| C. S. Lewis and Ronald Knox were two of the most popular authors of Christian apologetics in the twentieth century ... and for many years they were neighbors in Oxford. In Second Friends, Milton Walsh delves into their writings and compares their views on a variety of compelling topics, such as the existence of God, the divinity of Christ, the problem of suffering, miracles, the way of Love, the role of religion in society, and prayer. They both bring to the conversation a passionate love of truth, clarity of thought, and a wonderful wit.
Lewis and Knox both had powerful conversion experiences to the Christian faith, an important aspect that Walsh covers in detail. Both wrote about their conversion experiences because they wanted to explain to others why they took that life-changing step. They each valued logical thinking and they professed that the Christian faith should be embraced not only because it is good, but because it is true. Reason provides the intellectual foundation of belief for both authors.
Central to their writings is the theme of “longing”, the desires of the heart which motivates us to seek love and truth. That is why for both apologists Christianity is much more than a doctrinal system: it is above all a personal relationship with Christ that entails romance, struggle and loyalty. Also, a common adjective often applied to Lewis and Knox as writers is “imaginative”. They saw a lack of imagination as a great hurdle to faith, and they believed that imagination is a privileged path leading to a deeper apprehension of the truth.
Lewis and Knox, while convinced that the Christian faith rests on sound reason, and that it fulfils the deepest human longings, also knew that God is a mystery, and so is the human heart. In the face of these twin mysteries, Milton Walsh shows that both men approached their evangelizing efforts in a spirit of humility, as he explores in this book how they appealed to the mind, the heart and the imagination in presenting the Christian faith. |
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