Healing as a Miracle that Came and Disappeared: A Pentecostal Reflection on C.S. Lewis

Abstract

This article explores how C. S. Lewis’s life and theology can contribute to an integrative framework for healing that embraces both biomedicine and charismatic prayer. While Lewis affirmed the value of medical science, he also defended the possibility of miracles as divine interventions consistent with nature’s order. His reflections on petitionary prayer reveal both caution and the potential boldness of prayer that he himself was reluctant to practice. The study highlights Lewis’s personal experience with his wife’s healing and subsequent relapse, showing how grief deepened his theology into a more affective practical form. From a Pentecostal perspective, and within a theology of inaugurated eschatology, the article argues that Lewis’s insights—his critique of scientism, honest exegesis, and spiritual struggle—offer resources for an integrative theology of healing. At the same time, it seeks to complement Lewis’s theology by offering a more developed account of healing and faith understood as charismata.