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C.S. Lewis: Religious Works

A research topic guide covering the life and legacy of author C.S. Lewis.

Resources & Links

The Question of God: C. S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud, with Dr. Armand Nicholi

This four-hour series explores in accessible style issues that preoccupy all thinking people today. What is happiness? How do we find meaning and purpose in our lives? How do we cope with the problem of suffering and the inevitability of death? Based on a popular Harvard course taught by Dr. Armand M. Nicholi, author of the book The Question of God, the series illustrates the lives and insights of Sigmund Freud, a lifelong critic of religious belief, and C.S. Lewis, a celebrated Oxford don, literary critic, and perhaps the 20th century’s most influential proponent of faith based on reason. Through dramatic storytelling and compelling visual re-creations, as well as interviews with biographers and historians, Freud and Lewis are brought together in a great debate. Distributed by PBS Distribution. 2-part series, 120 minutes each.

Works

Miracles

In the classic Miracles, C.S. Lewis, the most important Christian writer of the 20th century, argues that a Christian must not only accept but rejoice in miracles as a testimony of the unique personal involvement of God in his creation. 

The Screwtape Letters

This engaging correspondence between two devils is one of Lewis's most brilliant imaginative creations and has sold millions of copies worldwide A TIMELESS CLASSIC ON 'HELL'S LATEST NOVELTIES AND HEAVEN'S UNANSWERABLE ANSWER'. Screwtape is an experienced devil. His nephew Wormwood is just at the start of his demonic career, and has been assigned to secure the damnation of a young man who has just become a Christian. In this humorous exchange, C.S. Lewis delves into moral questions about good v. evil, temptation, repentance and grace. Through this wonderful tale, the reader emerges with a better knowledge of what it means to live a good, honest life. “If wit and wisdom, style and scholarship are requisites to passage through the pearly gates, Mr. Lewis will be among the angels.” The New Yorker

The Four Loves

"We need others physically, emotionally, intellectually; we need them if we are to know anything, even ourselves." We hear often that love is patient and kind, not envious or prideful. We hear that human love is a reflection of divine love. We hear that God is love. But how do we understand its work in our lives, its perils and rewards? Here, the incomparable C. S. Lewis examines human love in four forms: affection, the most basic, general, and emotive; friendship, the most rare, least jealous, and, in being freely chosen, perhaps the most profound; Eros, passionate love that can run counter to happinessand poses real danger; charity, the greatest, most spiritual, and least selfish. Proper love is a risk, but to bar oneself from it--to deny love--is a damning choice. Love is a need and a gift; love brings joy and laughter. We must seek to be awakened and so to find an Appreciative love through which "all things are possible." "The Four Loves deserves to become a minor classic as a modern mirror of our souls, a mirror of the virtues and failings of human loving." --New York Times Book Review "Lewis has a keen eye, a large measure of human sympathy, wit, and a command of simple words." --Times Literary Supplement C. S. (Clive Staples) Lewis (1898-1963), one of the great writers of the twentieth century, also continues to be one of our most influential Christian thinkers. He wrote more than thirty books, both popular and scholarly, including The Chronicles of Narnia series,The Screwtape Letters,The Four Loves,Mere Christianity, andSurprised by Joy.

Surprised by Joy

"A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. There are traps everywhere . . . God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous."This book is not an autobiography. It is not a confession. It is, however, certainly one of the most beautiful and insightful accounts of a person coming to faith. Here, C.S. Lewis takes us from his childhood in Belfast through the loss of his mother, to boarding school and a youthful atheism in England, to the trenches of World War I, and then to Oxford, where he studied, read, and, ultimately, reasoned his way back to God. It is perhaps this aspect ofSurprised by Joy that we--believers and nonbelievers--find most compelling and meaningful; Lewis was searching for joy, for an elusive and momentary sensation of glorious yearning, but he found it, and spiritual life, through the use of reason.In this highly personal, thoughtful, intelligent memoir, Lewis guides us toward joy and toward the surprise that awaits anyone who seeks a life beyond the expected."Lewis tempered his logic with a love for beauty, wonder, and magic . . . He speaks to us with all the power and life-changing force of a Plato, a Dante, and a Bunyan."--Christianity Today "The tension of these final chapters holds the interest like the close of a thriller."--Times Literary SupplementC. S. (Clive Staples) Lewis (1898-1963), one of the great writers of the twentieth century, also continues to be one of our most influential Christian thinkers. He wrote more than thirty books, both popular and scholarly, including The Chronicles of Narnia series,The Screwtape Letters,The Four Loves,Mere Christianity, andTill We Have Faces.

The Problem of Pain

In The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis, one of the most renowned Christian authors and thinkers, examines a universally applicable question within the human condition: "If God is good and all-powerful, why does he allow his creatures to suffer pain?" With his signature wealth of compassion and insight, C.S. Lewis offers answers to these crucial questions and shares his hope and wisdom to help heal a world hungering for a true understanding of human nature.

The Problem of Pain CD

Why must we suffer? "If God is good and all-powerful, why does he allow his creatures to suffer pain?" And what of the suffering of animals, who neither deserve pain nor can be improved by it? The greatest Christian thinker of our time sets out to disentangle this knotty issue. With his signature wealth of compassion and insight, C. S. Lewis offers answers to these crucial questions and shares his hope and wisdom to help heal a world hungering for a true understanding of human nature.

Christian Reflections

Shortly after his conversion in 1929, C. S. Lewis wrote to a friend, When all is said (and truly said) about the divisions of Christendom, there remains, by God's mercy, an enormous common ground. From that time on, Lewis thought that the best service he could do for his unbelieving neighbors was to explain and defend the belief that has been common to nearly all Christians at all times -- that enormous common ground which he usually referred to as mere Christianity.Lewis's defense of Christianity was colorfully varied -- the subjects he covered ranged widely, including Christianity and literature, Christianity and culture, ethics, futility, church music, modern theology and biblical criticism, the Psalms, and petitionary prayer.Presented in chronological order, some of the fourteen papers included in this collection were written specifically for periodicals, while others, published here for the first time, were read to societies in and around Oxford and Cambridge. Common to them all, however, are the uniquely effective style of C. S. Lewis and the basic presuppositions of his theology -- his mere Christianity."