In the '90s, +Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia published two articles that explored C.S. Lewis as an "anonymous Orthodox." Kallistos identified a few "points of convergence" in Lewis's thought and the Orthodox tradition (e.g., the "sacramental character of creation"). I think theosis, that is, progressive divinization of the Christian person, is the most important biblical emphasis of Orthodoxy. And it is here that Lewis and Orthodoxy are most closely aligned.
But Lewis's depiction of the Christian's transformation into the image of Christ is not reliant on Orthodox theology. Rather, both Lewis and Orthodoxy find their stimulus in St. Paul. Paul's imagery is at the root of a Christ mysticism, expressed in Orthodox theosis and Lewis's many images in "Beyond Personality." Lewis was an excellent interpreter of St. Paul, especially in book four of his Mere Christianity.
For St. Paul, the Christian life begins with one's "yes" to God: God offers (grace) and the person accepts (faith). This simple exchange begins the process of transforming the person from within. The person "in Christ" (St. Paul's term) receives God's Spirit within, and God recreates and empowers (charisma) her. "Fruits of the Spirit" (Gal 5:22f.) and/or "good works" (Eph 2:10) are the positive outcomes of the inner regeneration, new life that has begun and is slowly "conforming" the person in Christ into the "image of the Son" (Rom 8:39). And the change within the person includes a remarkable change in the Christ-communities, a unity that destroys the ethnic, class, and gender boundaries that haunt human life together (Gal 3:28). As a group the Christ-people are his "body," transformed by baptism into his death (1 Cor 12:12) and the sharing of his blood and body (1 Cor 10:16-17), equipped by the Spirit to teach and serve each other and the world (1 Cor 12:4-7).
St. Paul's scheme is well reflected in Lewis's Mere Christianity, especailly book four, "Beyond Personality":
“The whole purpose for which we exist is to be thus taken into the life of God.”
“And that is precisely what Christianity is about. This world is a great sculptor’s shop. We are the statues and there is a rumour going round the shop that some of us are some day going to come to life.”
“Now the whole offer which Christianity makes is this: that we can, if we let God have His way, come to share in the life of Christ. If we do, we shall then be sharing a life which was begotten, not made, which always has existed and always will exist. Christ is the Son of God. If we share in this kmd of life we also shall be sons of God. We shall love the Father as He does and the Holy Ghost will arise in us. He came to this world and became a man in order to spread to other men the kind of life He has—by what I call ‘good infection.’ Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else.”
“In the last chapter we were considering the Christian idea of ‘putting on Christ,’ or first ‘dressing up’ as a son of God in order that you may finally become a real son. What I want to make clear is that this is not one among many jobs a Christian has to do; and it is not a sort of special exercise for the top class. It is the whole of Christianity. Christianity offers nothing else at all.”
“When He said, ‘Be perfect,’ He meant it. He meant that we must go in for the full treatment. It is hard; but the sort of compromise we are all hankering after is harder—in fact, it is impossible. It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad. ¶ This is the whole of Christianity. There is nothing else.… the Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became Man for no other purpose. It is even doubtful, you know, whether the whole universe was created for any other purpose.”
“What we have been told is how we men can be drawn into Christ—can become part of that wonderful present which the young Prince of the universe wants to offer to His Father—that present which is Himself and therefore us in Him. It is the only thing we were made for. And there are strange, exciting hints in the Bible that when we are drawn in, a great many other things in Nature win begin to come right. The bad dream will be over: it will be morning.”
My point is, then, that although +Kallistos is justified in looking at Lewis as an "anonymous Orthodox," the most meaningful similarity that one finds between Lewis and Orthodoxy is actually a family likeness of those who have looked with St. Paul at the reality and purpose of Christ-likeness. There are many Christian traditions that claim St. Paul as their own, but have significantly missed his vision of life in Christ. Lewis and the Orthodox tradition have not. [7.4.08]
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