Will Vaus

A critical step to experiencing the forgiveness of God is confessing our sin. Proverbs 28:13 says, "He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy. And 1 John 1:9 says, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." The word for confession in Greek means "to say the same thing". Thus, when we confess our sin to the Lord we are agreeing with him when he tells us in Scripture that certain thoughts, words, or deeds are wrong. Confession of sin can be a very freeing activity. The story is told of a twelve year old boy who had killed one of the family geese by throwing a stone and accidentally hitting the bird on the head. The boy buried the goose and hoped his parents would not know that one of their twenty-four birds was missing. However, that evening the boy's sister called him aside and said, "I saw what you did. If you don...

"The Ascension" by Benjamin West We find the biblical basis for the ascension of Christ in Acts 1:9-11, After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. "Men of Galilee," they said, "why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven." Thus, the first thing we confess in this article of The Apostles' Creed is that Jesus ascended into heaven. But what does that mean? What exactly happened? Allow me to offer this summary of C. S. Lewis' thinking on the matter from my book, Mere Theology .... So how does Lewis handle the apparent crudities of the Ascension story? He points out that the statement that Christ “sat down at the right hand of God” is a metaphor, a p...

Here is more about C. S. Lewis' thinking on creation and evolution from my book, Mere Theology.... As we have already seen, Lewis believed that certain parts of evolutionary theory might be correct, and in the strictly scientific theory of evolution he saw no conflict with the Bible.   However, Lewis strongly held that evolution ism , the belief that life on earth is getting better and better, was a myth.   And by myth, in this instance, he means a picture of reality which results from imagination. [1]   Lewis considers this myth to be a wonderful story, but not one which is true to reality.   He points out that an illegitimate transition is often made from the Darwinian theory in biology to the modern myth of evolutionism, developmentalism, or progress in general.   Lewis documents how the myth arose earlier than Darwin’s theory, in advance of all evidence.   He notes two great works that embody an idea of a universe where the “higher” always supe...

Before we leave the topic of creation, as expressed in The Apostles' Creed, I thought it might be helpful to share a bit of what C. S. Lewis believed about creation and evolution. The following is taken from my book, Mere Theology.... Lewis makes it clear in The Problem of Pain that he believes that animals existed long before men. [1]   This is one of the tenets he accepts from the evolutionists.   For Lewis, this does not conflict with the biblical teaching about the creation of the first human beings or the creation days of Genesis 1.   Remember that for Lewis, the early chapters of Genesis are told in the form of a folk tale .   Therefore, it could be argued, that Lewis viewed the creation days of Genesis 1 as a literary framework, rather than viewing them as six, twenty-four hour days. [2]   According to Lewis, the Bible does not limit us to belief in any definite period of time in which the creation of man followed the creation of animals. Le...

One of the most famous of all of Ezekiel’s visions is that of the valley of dry bones in chapter 37. The Lord asks the prophet, “Mortal, can these bones live?” And Ezekiel responds, “O Lord God, you know.” That is a good answer. Only God knows if something that is dead can be brought back to life. Only the Lord can bring that something, or someone, back to the land of the living. Then the Lord tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones and say, “O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.” This shows us that the word of God is an essential ingredient to the giving of spiritual life. But there is another essential ingredient as well. “Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.” The words for breath and wind in this chapter are the same as the word for spirit. Furthermore, we are told that the dry bones that are brought back to life are the whole house of Israel, God’s people. This is a picture of spiritual resurr...

I began the day by walking past the Headington Shark on my way into Oxford. Once in town I made my way up the tower of The University Church of St. Mary the Virgin and enjoyed this lovely view of the High Street. I have tried to do some things on this trip that I have never done before, like using my Bodleian Reader's Card to see the inside of the Radcliffe Camera. Sorry I don't have any photos for you of the inside. That is rather frowned upon I think. However, I did make my way through the underground Gladstone Link (seeing the Bodleian copy of my book "Mere Theology" along the way). Traversing the underground link I "arose from the grave" into the Old Bodleian and saw parts of that I had not seen before. Beautiful! Here's a photo of the outside of the Old Bodleian.... Continuing my photographic journey across central Oxford we come to a place quite familiar to viewers of Inspector Morse and Lewis.... Not far from the Thames Valle...

It was a lot of fun speaking to the Chattanooga C. S. Lewis Society last night. Thanks to all the good people who were in attendance for making it such a good night and special thanks to my gracious hosts, David and Sheila Beckmann. To learn more about the group click here: http://www.cslewischatt.blogspot.com/ The topic last night was my book, Mere Theology , which the group has been discussing for the past three or four months. Great questions were put forward by many in the group, including this one: "What would C. S. Lewis say to Harold Camping?" Afterwards, I signed copies of my new book, Speaking of Jack: A C. S. Lewis Discussion Guide . I was delighted to connect with a number of friends at the meeting. Sadly I didn't get photos with all of them. One surprise was having Bill and Sarah DeWaters there. They are friends from a church I served in Pennsylvania years ago. Also, Debbie Higgins, resident director at The Kilns, C. S. Lewis' former home in Oxfor...

During my recent trip to Oxford I visited a number of graves. One of the church yards I visited was that of the Church of St. Cross, Holywell, pictured above. Walter Hooper writes of this church in C. S. Lewis: Companion & Guide , p. 781, Many of Lewis's friends and acquaintances lie in the cemetery adjacent to this ancient church in St Cross Road, Oxford. The earliest parts of the church date from the late 11th or early 12th century, but most of what is seen was added during the 14th-16th centuries. Charles Williams went to services here during his years in Oxford, and Dorothy L. Sayers chose it for the 'marriage' of Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane in Busman's Honeymoon . The cemetery contains the graves of many notable people, among whom are : Stella Aldwinckle; Sir Maurice Bowra (1898-1971), Warden of Wadham College; H.V.D. 'Hugo' Dyson; Austin Farrer; Katherine Farrer; Kenneth Grahame (1859-1932), author of The Wind in the Willows ; Lord Redcliffe-...

Mere Theology: A Guide to the Thought of C. S. Lewis has now been published in Korean by Knowledge and Love Press, an imprint of Revival and Reformation Press. Strange it is to look at the cover of a book I know I wrote and not even be able to discern my own name in print!

KC: I think a lot of people that will probably be reading this interview are Taylor students that are aspiring to be writers. Something interesting I found while I was researching Lewis a little bit was that only four people showed up to his first lecture in the university. WV: And he went from four to four hundred. KC: Right; he became very popular. A lot of writers, even if we do have success eventually, are going to have a lot of failure at first. Did you have a time where you were discouraged with trying to get your works published, or do you have any advice for student writers who are discouraged? WV: I was spoiled in that the first work I tried to get published was published relatively quickly. It took me a number of years to write Mere Theology. Once I had it all together, I started looking for a publisher in 2001 and it was published in 2004. I didn't realize it at the time but that was pretty incredible--the first time out of the chute--to get something publis...

This past November, the Taylor University Center for C. S. Lewis Studies invited me to deliver a presentation on Lewis's life and works. During my visit to Taylor I was interviewed by Kelli Conners, on the staff of Parnassus, Taylor's journal of literature and the arts. Throughout the interview we discussed the various elements and techniques Lewis used as a Christian writer impacting a secular world and how Lewis's philosophy, in turn, has influenced my own literary career. That interview is now re-produced here. (For more information about Parnassus click here: http://www.taylor.edu/academics/acaddepts/english/parnassus.shtml .) Kelli Conners: First, I have a few questions about the writing process in general. When you sit down to write, how much of a plan do you have? Is it something where you know where a piece is going, or is it a sentence-by-sentence process? Will Vaus: A sentence at a time sounds good. Each book is so different. When I wrote Mere Theology ,...

On Friday, February 6 I had the privilege of speaking to the 9th grade class at New Covenant Christian School in Lynchburg, Virginia. The class is studying the life and theology of C. S. Lewis under the direction of Chaplain Bart Martin. (I wish I could have taken a class on Lewis's theology when I was in 9th grade!) The class had wonderful questions following my powerpoint presentation on Lewis's life. In the photo above you can see them all holding up their copies of Mere Christianity. They all seemed to identify with my high school experience of struggling through the first part of MC. But I assured them there are good things in store in that book to which they can look forward. They are also reading The Screwtape Letters and using my two books on Lewis ( Mere Theology and The Professor of Narnia) as references.

My visit to Chicago would not have been complete without a stop at InterVarsity Press, publishers of my first book, Mere Theology: A Guide to the Thought of C. S. Lewis. It was astonishing to me, several years ago, as a new author, that a book could be published without the publisher and author ever meeting. But such was the case. So last week was my first visit to IVP. I got to see the warehouse where books are stored and orders fulfilled: More importantly, I enjoyed lunch with my excellent editor, Gary Deddo:

I know, I know. It has been a long time since I posted anything on this blog--six weeks or more! Mea culpa! Well, here is the next installment of discussion questions on Mere Theology: A Guide to the Thought of C. S. Lewis . These discussion questions are for chapter 9 on forgiveness: Where are you in terms of "preparing for forgiveness"? What do you think of the definition of forgiveness given in this chapter? Has theoretical belief in God's forgiveness of your sins become a reality for you? Explain. How are you doing at forgiving others? Do you find any of Lewis's suggestions helpful toward that end? What are your thoughts about confessing sins to a spiritual director? I look forward to reading your responses. . . .

Here are the discussion questions for chapter 8 of Mere Theology: A Guide to the Thought of C. S. Lewis : Is the person and work of the Holy Spirit somewhat mysterious to you as it was to Lewis? Why or why not? What do you think of Lewis's view that the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives is more important than the feeling of his presence? Do you agree with Lewis about speaking in tongues? Why or why not? Do you think God speaks to himself through us, as Lewis suggests in his interpretation of Romans 8:26? Which way of God speaking to us do you think is the most important - Scripture, the church, friends, other books? Why? I look forward to reading your responses. And here is one more question: Why do you think Lewis writes so little about the Holy Spirit?

A new year is upon us, and life has finally settled down long enough, after the holidays, for me to post something on this blog. Some who read this blog may have forgotten that we have a discussion ongoing about my book Mere Theology! We left off, some time ago, with some questions posed on the chapter about the Fall, to which there were no comments. This implies one of three things: (1) Perhaps no one out there in the blogosphere is interested in discussing Mere Theology any more. (I won't be terribly hurt if that is the case.) Or perhaps (2) no one is interested in discussing the Fall. (While I understand it is not the most pleasant topic, avoiding discussion of the Fall and Sin seems to be a modern disease which may have roots in the reality of the Fall itself!) Or (3) maybe no one responded to my blog about the Fall because everyone else, like me, fell into a seemingly endless line of parties, shopping, school concerts and more for the past month! Whatever the reason...

Here are the discussion questions on the chapter on "The Fall" from Mere Theology: How does Lewis's view of the Fall story in Genesis 3 as myth affect your view of the doctrine of the Fall? What do you think of Lewis's view that political equality is necessitated by the Fall? How does Lewis's view of death as punishment, mercy and/or safety device impact you? Do you agree or disagree with Lewis's arguments against total depravity? Why? How did you appreciate Lewis's treatment of the Fall in Perelandra and The Magician's Nephew ? I look forward to hearing your thoughts. . . .

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...

We are up to chapter 3 in our discussion of Mere Theology: A Guide to the Thought of C. S. Lewis . Here are some discussion questions to get us started on this chapter on the Trinity: Do you think Norman Pittenger's criticism of Lewis's teaching on the Trinity was fair or not? Does Lewis's explanation of how the doctrine of the Trinity developed seem reasonable? Which one of Lewis's Trinitarian analogies best helps you to understand and embrace the Christian doctrine of the Trinity: the cube? the prayer closet? the books? the relationship between imagination, image and will? love? or the Great Dance? Why? What do you think of the Trinitarian images in Lewis's fiction? Do these images make the Trinity more attractive or understandable to you? Feel free to chip in your thoughts apart from these questions, or raise a question of your own.