C. S. LEWIS IN HIS OWN WORDS
C. S. Lewis
1. Was Lewis a Bible believer?
1. Was Lewis a Bible believer?
“Clive Staples Lewis was anything but a classic evangelical, socially or theologically. He smoked cigarettes and a pipe, and he regularly visited pubs to drink beer with friends. Though he shared basic Christian beliefs with evangelicals, he didn’t subscribe to biblical inerrancy or penal substitution. He believed in purgatory and baptismal regeneration” (“C.S. Lewis Superstar,” Christianity Today, Dec. 2005). 2 Cor 5:17 [New Creation]
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2. Did Lewis believe in the sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church?
“There are three things that spread the Christ life to us: baptism, belief, and that mysterious action which different Christians call by different names – Holy Communion, the Mass, the Lord’s supper’. page 61 of ‘Mere Christianity’ HarperSanFrancisco edition, 2001, pp. 61).
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3. Did Lewis believe in prayers for the dead? (A Catholic pagan belief)
In Letters to Malcolm, he wrote, “Of course I pray for the dead. The action is so spontaneous, so all but inevitable, that only the most compulsive theological case against it would deter men. And I hardly know how the rest of my prayers would survive if those for the dead were forbidden” (p. 107).
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5. Did Lewis believe in purgatory? (a Catholic false doctrine)
In Letters to Malcolm, he wrote” “I believe in Purgatory. … The right view returns magnificently in Newman’s Dream. There if I remember rightly, the saved soul, at the very foot of the throne, begs to be taken away and cleansed. It cannot bear for a moment longer ‘with its darkness to affront that light’. … Our souls demand Purgatory, don’t they?” (pp. 108-109).
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6. Did Lewis confess to a catholic priest?
Lewis confessed his sins regularly to a priest and was given the Catholic sacrament of last rites on July 16, 1963 (Roger Lancelyn Green and Walter Hooper, C.S. Lewis: A Biography, 1974, pp. 198, 301).
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7. Did Lewis love paganism?
“I had some ado to prevent Joy (and myself) from lapsing into paganism in Attica! AT DAPHNI IT WAS HARD NOT TO PRAY TO APOLLO THE HEALER. BUT SOMEHOW ONE DIDN’T FEEL IT WOULD HAVE BEEN VERY WRONG–WOULD HAVE ONLY BEEN ADDRESSING CHRIST SUB SPECIE APOLLONIUS” (C.S. Lewis to Chad Walsh, May 23, 1960, cited from George Sayer, Jack: A Life of C.S. Lewis, 1994, p. 378).
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8. Did Lewis believe that Salvation could be achieved through other religions?
“But the truth is God has not told us what His arrangements about the other people are. … There are people who do not accept the full Christian doctrine about Christ but who are so strongly attracted by Him that they are His in a much deeper sense than they themselves understand. There are people in other religions who are being led by God’s secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it. For example a Buddhist of good will may be led to concentrate more and more on the Buddhist teaching about mercy and to leave in the background (though he might still say he believed) the Buddhist teaching on certain points. Many of the good Pagans long before Christ’s birth may have been in this position” (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, HarperSanFrancisco edition, 2001, pp. 64, 208, 209).
“I think that every prayer which is sincerely made even to a false god or to a very imperfectly conceived true God, is accepted by the true God and that Christ saves many who do not think they know Him.” Letters of C. S. Lewis, 428.
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9. Did Lewis believe in Biblical salvation?
“You can say that Christ died for our sins. You may say that the Father has forgiven us because Christ has done for us what we ought to have done. You may say that we are washed in the blood of the Lamb. You may say that Christ has defeated death. They are all true. IF ANY OF THEM DO NOT APPEAL TO YOU, LEAVE IT ALONE AND GET ON WITH THE FORMULA THAT DOES. And, whatever you do, do not start quarrelling with other people because they use a different formula from yours” (Mere Christianity, HarperSanFrancisco edition, 2001, p. 182).
“The central Christian belief is that Christ’s death has somehow put us right with God and given us a fresh start. Theories as to how it did this are another matter. … Any theories we build up as to how Christ’s death did all of this are, in my view, quite secondary…” (Mere Christianity, HarperSanFrancisco edition, 2001, pp. 54, 55, 56).
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10. Did Lewis deny that Jesus was truly God in a discourse about Mk 13:30,32 by claiming that Christ and scripture were in error?
“Assur-edly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place, certainly the most embarrassing verse in the Bible. The one exhibition of error and the one confession of ignorance grow side by side. That they stood thus in the mouth of Jesus himself, and were not merely placed thus by the reporter, we surely need not doubt…. The facts, then, are these: that Jesus professed himself (in some sense) ignorant, and within a moment showed that he really was so.” The World’s Last Night and Other Essays, pp. 98-99. Harvest books. 1960.
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11. Did Lewis did believe that the Bible is inspired and inerrant. Here is a quote that demonstrates that he did not!
“all Holy Scripture is in some sense though not all parts of it in the same sense the word of God.” Lewis, C. S. Reflections on the Psalms, 19. Harvest Books,
brianhenryblog 
Thank you for this. I’m tired of the many professing Christians who look up to this man so much they get angry with anyone who exposes who he really was, a pagan Christian, who is no Christian at all.
Thank you, I couldn’t agree more!