Lewis

1
Lewis Laughter

• He was a man of laughter and surprises, of jokes
  and joyand had a sunny heart
  

2
What is humor?

• The ability to perceive, enjoy, or express
  what is amusing, comical, incongruous, or absurd.

3

• In a world of Christian rationalism, does humor
  have a place?
  
• If so. . .

What purpose does humor serve?
Where do we find humor?
Can it be beneficialeven the absurd?
Why would C.S. LewisOxford professor, hard-nosed
rationalist, and superb arguer of the Christian
faith (a very serious thing indeed) spend time on
the enjoyment of humor?
4

• Humor allows us to see through this world, into
  the next, and thereby to better understand this
  world.

It relieves us of the stress of this world
It lets us have proper perspective on this world
in light of what we know to be true
It allows us to laugh briefly before seeing
wisdom
Humor often begins in cleverness and ends in
wisdom
It allows us to enjoy each other and this world
around us
5
As a Child
Lewis dry wit developed as a sort of bridge to
his brother and over his father, who could be
sitting, Lewis wrote in his armchair, sometimes
appeared not so much incapable of understanding
anything as determined to misunderstand
everything.
Childhood the building blocks of laughter
The humor the Lewis boys developed then was a
sympathetic and rebellious foot hold in sanity
under his fathers convoluted logic.

6

• As he invariably got proper names wrong (no
  name seemed to him less probable than another).
  His textus receptus was often almost
  unrecognizable. Tell him a boy named Churchwood
  had caught a field mouse and kept it as a pet,
  and a year, or ten years later, he would ask you,
  Did you ever hear what became of poor Chickweed
  who was so afraid of rats?Surprised by Joyvia
  Surprised by Laughter

With this example to be up against, one can see
the path to logic and reason that Lewis preferred
to take. However, his father did pass on to him
a love of comedic writers (ex. Dickens) who would
later influence the little Lewis to guide his
reader through his maze of logic by way of
amusement.
7
Surprised by Joy

• As weve discussed, after a step to theism and
  a bike ride to the zoo, Lewis finally turns this
  joy, manifested in his physical amusement and
  wit, to God.

(For main point, see below.)
He realized that the source of the joy was what
he had been seeking all of his years
8

• Thus, he was able to see that the joy and
  laughter he found fighting in WWI, reading
  Dickens, or molding in his own stories were all
  part of a greater joy that could have been an
  expression of God. However, there is joy in the
  dance, but it does not exist for the sake of
  joy. Humor, like any created good, can be
  corrupt (whoa! DCM!). So, watch it.

In this realization, Lewis talked about a
hierarchy wherein humor bowed to love and then
love to God. This meant one could be part of the
chain by experiencing any of these in life. He
talked much more about their mingling for
example, how a mother laughs at a child out of
her love. But now Im getting ahead of the
slidesoh dear.
9
Humor in Fun

• Lewis had a broad view of humor that included
  far more than wordplay, jokes, or slapstick
  comedy. For Lewis, humor was part of the
  enjoyment of life from pots of tea in the garden
  to pints of draught in the pub, from wind racing
  through ones hair in a motorcycle ride to a
  well-played game of chess.

10

• In his stories, Lewis characters often engage
  in feasting, dancing, singing, music, chasing,
  hunting, joking, and a thousand other activities
  that show their exuberance in lifethe details of
  life.

11
Humor in Words

• A few quotes for your enjoymentand some more
  on your handout

12
Why Didn't We Think of That?

• I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the
  really foolish thing that people often say about
  Him Im ready to accept Jesus as a great moral
  teacher, but I dont accept His claim to be God.
  That is the one thing we must not say. A man who
  was merely a man and said the sort of things
  Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He
  would either be a lunaticon a level with the man
  who says he is a poached eggor else he would be
  the Devil of Hell."

13
Sarcasm Used to Challenge

• Love anything and your heart will be wrung
  and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of
  keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not
  even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with
  hobbies and little luxuries avoid all
  entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or
  coffin of your selfishness. But in that
  casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will
  change. It will not be broken it will become
  unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love
  is to be vulnerable.

14
A Laugh at Contradiction

• It is no good asking for a simple religion.
  After all, real things are not simple...If we ask
  for something more than simplicity, it is silly
  then to complain that the something more is not
  simple. Very often, however, this silly procedure
  is adopted by people who are not silly, but who,
  consciously or unconsciously, want to destroy
  Christianity. Such people put up a version of
  Christianity suitable for a child of six and make
  that the object of their attack. When you try to
  explain the Christian doctrine as it is really
  held by an instructed adult, they then complain
  that you are making their heads turn round and
  that it is all too complicated and that if there
  really were a God they are sure He would have
  made 'religion' simple, because simplicity is so
  beautiful, etc...Notice, too, their idea of God
  'making religion simple' as if 'religion' were
  something God invented, and not His statement to
  us of certain quite unalterable facts about His
  own nature.

15
Presented by
Daniel Coleman

• Jeff Guerrero

Anita Rice
Noelle Smallish