* removing the hindrances: whether you are a Christian or not, this book makes you think long and hard about the assumptions you bring to your worldview. If you have a default way of thinking about the nature of reality, or if like me you are torn between many worldviews that often seem (and sometimes are) irreconcilable, this is the perfect book. Lewis tackles what he calls “naturalism” (the belief that only nature exists) and “pantheism” (the belief that God and the universe are one and the same) with gusto, refusing to give these belief systems a free pass just because they happen to be the most common among modern thinkers. But neither does he give Christianity special treatment. Even though the book argues in favor of the Christian worldview, it does so through argument, not appeals to revelation or mystery (or browbeating). This book is the epitome of Lewis the philosopher.
* Taking the supernatural seriously: What to do with the supernatural? A fascinating question. Do you make it evanescent, like 19th century fairies or Miyazaki’s Spirited Away? Do you focus on the evil side, like The Exorcist? Do you take it for granted, like the creators of modern Christian-market fiction like the Left Behind series? Or expose it as an illusion, as in The Wizard of Oz? The most common move today is to domesticate mythology by rendering it pseudo-natural. For example, the dragons in Game of Thrones are simply wild beasts (impressive ones, to be sure). All of these approaches have their pluses and minuses. Lewis’s approach – to investigate the supernatural from a rational viewpoint, accepting some claims and rejecting others – gives us yet another option.
Of course, fantasy is not religion. Nobody is arguing that dragons really exist. But the theoretical argument in favor of the supernatural gives dignity to human myth-making. If, when we create fantasy, we are imitating some real fissure in the fabric of nature, we will treat it differently – with more genuine weight – than if we are simply amusing ourselves. But we will also be less likely to take it too seriously, i.e. as a substitute for religion or rational thought.
If you are not religious, you may be hesitant to read this book, wondering if Lewis will foist “all that Christian stuff” on you. Lewis himself is acutely aware of this, and in his epilogue almost despairs of getting a fair hearing because of it: “The moment rational thought ceases, imagination, mental habit, temperament, and the ‘spirit of the age’ take charge of you again”, he writes. I also wonder if our queasy feeling about “all that Christian stuff” is actually a projection of our fears about how easily we ourselves become infected with ideas that seem rational but are anything but: nationalist frenzies, apocalyptic doom-mongering, raging judgment over a single tweet. As Václav Havel put it in his great little essay “Thriller” from 1984: “the forces of the night…go on acting, chaotically and uncontrollably, shocking man again and again by their, for him, inexplicable presence, which glimmers through the modern shroud that conceals them.”
The Door Without a Key 
There are inspiring examples of scientists who hold the rational and the numinous equally as a way of living and knowing what it means to be alive. This week I read a quote of Carl Jung, “Only the paradox comes anywhere near to the comprehending of the fullness of life.” It is important to be humble in the complexity of life, that we can’t possibly understand it all but we can look closely to make distinctions between what is actually rational and what is beyond our ability to know using those tools but “feels” real in a more spiritual way. AND we can make distinctions about all the bull shit being foisted on us. Thanks for your articulation of this!