"A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery."
—C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man
“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
“To be ignorant and simple now—not to be able to meet the enemies on their own ground—would be to throw down our weapons. . . . Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered.”
—C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses
"Where no attention is given to teaching, and to constant, lifelong Christian learning, people quickly revert to the worldview or mindset of the surrounding culture, and end up with their minds shaped by whichever social pressures are most persuasive, with Jesus somewhere around as a pale influence or memory."
—N. T. Wright, Acts for Everyone, Part One
“A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, ‘darkness’ on the walls of his cell.”
—C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
"You cannot go on seeing through things for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. . . . If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To see through all things is the same as not to see.”
—C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man
“Christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance, and, if true, is of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important.”
“If we are to be mothered, mother must know best. . . . In every age the men who want us under their thumb, if they have any sense, will put forward the particular pretension which the hopes and fears of that age render most potent. They 'cash in.' It has been magic, it has been Christianity. Now it will certainly be science. . . . Let us not be deceived by phrases about 'Man taking charge of his own destiny.' All that can really happen is that some men will take charge of the destiny of others. . . . The more completely we are planned the more powerful they will be.”
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. Their very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be 'cured' against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
—C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock
"The very idea of freedom presupposes some objective moral law which overarches rulers and ruled alike. Subjectivism about values is eternally incompatible with democracy. We and our rulers are of one kind only so long as we are subject to one law. But if there is no Law of Nature, the ethos of any society is the creation of its rulers, educators and conditioners; and every creator stands above and outside his own creation."
—C. S. Lewis, Christian Reflections
The C.S. Lewis Society of California is an independent, non-profit, educational and cultural organization whose mission involves the pursuit of the following:
Michael D. Aeschliman
Professor of Education, Boston University; Director, Erasmus Institute, Switzerland
Jonathan J. Bean
Professor of History, Southern Illinois University
Arthur C. Brooks
Professor of Public Administration and Director of the Nonprofit Studies Program
Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University
Paul A. Cleveland
Professor of Economics, Birmingham-Southern College
G. Marcus Cole
Helen L. Crocker Faculty Scholar and Professor of Law, Stanford University
James T. Como
Professor of Rhetoric and Public Communication, York College, City University of New York
Stephen T. Davis
Russell K. Pitzer Professor of Philosophy, Claremont McKenna College
David C. Downing
R. W. Schlosser Professor of English, Elizabethtown College
Colin Duriez
Author, The C.S. Lewis Encyclopedia, The C.S. Lewis Chronicles, The Inklings Handbook, Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, A Field Guide to Narnia, and Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings
Freeman J. Dyson
Professor Emeritus of Physics, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University;
Templeton Prize Laureate
Bruce L. Edwards, Jr.
Professor of English and Associate Dean, Continuing and Extended Education
Bowling Green State University
Kenneth G. Elzinga
Robert C. Taylor Professor of Economics, University of Virginia
Thomas P. Flint
Professor of Philosophy and Director
Notre Dame Center for Philosophy of Religion, University of Notre Dame
Stewart C. Goetz
Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Ursinus College
P. J. Hill
George F. Bennett Chair of Economics, Wheaton College
Laurence R. Iannaccone
Koch Professor of Economics and Director
Center for the Economic Study of Religion, George Mason University
Philip Jenkins
Distinguished Professor of History and Religious Studies, Pennsylvania State University
Peter G. Klein
Professor of Economics and Associate Director
Contracting and Organizations Research Institute, University of Missouri, Columbia
Robert C. Koons
Professor of Philosophy, University of Texas
Peter J. Kreeft
Professor of Philosophy, Boston College
Wilfred M. McClay
SunTrust Chair of Excellence in Humanities, University of Tennessee, Chattanooga
Scot McKnight
Karl A. Olsson Professor in Religious Studies, North Park University
Marjorie Lamp Mead
Associate Director, The Marion E. Wade Center, Wheaton College
J. P. Moreland
Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Biola University
Andrew P. Morriss
H. Ross and Helen Workman Professor of Law and Professor of Business, University of Illinois
Robert H. Nelson
Professor, School of Public Policy, University of Maryland
Armand M. Nicholi, Jr.
Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
J. I. Packer
Board of Governors Professor of Theology, Regent College, Canada
Alvin Plantinga
John O’Brien Chair of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame
Sir John C. Polkinghorne
Retired President, Queens’ College; Templeton Prize Laureate;
former Professor of Mathematical Physics, Cambridge University
Stephen G. Post
Professor of Bioethics, Philosophy and Religion
Associate Director of Educational Programs, School of Medicine
Case Western Reserve University
Richard L. Purtill
Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, Western Washington University
James A. Sadowski, S.J.
Professor of Philosophy Emeritus, Fordham University
Peter J. Schakel
Peter C. and Emajean Cook Professor of English, Hope College
Jeffrey P. Schloss
Professor of Biology, Westmont College
Rodney Stark
University Professor of Social Sciences
Co-Director and Distinguished Senior Fellow, Institute for Studies of Religion, Baylor University
Edward P. Stringham
Associate Professor of Economics, San Jose State University
President, Association of Private Enterprise Education
Eleonore A. Stump
Robert J. Henle Professor of Philosophy, St. Louis University
Charles Taliaferro
Professor of Philosophy, St. Olaf College
Charles H. Townes
Nobel Laureate in Physics and Templeton Prize Laureate
Graduate School and Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley
Jerry L. Walls
Professor of Philosophy, Asbury Theological Seminary
Robert M. Whaples
Professor of Economics, Wake Forest University
Nicholas Wolterstorff
Senior Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, University of Virginia; Noah Porter Professor of Philosophical Theology, Yale University
