The other night, I found myself reminding a classroom full of (I imagined) rather incredulous Bethel Seminary students that “Saint Lewis” himself believed in purgatory. I’ve known that this was primarily expressed in his Letters to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer. Now I find someone has kindly collected those remarks:
Lewis professed a belief in purgatory. In Letters To Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer he wrote:
I believe in Purgatory. Mind you, the Reformers had good reasons for throwing doubt on the ‘Romish doctrine concerning Purgatory’ as that Romish doctrine had then become . . .
. . . The right view returns magnificently in Newman’s DREAM. There, if I remember it 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.” Religion has claimed Purgatory. Our souls demand Purgatory, don’t they? Would it not break the heart if God said to us, “It is true, my son, that your breath smells and your rags drip with mud and slime, but we are charitable here and no one will upbraid you with these things, nor draw away from you. Enter into the joy?” Should we not reply, “With submission, sir, and if there is no objection, I’d rather be cleaned first.” “It may hurt, you know”—”Even so, sir.”
I assume that the process of purification will normally involve suffering. Partly from tradition; partly because most real good that has been done me in this life has involved it. But I don’t think the suffering is the purpose of the purgation. I can well believe that people neither much worse nor much better than I will suffer less than I or more. . . . The treatment given will be the one required, whether it hurts little or much.
My favourite image on this matter comes from the dentist’s chair. I hope that when the tooth of life is drawn and I am “coming round,” a voice will say, “Rinse your mouth out with this.” This will be Purgatory. The rinsing may take longer than I can now imagine. The taste of this may be more fiery and astringent than my present sensibility could endure. But . . . it will [not] be disgusting and unhallowed.
The “someone” here is Pastor Brian Carpenter, who goes on to make the case (also made in a comparatively recent book by the biographer/Roman Catholic apologist Joseph Pearce) that Lewis was so high church as to be against Protestantism itself. That I find quite an incredible claim (and commenters at the site linked above conclude that thus one should “stay away from” Lewis, also ludicrous). But Lewis’s reflections on purgatory are nonetheless interesting, aren’t they?
Protestant appreciations of purgatory by Baptist historian and author of the wonderful Story of Theology, Roger Olson (previously a professor at Bethel College, my seminary’s sister institution) may be found here, and by Twin Cities Baptist megachurch pastor and author (also previously a professor at Bethel College; hmmm) Greg Boyd, here.
What do y’all think, gentle readers? FYI, this post goes deeper into the matter of CSL’s “Catholic” beliefs and practices.
Related Articles
- Purgatory and Protestant Thought: Part One (christiantheology.wordpress.com)
- Museum of Purgatory (italylogue.com)
Medieval Wisdom for Modern Christians
Grateful to the dead 
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I have never understood “Protestantism” as necessarily requiring that a believer reject the pious opinion that an in-between state exists in which some purification may occur. Rather, I think the Magisterial Reformers were instead very much opposed the the Latin Medieval doctrinal complex of Works-Merits-Indulgences-Purgation. Therefore, I do not think Lewis’s thoughts on purgatory run any great risks of exceeding the bounds of Protestant orthodoxy (unless one has a very pinched and narrow view of what that is) or slipping back into that Scholastic morass.
Just what I think. And by the way, love your Sayersian handle, death. 🙂
Dr. Armstrong,
I think this gentle reader, who was also the gentle writer of the article, never said that Lewis was “against Protestantism.” I said his views were not really a secret, and the ones he expressed were not especially congenial to Protestantism. Specifically I have in mind and the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Though clearly he also had some tussle with Sola Scriptura as well.
Kindest Regards,
Rev. Brian Carpenter
Brian,
Thanks for your note. I enjoyed your article and agree that Lewis had many Anglo-Catholic sympathies. That actually raises no alarms for me and certainly does not elicit from me the sorts of extremely negative responses to Lewis that several commenters on the blog piece express.
I derived my summary comment that your article proposes a Lewis who was “against Protestantism” from the following words of yours: “it is equally clear that he had rejected Protestantism at least as consistently as he rejected theological liberalism. Though I obviously think there is benefit to be had in reading Lewis, I think the reader must be discerning. For there is little doubt where his sympathies lay on a great many crucial issues, and those positions are not very congenial to historic Protestant views.”
“He had rejected Protestantism.” His “positions are not congenial to historic Protestant views.” Perhaps this is not quite the same thing as saying CSL was “against Protestantism,” but surely it is very close?
Thank you again for taking the time to visit my “playground” and respond to my summary of your article. I would be particularly interested if you could point me toward places where Lewis says that he is against the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith (as some commenters on the blog that features your article insist). I’ve never run across that claim before.
Peace,
Dr. Chris Armstrong
Dr. Armstrong,
Thank you for your kind welcome and your prompt answer.
When I look up “against” in the dictionary I find several definitions, but the two that seem to fit our context the best are:
1. in opposition to; contrary to; adverse or hostile to: twenty votes against ten; against reason.
2. in resistance to or defense from: protection against burglars.
I do not find that either of those definitions fit my understanding of Lewis’ views very well. It would not make much sense for him to write a book like “Mere Christianity” where he attempts to bring the reader into “the hallways” so to speak, and bids him to think further and choose a “room” (i.e. a communion) if he were opposed to every choice except two or three.
Perhaps instead of saying, “He rejected Protestantism,” I could have said “He rejected some of the foundational principles of Protestantism.”
I do not wish to quibble about words unnecessarily, and I suppose I probably would not have written at all if I had not discovered the phrase “against Protestantism” in quotes, as though you were directly quoting me.
Now, as to the denial of Sola Fide, it is true that he does not come out waving a Vatican flag and saying “I reject Sola Fide.” But if we think for a minute together about the doctrine of justification by faith alone, those who first articulated the phrase were very clear about what they meant.
1. To the Protestant, justification is to “declare righteous.” It is a judicial declaration on God’s part in which he decrees that he will henceforth look upon us as righteous. Such righteousness is not actually in our person. It resides in Christ’s person. It is reckoned, counted, or imputed to the believer. The instrument of justification is a certain form of faith which the Reformers were very careful to define as passive, receiving, and resting upon Christ.
2. This is in direct opposition to Rome’s view, permanently enshrined in Trent, that justification is the believer being made righteous in his own person. Righteousness is infused, or put into the soul, and then the believer is justified based on the righteousness he or she actually possesses. The instrument through which this righteousness is granted is sacramental. First the sacrament of baptism. Secondly, the sacrament of penance, which Trent calls “the second plank of justification for those who have made a shipwreck of their souls.” Of course the other sacraments help in this process, but those are the two major ones.
3. Rome does not reject justification by faith. Clearly faith is required, in their view, to receive the benefit of at least the sacrament of penance. One could not take it in utter hypocrisy and still benefit. What Rome rejects is justification by faith ALONE. It’s faith plus the proper use of the sacrament, or faith plus some other kind of obedience.
4. Also, since Rome believes that the justifying grace is infused into the soul rather than imputed to the soul, one’s status before God is primarily a matter of how much righteousness there actually is in the soul at the moment of death. The person who has some righteousness, but not perfect righteousness, needs to go to purgatory and be perfected in righteousness before entering heaven. His sins are not fully cleansed. He is still dirty. There is something foul in him, and he needs to be purged of every trace of it.
5. The Protestant recoils in horror from such a notion. The whole point of the Christian life to him is that he has been counted righteous for the sake of Christ. As he understands the situation, there can no more be a deficit in his own righteousness than there is in Christ’s righteousness. God “looks on Him and pardons me” in the words of Charity Lee Bankroft.
If we look at what Lewis said about his own formulation of the belief in purgatory, it is quite jarring to Protestant ears. We may have bickered among ourselves about whether or not one could ever cease to exercise faith, and thus cease to be justified. But we’ve all believed that if one dies in a state of faith, one is perfected immediately upon death. At that moment justification and sanctification converge, and we become what we had been declared to be from the moment of our exercise of saving faith. We become “the spirits of just men made perfect.” Thus there would be no “rags dripping with slime and foul breath” in the throneroom of God, and we would need no fiery astringent to rinse out our mouth. Jesus took all the fiery astringents on our behalf. Jesus paid it all. I cannot contribute one farthing.
As the 22nd of the 39 articles states, “The Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory, Pardons, Worshipping and Adoration, as well of Images as of Relics, and also Invocation of Saints, is a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God.”
For Lewis to say, “I don’t believe in the Romish doctrine of Purgatory. (Rather, I believe in the one invented by Newman)” is all well and good, but neither Rome nor Newman can square their views with Sola Fide or Sola Scriptura.
Kindest Regards,
Rev. Brian Carpenter
Brian, this is very helpful–“something to go on” as I research this topic in Lewis’s thought further. I thank you for taking the time to put these thoughts together for me.
As for the use of quotation marks around the expression “against Protestantism” in the original post–not sure what I was about there; sometimes I post in too much of a rush. I’m removing them now.
Peace,
Chris
Chris,
Thank you very much. I do have to say that you have an interesting website. Most “un-Baptist” if I might say so (with no hint of pejorative sentiment either towards your site or towards Baptists. As I said, I was a student at Bethel once. I was the only Presbyterian, and so far as I know the only Calvinist there during my tenure.)
Kindest Regards,
Brian
Re “un-Baptist”: let’s just say we historians tend to have broader sensibilities . . . 🙂
Can you tell me, by the way, if Dr. Robert Rakestraw is still living? I had him when I was a student at Bethel, and counted him as a friend.
Kindest Regards,
Brian
Indeed he is. He has walked quite a pilgrimage in the area of his health and written about it at his blog: http://bobrakestraw.blogspot.com/.
Lewis walked very deliberately the walked the borderline between Catholic and Protestant never fully embracing either. He never held to the Protestant teaching on justification by faith and from this some form of purgatory is a logical consequent. I strongly disagree with Lewis on this though I have benefited greatly from other aspects of his writing. No writer outside the Scripture itself should be read without discernment.
I know it makes me odd, but I’ve never liked Lewis all that much. Appreciated him? Yes. Enjoyed him? No. But then again, I was first exposed to him in Seminary, and with that already with some tools to identify that he and I didn’t share all the same beliefs.
He was important in his time, and has had an important and lasting impact on the faith of many who are the modern “faith-shapers”, but he’s not someone I’m looking to draw my theology from. But I do enjoy his creativity and his passion.