Editing C. S. Lewis (section)

===Return to Christianity===
Lewis was raised in a religious family that attended the [[Church of Ireland]]. He became an atheist at age 15, though he later described his young self as being paradoxically "very angry with God for not existing" and "equally angry with him for creating a world".{{sfn|Lewis|1966b|p=115}} His early separation from Christianity began when he started to view his religion as a chore and a duty; around this time, he also gained an interest in the occult, as his studies expanded to include such topics.<ref>''The Critic'', Volume 32, Thomas More Association, 1973. Original from the [[University of Michigan]].</ref> Lewis quoted [[Lucretius]] (''De rerum natura'', 5.198–9) as having one of the [[Argument from poor design|strongest arguments]] for atheism:{{sfn|Lewis|1966b|p=65}}

<blockquote><poem>{{lang|lt|Nequaquam nobis divinitus esse paratam}}
{{lang|lt|Naturam rerum; tanta stat praedita culpa}}</poem></blockquote>

which he translated poetically as follows:

<blockquote><poem>Had God designed the world, it would not be
A world so frail and faulty as we see.</poem></blockquote>

(This is a highly poetic, rather than a literal translation. A more literal translation, by William Ellery Leonard,{{sfn|Lucretius|1916}} reads: "That in no wise the nature of all things / For us was fashioned by a power divine – / So great the faults it stands encumbered with.")

Lewis's interest in the works of the Scottish writer [[George MacDonald]] was part of what turned him from atheism. This can be seen particularly well through this passage in Lewis's ''[[The Great Divorce]]'', chapter nine, when the semi-autobiographical [[Protagonist|main character]] meets MacDonald in [[Heaven]]:

{{blockquote |...&nbsp;I tried, trembling, to tell this man all that his writings had done for me. I tried to tell how a certain frosty afternoon at [[Leatherhead railway station|Leatherhead Station]] when I had first bought a copy of ''[[Phantastes]]'' (being then about sixteen years old) had been to me what the first sight of [[Beatrice Portinari|Beatrice]] had been to [[Dante Alighieri|Dante]]: ''Here begins the new life''. I started to confess how long that Life had delayed in the region of imagination merely: how slowly and reluctantly I had come to admit that his Christendom had more than an accidental connexion with it, how hard I had tried not to see the true name of the quality which first met me in his books is Holiness.{{sfn|Lewis|2002b|pp=66–67}}}}

He eventually returned to Christianity, having been influenced by arguments with his Oxford colleague and friend [[J. R. R. Tolkien]], whom he seems to have met for the first time on 11 May 1926, as well as the book ''[[The Everlasting Man]]'' by [[G. K. Chesterton]]. Lewis vigorously resisted conversion, noting that he was brought into Christianity like a [[Parable of the Prodigal Son|prodigal]], "kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance to escape".{{sfn|Lewis|1966b|p=229}} He described his last struggle in ''[[Surprised by Joy]]'':

{{blockquote |You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen [College, Oxford], night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929{{efn|[[Alister McGrath]] sees the 1929 date as an error, and dates it to 1930. {{cite book |last1=McGrath |first1=Alister |author1-link=Alister McGrath |title=C. S. Lewis—A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet |date=2013 |publisher=[[Tyndale House]] |page=146 |isbn=9781414382524 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9Z-sjP6E8lsC&pg=PA146 |access-date=9 August 2023}} }} I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.{{sfn|Lewis|1966b|pp=228, 229}}}}

After his conversion to [[theism]] in 1929, Lewis converted to Christianity in 1931, following a long discussion during a late-night walk along [[Addison's Walk]] with close friends Tolkien and [[Hugo Dyson]]. He records making a specific commitment to Christian belief while on his way to the zoo with his brother. He became a member of the [[Church of England]]&nbsp;– somewhat to the disappointment of Tolkien, who had hoped that he would join the Catholic Church.{{sfn|Carpenter|2006}}{{Rp|needed=yes|date=March 2012}}

Lewis was a committed [[Church of England|Anglican]] who upheld a largely orthodox [[Anglican doctrine|Anglican theology]], though in his [[apologetics|apologetic]] writings, he made an effort to avoid espousing any one denomination. In his later writings, some believe that he proposed ideas such as purification of [[venial sin]]s after death in [[purgatory]] (''[[The Great Divorce]]'' and ''[[Letters to Malcolm]]'') and [[mortal sin]] (''[[The Screwtape Letters]]''), which are generally considered to be Roman Catholic teachings, although they are also widely held in Anglicanism (particularly in [[high church]] [[Anglo-Catholic]] circles). Regardless, Lewis considered himself an entirely orthodox Anglican to the end of his life, reflecting that he had initially attended church only to receive [[Eucharist|communion]] and had been repelled by the hymns and the poor quality of the sermons. He later came to consider himself honoured by worshipping with men of faith who came in shabby clothes and work boots and who sang all the verses to all the hymns.{{sfn|Wilson|2002|p=147}}