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C.S. Lewis on Objective Morality
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Public Domain, U.S.
Army hangman John C. Woods (at left with rope) hangs Nazi war criminal Justus
Gerstenberg on September 12, 1946. Gerstenberg was a former Wehrmacht soldier
who had been convicted of murdering allied airmen shot down over Germany.
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QUOTE: “Does
loving your enemy mean not punishing him? No, for loving myself does not mean
that I ought not to subject myself to punishment – even to death. If you had
committed murder, the right Christian thing to do would be to give yourself up
to the police and be hanged. It is, therefore, in my opinion, perfectly right
for a Christian judge to sentence a man to death or a Christian soldier to kill
an enemy.” [Mere Christianity Book 3 Chapter 7: Forgiveness]
AUTHOR: Clive Staples Lewis (29 November
1898 – 22 November 1963), commonly called C. S. Lewis and known to
his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, poet, academic,
medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian, and Christian
apologist. Born in Belfast, Ireland, he held academic positions at both Oxford
University (Magdalen College), 1925–1954, and Cambridge University (Magdalene
College), 1954–1963. He is best known both for his fictional work, especially
The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Space Trilogy, and for
his non-fiction Christian apologetics, such as Mere Christianity, Miracles, and
The Problem of Pain.
Lewis and fellow novelist J. R.
R. Tolkien were close friends. Both authors served on the English faculty at
Oxford University, and both were active in the informal Oxford literary group
known as the "Inklings". According to his memoir Surprised by Joy,
Lewis had been baptized in the Church of Ireland (part of the Anglican
Communion) at birth, but fell away from his faith during his adolescence. Owing
to the influence of Tolkien and other friends, at the age of 32 Lewis returned
to the Anglican Communion, becoming "a very ordinary layman of the Church
of England". His faith had a profound effect on his work, and his wartime
radio broadcasts on the subject of Christianity brought him wide acclaim.
In 1956, he married the American
writer Joy Davidman, 17 years his junior, who died four years later of cancer
at the age of 45. Lewis died three years after his wife, from renal failure,
one week before his 65th birthday. Media coverage of his death was minimal; he
died on 22 November 1963—the same day that U.S. President John F. Kennedy was
assassinated, and the same day another famous author, Aldous Huxley, died. In
2013, on the 50th anniversary of his death, Lewis will be honoured with a
memorial in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey.
Lewis's works have been
translated into more than 30 languages and have sold millions of copies. The
books that make up The Chronicles of Narnia have sold the most and have been
popularized on stage, TV, radio, and cinema.
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