Reason and imagination: Clive Staples Lewis’ paths to Christianity
Reason and imagination: Clive Staples Lewis’ paths to Christianity

Summary/Abstract: The article explains the dialectic of reason and imagination in the journey to Christianity of Clive Staple Lewis. The road that led Lewis to Christianity was not a simple one. His quest for a comprehensive worldview was prompted by two seemingly irreconcilable forces, the intellect and imagination. Gradually, Lewis discovered how reason was the key to every apprehension of truth that brought him from one stage of his intellectual journey to the next. Meanwhile, he deduced that intellectual reflection resulted after something is perceived and appreciated primarily through the imagination. This later became the paradigm he reproduced as a Christian story-teller. Lewis’ accomplishment in retaining the necessary interrelation of reason and imagination in his writings classifies him as a “reasoning romantic”; the needed catalyst to precipitate the romantic-rational blend was the very object he had feared, Christianity itself. Lewis’ life and writings are evidence that reason, imagination and holiness are not exclusively separate characteristics but can form an integrated whole.

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