{"id":319,"date":"2018-09-20T00:37:35","date_gmt":"2018-09-20T04:37:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/?p=319"},"modified":"2018-09-15T00:51:21","modified_gmt":"2018-09-15T04:51:21","slug":"the-synergy-of-cs-lewis-and-owen-barfield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/2018\/09\/20\/the-synergy-of-cs-lewis-and-owen-barfield\/","title":{"rendered":"The synergy of CS Lewis and Owen Barfield"},"content":{"rendered":"
Article\u00a0by Professor Bruce G Charlton<\/span><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

It is well known that CS Lewis and Owen\u00a0Barfield\u00a0were best friends, from soon after 1919 when they met as undergraduates in Oxford University until Barfield’s\u00a0death in 1997, some 34 years\u00a0after\u00a0<\/i>Lewis had died.<\/span><\/p>\n

Because\u00a0Barfield’s\u00a0active engagement with Lewis – as man and thinker – continued right throughout his life, as evidenced in the fascinating (and deep) 1989 collection\u00a0Owen\u00a0Barfield\u00a0on CS Lewis<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Most people, until recently, have approached\u00a0Barfield\u00a0via\u00a0<\/i>his more famous and influential friend; or have tired to tease-out the ‘influence’ one had upon the other. But I have gradually come to realize\u00a0<\/span>that there are richer rewards from considering both together as complementary – indeed synergistic – writers. I mean by this that each offers something that the other lacks and needs; and considered together they are greater than their sum.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Starting with Lewis; we can see that he was the more creative and accomplished writer<\/span>, and that he was able to\u00a0expresse\u00a0instinctively more than he could (or would) comprehend explicitly. For example, there are depths, there is<\/span>\u00a0heart and resonance in Lewis’s imaginative fiction – especially the Narnia stories but also the Planetary trilogy, and also in his imaginative essays such as\u00a0The\u00a0Screwtape\u00a0Letters<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0The Great Divorce<\/i>\u00a0– that are absent from<\/span>, and even contradicted-by, Lewis’s theoretical and explicitly-Christian writings<\/span>..<\/p>\n

Barfield\u00a0was a deeper, more rigorous and honest theoretician than Lewis.\u00a0 Indeed,\u00a0Barfield\u00a0understood Lewis and Lewis’s writing, better than Lewis understood himself. In this sense,\u00a0Barfield\u00a0was ‘larger’ than Lewis – but\u00a0Barfield\u00a0could not accomplish what Lewis did – so it could be said that Lewis expressed\u00a0Barfield\u00a0better than\u00a0Barfield\u00a0expressed himself! This is why they are complementary.<\/span><\/p>\n

They are also synergistic; because when they are considered together, we can see that the combination of Lewis and\u00a0Barfield\u00a0make-up a really tremendous resource with vast potential for exploration and extension: something which has barely yet been begun.<\/span><\/p>\n

Something that has limited this, so far, is that while the basis for understanding Lewis’s fiction depends on an understanding of his interaction with\u00a0JRRTolkien and Charles Williams – and these are accessible and comprehensible writers; however, understanding\u00a0Barfield\u00a0depends on getting to grips with Rudolf Steiner – and this is a very much larger and more difficult task!<\/span><\/p>\n

However, over the past several years, this is something I have done – and the rewards are immense.\u00a0Barfield indeed,<\/span>\u00a0made it easier for us by telling us to focus on two of Steiner’s earliest, and most straightforward, writings:\u00a0The theory of knowledge based on Goethe’s world conception<\/i>\u00a0of 1894; and\u00a0The philosophy of freedom<\/i>\u00a0of 1896. Both take careful, prolonged, thought-full reading to understand – but the task is not beyond someone who really wants to do it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"So what might we get from this endeavour\u00a0<\/span>of combining\u00a0Barfield\u00a0with Lewis?\u00a0 In brief, we get to understand – both in\u00a0practice\u00a0and in theory – exactly what it means that imaginative literature is true. We all sense, as Lewis sensed, that imagination takes us to places beyond and different from what can be stated explicitly in concepts – that indeed imagination is a kind of knowledge. And that fantasy, and invented worlds, provide something more real than real life.<\/span><\/p>\n

We see all this demonstrated in\u00a0practice\u00a0in Lewis’s writing, and we feel it with our hearts. But Lewis himself was confused and contradictory when it came to explaining how this works. Whereas\u00a0Barfield\u00a0understood it, in a conceptual and explicit fashion, as well as anybody ever has – but in ways that Lewis himself never really engaged-with<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Barfield\u00a0often commented that although Lewis claimed to have been influenced by him;\u00a0Barfield\u00a0could not really perceive that influence.\u00a0Barfield\u00a0also explained that after Lewis became a Christian, Lewis absolutely avoided any deep and focused discussions on fundamental, metaphysical issues. (A fact that<\/span>Barfield\u00a0deeply regretted, although it never threatened their deep affection for one another.)<\/span><\/p>\n

And although Lewis read, admired and praised\u00a0Barfield’s\u00a0writings – for examplemultipy re<\/span>-reading\u00a0Worlds Apart<\/i>\u00a0during his final months of illness – Lewis did not show any signs of having either understood or accepted the major ideas in\u00a0Barfield’s\u00a0writings.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is not too surprising, because the differences between\u00a0Barfield\u00a0and Lewis were very deep; at the very deepest level of metaphysical assumptions. For Lewis to have accepted\u00a0Barfield\u00a0would have overthrown several of his most basic Christian theological beliefs – and this was probably why Lewis never engaged with\u00a0Barfield. Lewis’s main assertion was that all Christians shared a core Mere Christianity – yet Lewis’s description of the content of Mere Christianity was quite different, in many significant respects, from\u00a0Barfield’s\u00a0understanding of Christianity.<\/span><\/p>\n

For instance; Lewis believed that God, and ultimate reality, were outside of Time; while\u00a0Barfield\u00a0believed that Time was universal, sequential, linear, irreversible. Linked; Lewis believed that human nature was the same among all people and in all times and places; while\u00a0Barfield\u00a0believed that human consciousness unfolded, developed, evolved throughout history. Lewis believed in an infinite gulf between God and Man;\u00a0Barfield\u00a0that it was Man’s ultimate destiny to become divine in the same qualitative sense as God.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This emphasises<\/span>that for the fullness of the complementarity between Lewis and Barfield\u00a0<\/span>to be recognised<\/span>, requires that the reader be prepared to ‘take Barfield’s\u00a0side’ on these explicit philosophical questions – at least as a starting point (perhaps to be modified later). Whether someone wishes to entertain such a possibility depends on whether he believes that a theoretical understanding of imagination is important and necessary. Lewis was able to avoid engagement with Barfield<\/span>, because Lewis regarded it as unnecessary and probably undesirable (perhaps lethal to imagination<\/span>) to analyse<\/span>and explain the structure and inner nature of imagination.<\/span><\/p>\n

But\u00a0Barfield\u00a0believed that to become conscious of the truth in imagination was simply the most important and urgent task for modern Man. I agree with Barfield<\/span>. If\u00a0you\u00a0<\/i>also agree, then you simply could not do better than to study Lewis and\u00a0Barfield\u00a0together, as complementary, as indeed synergistic writers – as together yielding even more than both added together.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

More of Professor Charlton’s writings can be found at The Notion Club Papers<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Article\u00a0by Professor Bruce G Charlton It is well known that CS Lewis and Owen\u00a0Barfield\u00a0were best friends, from soon after 1919 when they met as undergraduates in Oxford University until Barfield’s\u00a0death in 1997, some 34 years\u00a0after\u00a0Lewis had died. Because\u00a0Barfield’s\u00a0active engagement with Lewis – as man and thinker – continued right throughout his life, as evidenced in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[14,60,62],"class_list":["post-319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lewis","tag-c-s-lewis","tag-owen-barfield","tag-professor-bruce-charlton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":321,"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions\/321"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}