C. S. Lewis was one of the Language and literature good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject University of Oxford, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the University of Oxford on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.University of OxfordWikipedia:WikiProject University of OxfordTemplate:WikiProject University of OxfordUniversity of Oxford articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Children's literature, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Children's literature on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Children's literatureWikipedia:WikiProject Children's literatureTemplate:WikiProject Children's literaturechildren and young adult literature articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Christianity, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Christianity on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ChristianityWikipedia:WikiProject ChristianityTemplate:WikiProject ChristianityChristianity articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Religion, a project to improve Wikipedia's articles on Religion-related subjects. Please participate by editing the article, and help us assess and improve articles to good and 1.0 standards, or visit the wikiproject page for more details.ReligionWikipedia:WikiProject ReligionTemplate:WikiProject ReligionReligion articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Belfast, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to the City of Belfast, Northern Ireland on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.BelfastWikipedia:WikiProject BelfastTemplate:WikiProject BelfastBelfast-related articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Northern Ireland, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Northern Ireland on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Northern IrelandWikipedia:WikiProject Northern IrelandTemplate:WikiProject Northern IrelandNorthern Ireland-related articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Ireland, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Ireland on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.IrelandWikipedia:WikiProject IrelandTemplate:WikiProject IrelandIreland articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Philosophy, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of content related to philosophy on Wikipedia. If you would like to support the project, please visit the project page, where you can get more details on how you can help, and where you can join the general discussion about philosophy content on Wikipedia.PhilosophyWikipedia:WikiProject PhilosophyTemplate:WikiProject PhilosophyPhilosophy articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Science Fiction, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of science fiction on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Science FictionWikipedia:WikiProject Science FictionTemplate:WikiProject Science Fictionscience fiction articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Animals in media, a project which is currently considered to be inactive.Animals in mediaWikipedia:WikiProject Animals in mediaTemplate:WikiProject Animals in mediaAnimals in media articles
This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.Military historyWikipedia:WikiProject Military historyTemplate:WikiProject Military historymilitary history articles
The following issues have been extensively discussed and there is strong consensus for the status quo. Although consensus can change, we kindly ask that you familiarize yourself with previous discussion on the following topics before raising any of these issues again.
Resolved That C.S Lewis's birth place is not Northern Ireland, which did not exist at the time of his birth.
This would appear to be the case. I'm guessing you're dubious about the odds of a dog being struck by a motor vehicle in 1902. Based on my quick and shallow research, it looks like the first car was imported into Ireland in the late 19th century, so it was indeed possible for the dog to be struck by a vehicle, though perhaps statistically unlikely. If the story is true, that was a very unlucky dog. pillowcrow19:37, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In the late Victorian era "car" was a common term for a horsed carriage that was not a professionally driven coach but driven by the rider. Had it been motorised it would have been termed "motor-car".Cloptonson (talk) 15:20, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Cloptonson: That's fascinating. Do you know of any sources that explain that? Or any that confirm that the dog was struck by a horse-drawn carriage and not an early motorized vehicle? Thanks. pillowcrow22:12, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have an authoritative dictionary like the Shorter Oxford that dates the usage of words. It was anecdotal I found out what I now know. In Shrewsbury Cemetery is a gravestone of am army officer, Major Wilmsdorf Mansergh, who the epitaph says "was killed by being thrown from his car" in 1893. When I came across the headstone I thought "first Shropshire motor fatality" but when I later read the account of his death and inquest in the local newspaper of the day I learned the vehicle was horsed. Did Lewis himself leave any written reminiscences that shed more detail on the car that killed his childhood dog or its driver?Cloptonson (talk) 06:43, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have yet to find anything from Lewis himself regarding the matter, but I did find a book called Jack's Life: The Life Story of C.S. Lewis by Douglas Gresham, a stepson of Lewis. In it he writes that the dog was run over "probably by a horse and cart as there were almost no cars in the time and place where he was a child" (the page is viewable through Google Books—the very first page of the first chapter). Of course, this doesn't answer whether "car" referred to a horse-drawn carriage (though your discovery at the cemetery would strongly imply such), but it's a good clarification of the incident, so I think I'll make an edit. Gresham also seems to imply that the dog wasn't actually owned by Lewis but rather was a neighborhood dog. pillowcrow16:48, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.
Please add additional supporting text regarding The Dark Tower:
Nebula-winning Author Gene Wolfe (a practicing Catholic) also felt that "The Dark Tower" was not written by Lewis.
"GW: Oh, yes, The C. S. Lewis Hoax. With Lewis it is posthumous stuff that
apparently is not Lewis at all. I was one of those people who read The Dark
Tower and got very suspicious because I was familiar with Lewis and I
think I am pretty good at spotting styles. ... I think I could write much better imitation C. S. Lewis
than a lot of this supposedly posthumous stuff that is coming out. I could
do it better than this guy does and I think practically any decent writer
could do it better than this guy does, because he’s not a writer. The reason
that there is not more of that than there is, is that the people who can do
it would rather write under their own name and take the credit for themselves. Why should they waste their talent in forging work for a dead man?"
Edit request: The section on Lewis's Trilemma reads more as an attempt to dismiss it than to explain it. The statement that "It has been widely repeated in Christian apologetic literature but largely ignored by professional theologians and biblical scholars." is vastly over-simplified. Yes, there are scholars who dismiss it, but there are an equal number who do not, and therefore it is misleading and editorializing. It should read more that "liberal scholars dismiss it while conservative scholars often embrace it." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.192.1.132 (talk) 19:31, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia talk pages are not forums, nor are they social media. If you have something to add to the article, produce your source. If not, find somewhere else to chat about it. —VeryRarelyStable00:14, 8 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have reverted out information restored in a perfectly good faith edit here [1]. I reverted under WP:ONUS and because I think the initial removal has a point, although perhaps more under WP:DUE than fringe. So the challenged material has:
The Pluralist theologian John Hick claimed that New Testament scholars do not now support the view that Jesus claimed to be God.
The statement is sourced and probably correct inasmuch as Hick said it, but the page is about Lewis, not Hick. If Hick is claiming that as phrased there, we could criticise Hick, but Hick's criticism is not particularly representative of criticism of Lewis. I don't see what it is doing there. Now if Lewis specifically addressed Hick, that would be due, but this, phrased in this way is not a criticism of Lewis' argument per se. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 08:30, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Reading Hick, I think there may be something we could say here that does quote Hick, but what we have is not right. Hick specifically does attack Lewis on page 29, and does base this on his own view that NT scholars do not believe Jesus claimed divinity (but his evidence includes quoting authors that simply dismiss the historicity of the claims in the gospels - a move that does not criticise the argument per se). I think the nub of the argument is that if Jesus did not claim to be God, then the trilemma fails. Hick is not alone in claiming that Jesus did not claim to be God, but he doesn't have the near unanimity he claims either. I think this could be written more clearly and then go back in. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 09:09, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hick's central argument is that Jesus' apparent claims to be God in the Gospels are now generally accepted by scholars to be later additions; that the earliest Christian belief was that Jesus became divine, by the gift of God, upon his resurrection – a view he supports with quotes not only from other scholars but also from the Book of Acts and St Paul's epistle to the Romans. He then addresses Lewis's argument in one sentence:
All this rules out the once popular form of apologetic which argues that someone claiming to be God must be either mad, or bad, or God; and since Jesus was evidently not mad or bad he must have been God (e.g. Lewis 1955, 51-2).
Calling this an attack is a bit of a stretch, I feel. It is a cogent answer to Lewis's argument, but only mentions Lewis himself in passing. I feel we should still mention it, but I do agree it would be better to find someone specifically criticizing Lewis's formulation of the argument on similar grounds.
Recent edits have added a political views section that tells us some thought he was a classical liberal, that he believed in a small state but did not oppose a welfare state, and that he was not an egalitarian but a democratic monarchist. His views on class and gender were essentialist and ultimately he was therefore a conservative. This is perhaps on the back of the attempts to add Lewis as a leading light of political conservatism with a certain template that was added.
I find the whole focus of this section to be wrongheaded, sorry. I think we are starting with a modern set of partisan ideas and concepts and trying to shoehorn Lewis into these. If that is just to claim him for the conservatism template, that would be quite wrong. But in any case, we are starting at the wrong end. We can't take questions like the small state one and try to make those fit with Lewis' thinking based on comments he has made. That looks like WP:OR. Instead we should start with Lewis, and what he said and what he wrote. And on that, there are very few sources on his political thought, because Lewis did not regard himself as a great philosopher - certainly not a political philosopher, and he absolutely eschewed partisan politics, and politicians in general. Every single person who knew him well was perfectly clear that he eschewed politics. His objective in his writings, and his focus, was as a Christian apologist. His beliefs began with a Christian worldview. And note: that does not equate to conservatism, regardless of any modern conception in the US of a religious right.
There is one very good source, however, that does look at his writings and attempts to discern his underlying political views - because yes, every person has some of those. That work is C.S. Lewis on politics and the natural law.[1] Whilst we could make use of that work to describe Lewis' political views, this section would then look quite different. We would have to begin (as they do) with how he disliked partisan politics and politicians and eschewed the political sphere, and thus refused a knighthood. And note the title: the only thing on which he really has a lot to say is the concept of natural law. Not as a partisan viewpoint but grounded in his apologetics. His contributions on the subject, according to Dyer et al, were on Natural law, the importance of moral education and individual freedom. Inasmuch as these are political, we could say that. But they are not partisan, and should not be described as such.
References
^Dyer, Justin Buckley; Watson, Micah Joel (2016). C.S. Lewis on politics and the natural law. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN1107108241.
level-4 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Charliehdb (talk) 12:13, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the 