Book Review: “C. S. Lewis for the Third Millennium”

Title: C. S. Lewis for the Third Millennium

Author: Peter Kreeft

The title of Peter Kreeft’s book C. S. Lewis for the Third Millennium accurately describes its purpose. Less Lewisian analysis or commentary than application, Kreeft peers through the glasses of Lewisian thought–particularly Lewisian thought as inscribed in The Abolition of Man– at the third millennium. And if the glasses are clear, the view is breath-taking–at least, it could be (literally). But it is not pure doom and gloom; Kreeft consciously emulates the Old Testament prophets’ realism. It is a realism which spares no details in its description of the dire state of humanity; but it is also a realism which recognizes the reality of free will. There is hope because there is God, and because there is the possibility of change. In my opinion, the pervasiveness of these two themes–the reality of Western Civilization’s lostness and Man’s freedom–imparts a welcome seriousness and urgency. If “Man moves history before history moves men” (p. 126), then we can fight and maybe even win. But, this is not the type of fighting which requires bunkers, tax evasion, and stashed AK-47s. Kreeft is more realistic and more biblical than that:

It is good to work for peace in whatever social and political ways really do work, whether this means working for disarmament or for stronger armaments. We do not know with certainty which way will work best on the political level (though we nearly always claim we do). But we do know with certainty (because God himself has told us) what will work on the spiritual level, and we also know that that level cuts deeper and works at the roots. So to anyone who is concerned with peace and with the life and survival of our civilization, here is a summary in a single paragraph of what I have learned from my master C. S. Lewis:

Sodom and Gomorrah almost made it. If God had found but ten righteous men, he would have spared two whole cities. Abraham’s intercession nearly saved Sodom, and it did save Lot. We must be Abrahams. Charles Williams said that “the altar must often be built in one place so that the fire from heaven may come down at another.” It is also true that the altar must be built and prayer and sacrifice made at one place so that the fire from heaven may not come down at another. It can be done. The most important thing each of us can do to save the world from holocaust and from Hell, from nuclear destruction and from spiritual destruction, is the most well-known, most unoriginal thing in the world: to love God with our whole heart and soul and mind and strength and to love our neighbors as ourselves.

You the individual can make a difference. You can be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, the vote that wins the election. You can save the world. (p.31-2)

Kreeft sounds almost cliche. Perhaps some would call it that. But having read the whole book, and having previously read several of Kreeft’s books, I suspect, to use the helpful categories posited by one of my good friends, that Kreeft’s prescription merely reflects the simplicity which comes after one has forged through complexity (a simplicity born out of wisdom rather than ignorance). It is the simple and obvious conclusion that the path trod by Western Civilization as led far away from God. And it is the simple, though sometimes not so obvious, observation that God knows what He is talking about after all.

C. S. Lewis for the Third Millennium consists of six independent but related essays. The titles explain the content adequately enough for my purposes, so I will provide them instead of summaries. Some of these can be found as audio lectures on Peter Kreeft’s website.

1. How to Save Western Civilization: C. S. Lewis as Prophet
2. Darkness at Noon: The Eclipse of “The Permanent Things”
3. The Goodness of Goodness and the Badness of Badness
4. Can the Natural Law Ever Be Abolished from the Heart of Man?
5. Walker Percy’s Lost in the Cosmos: The Abolition of Man in Late-Night Comedy Format
6. The Joyful Cosmology: Perelandra’s “Great Dance” as an Alternative World View to Modern Reductionism

Kreeft does provide some useful Lewis study, particularly in the first essay. He abstracts 12 principles about Lewis’s philosophy of history, giving a brief overview of each one. But the book is not a scholarly work on Lewis, and it is not meant to be. It is meant to look along rather than at Lewis’s ideas, to think with him rather than about him. It is a fine specimen of applying Lewis’s thoughts to present problems.

But in my opinion its greatest strength lies not in Lewisian application but in imitation. In studying, appreciating, and learning from Lewis, Kreeft has, perhaps unwittingly, accomplished a feat very few can do, and still fewer can do well. Lewis did it very well. It is the task of stretching our horizons beyond the narrow confines of our town, of our state, of America, of Western Civilization, of this third rock from the sun. If life does not end when we die, then death is not the greatest evil–far from it, in fact. For on the other side of death, we will either regain paradise (in which case we will then know what we now believe: that death, even torturous death, is merely the door to Goodness, Truth, and Beauty) or lose even the echoes of a paradise with which we once lived (in which case life ending at death would be a comparative paradise). As a wise man once said, “from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.” But remember how that phrase began? “To everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance.”

This book helps fan that sometimes sputtering spark of hope into a flame that helps illuminate our true Home. When the greatest human threat possible–death–ceases to be a threat, fear dissolves. Did our Lord really mean it when He told us not to fear those who can only kill the body? If so, then we ought to thank those who remind us of of this truth by pointing us to The Truth. Thank you, Dr. Kreeft.