How C.S. Lewis Changed His Mind About Atheism
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| Cover of The Everlasting Man |
It would be years later, after World War I and well into his years at Oxford University, before he began his great search for a deeper and richer understanding of God’s existence.
Lewis writes that there were two events in his life that ultimately led him to the Christian faith. The first step began when he read G. K. Chesterton’s book, Everlasting Man, and the second, he has written, had a “shattering impact” on him. This event occurred one night when one of the more militant atheists on the Oxford faculty staff, a man by the name of T. D. Weldon, came to his room and confided that he believed that the historical authenticity of the Gospels appeared to be surprisingly sound.
This conversation deeply disturbed Lewis. He reasoned that if such a staunch atheist as Weldon thinks the Gospels may be true, where does that leave him? Lewis, you see, had always believed the New Testament stories to be nothing more than mere myths; there wasn’t a shred of history or practical truth in them.
He began to reason that if the Gospel stories are in fact true, then this would mean all other truth would have to fade in relative significance. For the first time, he says, he began to wonder if his whole life was headed in the wrong direction.
Weldon’s remarks about the historical authenticity of the Gospels wouldn’t let him rest, as the conversation echoed in his memory and continued to haunt him. So Lewis, a determined seeker of truth, began an investigation. He decided to carefully read the entire New Testament in the original Greek. And as he read through the text, he was surprised at what he found.
Lewis, a professor of English literature at Oxford, had spent his entire professional life studying ancient manuscripts. And though, up to that time, he had never seriously read the Bible, he nonetheless considered it to be one of the world’s great myths, like Norse mythology. The Gospels, Lewis noted, didn’t contain the rich, imaginative writing techniques of most ancient writings. With a literary critic’s ear for language and meter, Lewis recognized that the New Testament didn’t contain the stylized and carefully-groomed qualities one would expect in any myth-making culture.
Lewis writes, the Gospels,
…appeared to be simple, eye-witness accounts of historical events primarily by Jews who were clearly unfamiliar with the great myths of the pagan world around them…I was by now too experienced in literary criticism to regard the Gospels as myth. They had not the mythological taste.
Lewis continues, emphasizing that the Gospels were different from anything else he had ever read in ancient literature,
...Now as a literary historian, I am perfectly convinced, that whatever else the Gospels are, they are not legends. I have read a great deal of legends and myth and am quite clear that they are not the same sort of thing. They are not artistic enough to be legends. From an imaginative point of view, they are clumsy; they don’t work. Most of the life of Jesus is totally unknown to us and no people building up a legend would allow that to be so.
And so, as an expert in ancient documents and languages, he began to wonder. If these aren’t myths and legends, then what are they? Were they truly eyewitness accounts of historical events that actually took place?
