A Philosophical Walking Tour with C. S. Lewis: Why it Did Not Include Rome
Overview
Although it has been almost seventy years since Time declared C.S. Lewis one of the world’s most influential spokespersons for Christianity and fifty years since Lewis’s death, his influence remains just as great if not greater today.
While much has been written on Lewis and his work, virtually nothing has been written from a philosophical perspective on his views of happiness, pleasure, pain, and the soul and body. As a result, no one so far has recognized that his views on these matters are deeply interesting and controversial, and-perhaps more jarring-no one has yet adequately explained why Lewis never became a Roman Catholic. Stewart Goetz’s careful investigation of Lewis’s philosophical thought reveals oft-overlooked implications and demonstrates that it was, at its root, at odds with that of Thomas Aquinas and, thereby, the Roman Catholic Church.
- Explores the philosophical thought of C. S. Lewis
- Examines the influence of Thomas Aquinas on Lewis
- Explains why Lewis never became a Roman Catholic
- Introduction
- C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, and Roman Catholicism
- C. S. Lewis on Happiness, Pleasure, and Pain
- C. S. Lewis on Soul and Body
- Thomas Aquinas on Happiness, Pleasure, and Pain
- Thomas Aquinas on Soul and Body
- C. S. Lewis in Defense of Common Sense
Why didn’t C. S. Lewis’s religious journey end in Rome? Stewart Goetz suggests that the answer involves a theoretical quarrel with Thomas Aquinas about pleasure and the soul. It is a provocative thesis, carefully argued.
—Christian Century (reviewed by Dennis O’Brien)
A book all interested in C. S. Lewis will want to read.
—Church of England Newspaper
This is the most intellectually satisfying book on C. S. Lewis I have read. Because of Goetz’s meticulous and respectful attention to Lewis’s thought, as required for accurate treatment of his philosophical opinions, all that he says consequently about his subject bears the mark of this fair and careful reasoning. He is convincing on Lewis’s differences with the received Catholic philosophy of his time; nothing in it is careless, facile, or partisan, and he blesses in particular Catholic readers who love Lewis with his conviction that inability to join the Catholic Church was based primarily on honorable difficulties with Thomism … [A] must-read book.
—Touchstone (reviewed by S. M. Hutchens, senior editor of Touchstone)
- Title: A Philosophical Walking Tour with C. S. Lewis: Why it Did Not Include Rome
- Author: Stewart Goetz
- Publisher: Bloomsbury
- Print Publication Date: 2014
- Pages: 200
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- ISBNs: 9781628923179, 1628923172
- Resource ID: LLS:PHLSPHCLWLKNGRM
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2023-03-02T22:03:18Z
Stewart Goetz is the Ross Frederick Wicks Distinguished Professor in Philosophy and Religion at Ursinus College, USA. His previous books include The Soul Hypothesis (co-edited with Mark Baker, 2011), A Brief History of the Soul (co-authored with Charles Taliaferro, 2011), The Purpose of Life: A Theistic Perspective (2012), The Routledge Companion to Theism (co-edited with Charles Taliaferro and Victoria Harrison, 2012), and A Philosophical Walking Tour with C. S. Lewis (2015). He is the Series Editor of Bloomsbury Studies in Philosophy and Religion.