C.S. Lewis's theology of animals

In defending the existence of Satan, Lewis encounters the objection that such a belief is contrary to the `climate of opinion.' He replies: `Now I take a very low view of "climates of opinion". In his own subject every man knows that all discoveries are made and all errors corrected by those who ignore the "climate of opinion".'52 Perhaps the most important legacy of Lewis to theology is the realisation that its most creative work may be carried out by outsiders to the Inner Ring, those who have the tenacity and courage to grasp those issues not favoured by the current climate of opinion.' Earlier versions of this paper were presented to Moravian College, Pennsylvania and to the C. S. Lewis Society at Oxford University. I am grateful to Michael Ward and Walter Hooper for encouraging me to publish. Responsibility for the views expressed remains, of course, my own.

C. S. Lewis, `The Inner Ring' in The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (New York: Macmillan, 1949), pp. 62-65.

Some account of his struggles is given in A. N. Wilson, C. S. Lewis: A Biography (London: Collins, 1990), esp. pp. 148ff.

3 Lewis, The Problemof Pain (hereafter PP) (London: Collins, 1940), p. 117. Lewis and C. E. Ivf. Joad, `On the Pains of Animals', (hereafter OPA) The Month, vol. 3, no. 2 (February 1950), p. 98; extract in Andrew Linzey and Tom Regan (eds.), Animals and Christianity: A Book of Readings (hereafter AAC) (London: SPCK and New York: Crossroad, 1989), pp. 55-62.

' Lewis, Vivisection (hereafter ViV) foreword by George R. Farnum (Boston, MA: New England Anti-Vivisection Society, 1947), p. 1; my emphases; extract in AAC, ibid, pp. 160-164. Some people unaware of Lewis's interest in animals wonder

how he came to write a major anti-vivisectionist tract. Apparently, the then ViceChancellor of Oxford University, Sir Richard Livingstone, drew the attention of his friend George R. Farnum, President of the New England Anti-Vivisection Society, to Lewis's book PP, and Farnum subsequently wrote to Lewis. During their correspondence (sadly no longer in the NEAVS' archives and presumably lost), Lewis was invited to write, or offered to write, the above essay. It was published as a pamphlet by a variety of anti-sivisection societies both in the United Kingdom and the United States, including the British Union for the Abolition of Viv-isection and the National Anti-Vivisection Society, until the later 1970s. Also collected in Valter Hooper (ed), Undeceptions: Essays on Theology and Ethics (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1952), pp. 182-186.

6 Charles E. Raven, The Creator Spirit (London: Macmillan, 1927), p. 120; cited and discussed in A. R. Kingston, `Theodicy and Animal Welfare', Theology, vol. LXX, no. 569 (November 1967), pp. 482-88, and extract in AAC, ibid, pp. 71-78.

7 Peter Geach, Providence and Evil (Cambridge: CUP, 1977), p. 77; extract in AAC, ibid, pp. 52-55.

Joad, in OPA, ibid, p. 97; AAC, ibid, p. 59. 9 Lewis, PP, ibid, pp. 122-123.

10 Res,ised terminology in discussion with Joad: `Moral corruption is not the only kind of corruption. But the word corruption was perhaps ill-chosen and invited misunderstanding. Distortion would have been safer', Lewis in OPA, ibid, p. 102; original emphases; in AAC, ibid, p. 62. Lewis, PP, ibid, p. 124.