Will Vaus

Here are the discussion questions for the chapter on Creation in Mere Theology: A Guide to the Thought of C. S. Lewis. I look forward to your responses and discussion. . . . If the creation story in Genesis was derived from earlier Semitic stories how does this affect your view of the creation story? How does Lewis's illustration of creation ex nihilo in The Magician's Nephew affect you? What do you think of Lewis's perspective on the purpose of human creation by God? Do you agree or disagree with Lewis's view of Genesis 1 and Lewis's theistic evolutionary stance? Why? What do you make of Lewis's view of science and scientism? What do you think about the way Lewis rings the changes on the theory of evolution?

This chapter was the first piece I wrote which eventually became Mere Theology . It was originally given as a Lenten lecture to the Anglican Society of Columbia, South Carolina. After refining it a bit, I delivered this chapter as a paper at a C. S. Lewis conference at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, and it was originally published in the bulletin of the New York C. S. Lewis Society. Thus, this chapter has had a long and varied life so far! If I were writing it over again today I might put a few things differently, but that's another story. Here are the questions for discussion. I look forward to hearing your responses. . . . What do you think of Lewis's answer to the question: Why did God give free will to human beings? What do you think Lewis means when he says in Perelandra that predestination and freedom are identical? How does Lewis use the concept of God being outside of time to explain the apparent contradiction between predestination and free will? Is t...