C.S. Lewis and Psychology (IV) 

C.S. Lewis and Psychology (IV)

Lewis's Pilgrim's Regress presents us with a school of philosophy, led by Mr. Wisdom. (Definitely not to be confused With Reason, the imperious female).

Mr. Wisdom claims to have arrived at the truth of the human condition, even though he has stopped well short of the destination that the pilgrim eventually reaches. He says it is an error to believe heaven and hell, and the places by which John is learning to orient his life are real; but it is also an error to believe that they are merely illusions. "...the wise man, ruling his passions with reason and disciplined imagination, withdraws himself to the middle point between these two errors, having found that the truth lies there...."

The gist seems to be that there probably is something truly good "out there" somewhere, and it is what we mean when we think there is an ultimate goal to life. But if there is such a thing, it must be so good that to actually attain it could only lessen it. At the same time, the striving for it brings out a lot of "high" attainments, so it should not be given up. "Abandon hope: do not abandon desire." One of Mr. Wisdom's students says that the other lands which are actually visible across a chasm are "not an illusion," but "an appearance." "It is a true appearance, too, in a sense...But don't think you can get there."

The big joke in this part of the book is that Mr. Wisdom believes he has arrived at way of life which is satisfactory, or should be, to all his students. Mr. Wisdom offers his guests "a loaf, and cheese, and a dish of fruite, with some curds, and butter-milk," but no wine. (Isn't this now called the new California cuisine, or something?) Without telling him, all his students sneak out at night to enjoy champagne, cold chickenand tongue, and hashish. More intriguing, some delicacies come from religious believers, who might seduce these young philosophy students away from Mr. Wisdom. There is claret from "Mother Kirk," caviar from the Theosophists, and brandy from "Mr. Savage's dwarfs" (followers of Nietzsche, including, surprisingly, Marx). In fact the students are powerfully drawn to one sect or cult another--Mr. Wisdom's example is not seductive or persuasive to any of them.

We learn more near the end of the book, when the now saved pilgrim goes by Limbo. Who lives there? he asks.
The Guide replies:

"Very few live there, and they are all men like old Mr. Wisdom--men who have kept alive and pure the deep desire of the soul but through some fatal flaw, of pride or sloth or, it may be, timidity, have refused till the end the only means to its fulfilment; taking huge pains, often, to prove to themselves that the fulfilment is impossible....To stay long where he lives requires both a strange strength and a strange weakness. As for their sufferings, it is their doom to live for ever in desire without hope."

Is the Landlord being unduly harsh with such people? They are permanently left with a desire for something high. John says, in language that goes back to his original desire for an island: "Even the wanting, though it is pain too, is more precious than anything else we experience." The Mr. Wisdom-types never become corrupted.

To a great extent this is borrowed from Dante's Inferno (Canto IV).
As one site from the University of Texas says:

"The concept of Limbo--a region on the edge of hell (limbus means "hem" or "border") for those who are not saved even though they did not sin--exists in Christian theology by Dante's time, but the poet's version of this region is more generous than most. Dante's Limbo--technically the first circle of hell--includes virtuous non-Christian adults in addition to unbaptized infants. We thus find here many of the great heroes, thinkers, and creative minds of ancient Greece and Rome as well as such medieval non-Christians as Saladin, Sultan of Egypt in the late twelfth century, and the great Islamic philosophers Avicenna (Ibn Sina) and Averroes (Ibn Rushd). For Dante, Limbo was also the home of major figures from the Hebrew Bible, who--according to Christian theology--were "liberated" by Jesus following his crucifixion." Someone else on the web suggests that Dante is clearly putting himself above everyone in Limbo, since he goes onward and upward.


Here we find wise people living "in desire without hope (che sanza speme vivemo in disio). I'm not sure they're as much to blame in Dante as they are in Lewis. Lewis, without getting into Old Testament heroes, poets, Moslems, or unbaptized infants, says the non-Christian philosophers "suffer a fatal flaw, of pride or sloth or, it may be, timidity." Dante says simply that they came before Christianity, and "did not worship God as one must (non adorar debitamente a Dio). "For such defects, and not for other guilt (Per tai difetti, non per altro rio) they live as they do.

This sounds like the life that Socrates says in Plato's Apology would be quite enjoyable for a philosopher. Dante certainly provides a basis for a discussion as to whether there is any reason to leave limbo.