appear in the histories of theology of the twentieth century. But one cannot defend with St. Anselm that theology is the faith that seeks the intelligence of what is believed, and deny the degree scroll of theologian to C.S. Lewis, one of the authors who have made millions of people think about faith in the twentieth century, including notable philosophers, theologians and the last Popes. 

C.S. Lewis is a Christian figure of universal stature. This is no exaggeration. This is confirmed by the sales of his books, which are still in the millions, by the growing popularity of the bibliography, also academic, and by his constant presence in the published testimonies of hundreds of converts, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world. This contrast is even more striking when compared to the plummeting fall in the last 50 years of all ecclesiastical statistics in the West: of religious internship , of vocations issue and, of course, of sales of theological books. 

We may or may not want to see it, but we are facing a theological phenomenon. If we want to continue to repeat honestly St. Anselm's phrase fides quaerens intellectum, we must place Lewis in a privileged place in 20th century theology. Moreover, St. Anselm's phrase affects him very directly, because he was concerned to understand and make the faith understood, and to make it meaningful to the men and women of the twentieth century. 

label In academic circles, this literature is often dismissed as "apologetics" or "knowledge dissemination", in contrast to other more scholarly publications, generally dedicated to particular historical research. But the paradox is that, in reality, it is more authentically theological and responds much more exactly to St. Anselm's expression.

St. Gregory of Nyssa is a great theologian of the fourth century, who deserves to be studied. But to study the Trinity or the Incarnation in St. Gregory of Nyssa at internship it is not necessary to have faith. It is enough to summarize intelligently a quantity already B of secondary bibliography , as most scholars do competently. On the other hand, to make plausible the doctrine of the Trinity or of the Incarnation in plenary session of the Executive Council XX century and after two world wars, and in the midst of a flood of philosophies, it is necessary to have faith. And to think about it very well.

C.S. Lewis was an academic and knew what he wrote, even if it was not in academic form, and he was exposed to the uncharitable judgment of his colleagues. He took it very seriously. C.S. Lewis was a person with a very great critical capacity, who did not easily accept any idea or any taste. At least at the beginning, he was somewhat uncomfortable entering into fields where specialists with more authority could concur, and he often apologizes. He also does not reveal his sources, although we know of some, because he made an effort to document himself. 

But the strength of his thinking is not in the exhaustive accumulation of documentation in each topic, but in his endeavor to pose and solve it in the most intelligent and impactful way possible. There is a critical search for effectiveness.

To disclose is to say in a simple way what others have said at greater depth and length. It entails debasement and loss. But that is not what Lewis does. His is gain in thought. For he translates into a relevant and meaningful way of saying the doctrines that others retain by repetition, but faded, frayed and incomprehensible, as they have section from the sources where they were born. They were intended to enlighten, but have become routine constructions of words that are repeated without thorough thought.

In some talks on Christian Apologetics (19445), collected in Lo eterno sin disimulo, he says: "Our task is to expound the eternal (the same yesterday, today and tomorrow) in the language of our time"; and also: "We have to learn and master the language of our audience". He points out a large number of Christian words whose meaning is incomprehensible or profoundly altered and ends: "In conclusion I must say that you have to translate every bit of your theology into the vulgar language . [...] It also serves as a great financial aid for your own thinking. I have come to the conviction that if you cannot translate your ideas into uneducated language, it is because they are confused. The ability to translate them is the test that you have really understood the meaning you give them. Translating a passage from some theological work into vulgar language should be a compulsory exercise in the examination before ordination".

Lewis' conversion pathway , narrated by him inSuprised by Joy, illustrates two major points, which could be considered key to 20th century theology, although they seem to be due more to his intuition staff than to his readings. 

The first is the great topic of "joy", which runs through the book from part to part. Early experiences of transcendence, with an aesthetic component, awaken in his spirit the impression of the marvelous, ephemerally sensed, and leave him with a nostalgia(Sehnsucht) that will become the engine of a search for authenticity and truth. Meanwhile, above, a growing rationalism and skepticism, together with a consolidated atheism, make him experience the world as something absurd.

This experience can be analyzed from the perspective that now presides over the Catechism of the Catholic Church: every person carries in the depths of his or her being a call to God, because we are made for Him. The idea is explicit in the Confessions of St. Augustine ("you made us, Lord, for you..."), but in the 20th century theology became very aware that it is the core topic of Christian apologetics (Blondel) and of the entire presentation of Christianity, and the point where the natural and the supernatural meet (De Lubac) and a great topic of Christian anthropology (Gaudium et spes). 

The other fascinating finding for him, who has training and literary sensibility, is that the mystery of Christ is the "true myth". finding which he owes to a conversation with his colleagues Tolkien and Dyson, and which triggers his conversion. The figure of Jesus Christ, perfectly placed in real history, and his deeds, also turn out to be symbolic and expressive forms that affect the whole reality. The resurrection of Christ is an absolute first of all resurrection and the most eminent symbol of the Christian efficacy that makes us rise from sin to a new life. The topic of the "true myth" allows to glimpse the centrality of the Christian revelation, but also the reflections and aspirations that appear in other religions.

It was born as a response to a "white book", a project on Education in which all values were reduced, at bottom, to subjective feelings. Lewis' book became an effective defense of the natural status of things and, in particular, of what we call "natural law", which is illustrated in this book by the idea of "tao". 

The book manifests a certain phenomenological sensitivity in relating the grasping of values to attitudes that are not feigned or improvised, but "adequate responses", very much in the line of von Hildebrand. So it happens with admiration before beauty, or obligation before due good or repentance before wrong done. These are not feelings arbitrarily created by the subject, but the appropriate response to what is grasped. But, as usual, Lewis hardly reveals sources. 

To my taste, this book has the virtue of showing with great efficacy what enormous books dedicated to the idea of natural law have not achieved before or since. Because, deep down, there is something paradoxical in the fact that in order to substantiate the existence of something so close to consciousness and such a universal experience as natural law is supposed to be, it is necessary to write such difficult and thick books. Lewis does it better with much less apparatus.

It is, in fact, the book that made him known as a Christian apologist, just after the end of the Second World War. Coming from radio talks, it is a full-fledged theodicy, in a tragic moment, with all the hangover of pains and misfortunes on top of it. An inopportune moment to make intellectual flourishes, but very opportune to go into depth. But it takes a lot of courage and very clear ideas to enter into such a hard context.

Lewis enters honestly to everything, to the status of physical and moral pain, to his relationship with sin and with God. The topic will know a twist staff on the occasion of the death of his wife Joy, narrated from the inside and as if from the front row, in A Grief in Observation. The least that can be said of these two books is that they have become classics on the subject.

The book also comes from several cycles of radio talks. And, in part, in the end it is an expansion of the previous one in which the doctrine of God, of redemption from sin (in pain) and of Christian morality is considered. A particular and traditional aspect of Christian apologetics, Miracles, will deserve a separate book. 

Lewis paid very special attention to showing the reality of sin and redemption, because he realized that they are far beyond what people are able to understand and accept. It is one of his theological keys. 

In a talk on God in the dock that gives degree scroll to a collection of articles, he says: "Christianity promised to cure those who knew they were sick. [...] Ancient man approached God (or the gods) as the accused approaches the judge. For modern man the roles have been reversed. He is the judge and God is on the bench. Modern man is an extraordinarily benevolent judge: he is willing to listen to God [...] even in God's acquittal. But the important thing is that man is in the courtroom and God is in the dock." 

These books find a wonderful complement in the Letters of the devil to his nephew, a brilliant work in which all the tricks of the enemy in the struggles of the Christian life and also of conversion appear.

In parallel, it is necessary to put the set of allegorical works that are, in themselves, also ways of thinking about the great Christian themes (God, sin and redemption) by changing the contexts. The Ransom Trilogy, the Chronicles of Narnia cycle, immensely famous and made into films, and The Great Divorce work in different ways. Also The Pilgrim's Return, made on Bunyan's famous Protestant work(The Pilgrim's Progress), where, in the background, he revises his conversion pathway .

And we have not commented on a book as brilliant as The Four Loves, which perfectly situates and distinguishes charity among all human loves (comradeship, friendship, conjugal love). And many more "minor writings", such as the Letters to Malcolm, with many indications on prayer; and his commentaries on the Psalms. Apart from his enormous correspondence, very interesting and, as a whole, quite well preserved, with great friends and Christian interlocutors (Mcdonald, Allan Griffihts, Sister Penelope, St. John Calabria).

Among the many interesting books that have emerged in recent years, Joseph Pearce has published C. S. Lewis and the Catholic Church. In it sample how Lewis evolved toward the more catholicizing positions of the Anglican Church, which included faith in the sacraments (including confession staff) and the doctrine of purgatory as the desired purification of the soul (along the same lines as Newman had expounded). But he maintained until the end a Protestant vestige that he did not want or could not resolve and that was manifested in his silence on the Virgin Mary, the pontifical infallibility and on the goodness of the Reformation.