Barfield on Lewis

 

Now, whatever else he was, and as you know, he was a great many things, C.S. Lewis was for me, first and foremost the absolutely unforgettable friend, the friend with whom I was in close touch for over forty years, the friend you might come to regard hardly as another human being, but almost as a part of the furniture of my existence.

- Owen Barfield

I thought I knew quite a bit about the long friendship and the debates between the two intellectual giants, C.S. Lewis and Owen Barfield, and then I read this collection of Barfield's essays and addresses he made after Lewis passed away, and I feel like a whole new light has been shed on my shoddy knowledge that seems now to be very basic indeed. First, I loved Barfield's notes on the letters Lewis wrote, and how they were like a continuation of the conversation they were having. Barfield described how Lewis would slip in some turn of phrase or sly allusion that would make him laugh out loud. Having read volumes of Lewis's letters, I smiled, as they are some of the most enjoyable letters I have ever read by any author.

Barfield and Lewis met in Oxford around 1919 and developed a friendship that lasted over last forty years until Lewis's death. Before Lewis converted to Christianity, he and Barfield would have many philosophical debates know as "the Great War", but those debates died away after Lewis became a Christian, because Lewis couldn't even "bear it", according to Barfield when he inquired about previous debates. Bear what? It's all speculation, but perhaps Lewis couldn't bear to think he believed in the atheistic ideas he believed before converting. Because, as Barfield explains, Lewis changed a lot over the years, developing and growing in his theology. He pointed out that you cannot judge Lewis and his total theology by just reading one book like Mere Christianity. Barfield contrasts those changes as he says that he himself never changed his thinking over all his years, and yet Lewis and Barfield have both contributed to opening our eyes to layers of truth while peeling away idols the world seeks to feed us.

There were many sides to Lewis. Barfield explains on several occasions how Lewis the writer had a literary critic side, a fiction/imaginative side, and a Christian apologetics side. The triune sides all remained segregated, Barfield explains, except in The Great Divorce, where there is happy marriage (paradoxically) of the imaginative and the apologetic. The slim book book combines his ethical belief of the Everyman consisting of a succession of momentary choices, which is where his theology followed. Lewis believed that the spiritual life was not to be thought of as a flow or development, but rather "a series of steps, and each separate step is either in the direction of heaven or it is in the direction of hell."

Barfield goes into detail on the different sides of Lewis and his literary contributions in all those angles. In the matter of the modern world, he points out how Lewis saw the so clearly what was really going on with the popularization of the Darwinian concept of evolution and the more and more prevalent ideas of materialism, subjectivism, and relativism, which were influencing the general public opinion. Side note: how much more can we see that today, as we have the advantage of hindsight and the retroactive viewpoint, and how valuable have his writings been to us now.

The one thing he never tired of doing, or would not let himself tire of doing, was to expose the appallingly muddled thinking on which all three of them rest, by way of a battery of very simple, very lucid, and totally unanswerable arguments reinforced by equally simple and vigorous metaphors. 

This showcases Lewis's skill in argument. Right after this sentence, Barfield mentions there are many examples on which Lewis does this (I could mention many of his excellent essays) but The Abolition of Man as one of his favourite examples of how Lewis puts his arguments into action. 

Barfield doesn't hide how he had hesitations with some of Lewis's theology, and we could spend time picking apart his discussions with Lewis about the imagination (and whether it was a vehicle that lead to truth), but I think we would end up at a spot where each of them placed a deep importance on at least the theory of imagination as Barfield states -

The use of imagination is one thing; a theory of imagination is another. A theory of imagination must concern itself, whether positively or negatively, with its relation to truth.

 Their friendship has shown us how to debate well within friendship. To respect one another so deeply, to be able to still be close and disagree on some philosophical notions. It is a delight to read that Lewis was part of the furniture of Barfield's existence.