On the apologetic relevance of C. S. Lewis’s theology of unfulfilled desires: From argument to experience

Abstract

In this article we reconstruct C. S. Lewis’s theology of unfulfilled desires and evaluate its relevance to contemporary Christian apologetics. On the one hand, we criticize those who claim that Lewis offered no argument from desire. We conclude that Lewis offered an argument though with low evidential value. On the other hand, we criticized those who see nothing but the argument in Lewis’s theology. Lewis was not primarily interested in the argumentative side of the phenomenon of unfulfilled desires but in its lived and experienced dimensions. Further, we argue that it is precisely in this respect that Lewis’s ideas are still relevant to contemporary Christian apologetics. Lewis did not merely (or primarily) present a (weak) argument for transcendence. He presented an attractive interpretation of a universal phenomenon plausibly revealing the presence of transcendence in ordinary human life. Further, such an interpretation, while pointing beyond this world, maintains an attractive openness to nature, culture and earthly joys without worshiping them.