Abolition of Man or, Reflections on Education with Special Reference to the Teaching of English in the Upper Forms of School, Bles 1946, Fount 1978 US: Macmillan 1947, Macmillan Paperback 1965
Christian Reflections, Bles 1967, Fount 1981, 1998 US: Eerdmans 1967
Christian Reunion, Fount 1990
Compelling Reason, Fount 1996, 1998 (formerly Undeceptions and First and Second Things–see below)
The Dark Tower and Other Stories, Collins 1977, Fount 1983, 1998 US: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Harvest/HBJ paperback 1977
Fern-seed and Elephants and Other Essays, Fontana 1975, Fount 1977, 1998
First and Second Things: Essays on Theology and Ethics, Fontana 1971, Fount 1985
God in the Dock–Essays on Theology and Ethics, (US) Eerdmans hardback 1970 UK: Undeceptions–(see below)
God in the Dock–Essays on Theology, Fontana 1979, Fount 1979, 1998 (This sedition is much shorter than the American one)
Of Other Worlds– Essays and Stories, Bles 1966 US: Harcourt, Brace & World 1967, Harvest Book paperback 1975
Of This and Other Worlds, Collins 1982, Fount 2000 (The contents are not exactly the same as those of Of Other Worlds)
Present Concerns, Fount 1986, 1991 US: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, Harvest/HBJ paperback 1987
Rehabilitations and Other Essays, Oxford University Press 1939
Selected Literary Essays, Cambridge University Press 1969
The Screwtape Letters and Screwtape Proposes a Toast, Bles 1961 US: Macmillan 1962; revised Macmillan Paperback 1982
Screwtape Proposes a Toast and Other Pieces, Fontana 1965, Fount 1977, 1998
Surprised by Joy–The Shape of My Early Life, Bles 1955, Fontana 1959, Fount 1977
They Asked for a Paper–Papers and Addresses, Bles 1962
Timeless at Heart–Essays on Theology, Fount 1987, 1991
Transposition and Other Addresses, Bles, 1949
US: The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses, Macmillan 1949 (see also The Weight of Glory below)
Undeceptions–Essays on Theology and Ethics UK edition of (US) God in the Dock (1970), Bles 1971
The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (revised and expanded edition) US: Macmillan Paperbacks 1980
The World’s Last Night and Other Essays (US) Harcourt, Brace & World 1960
This was preached in St Jude on the Hill Church, London, and later published in The Guardian (27 April 1945). It was reproduced in Undeceptions (1971) and God in the Dock (1998).
One is very often asked at present whether we could not have a Christianity stripped, or, as people who ask it say, ‘freed’ from its miraculous elements, a Christianity with the miraculous elements suppressed. Now, it seems to me that precisely the one religion in the world, or, at least, the only one I know, with which you could not do that is Christianity. In a religion like Buddhism, if you took away the miracles attributed to Gautama Buddha in some very late sources, there would be no loss; in fact, the religion would get on very much better without them because in that case the miracles largely contradict the teaching. Or even in the case of a religion like Mohammedanism, nothing essential would be altered if you took away the miracles. You could have a great prophet preaching his dogmas without bringing in any miracles; they are only in the nature of a digression, or illuminated capitals. But you cannot possibly do that with Christianity, because the Christian story is precisely the story of one grand miracle, the Christian assertion being that what is beyond all space and time, what is uncreated, eternal, came into nature, into human nature, descended into His own universe, and rose again, bringing nature up with Him. It is precisely one great miracle. If you take that away there is nothing specifically Christian left. There may be many admirable human things which Christianity shares with all other systems in the world, but there would be nothing specifically Christian. Conversely, once you have accepted that, then you will see that all other well-established Christian miracles–because, of course, there are ill-established Christian miracles; there are Christian legends just as much as there are heathen legends, or modern journalistic legends–you will see that all the well-established Christian miracles are part of it, that they all either prepare for, or exhibit, or result from the Incarnation. Just as every natural event exhibits the total character of the natural universe at a particular point and space of time; so every miracle exhibits the character of the Incarnation.
Now, if one asks whether that central grand miracle in Christianity is itself probable or improbable, of course, quite clearly you cannot be applying Hume’s1 kind of probability. You cannot mean a probability based on statistics according to which the more often a thing has happened, the more likely it is to happen again (the more often you get indigestion from eating a certain food, the more probable it is, if you eat it again, that you will again have indigestion). Certainly the Incarnation cannot be probable in that sense. It is of its very nature to have happened only once. But then it is of the very nature of the history of this world to have happened only once; and if the Incarnation happened at all, it is the central chapter of that history. It is improbable in the same way in which the whole of nature is improbable, because it is only there once, and will happen only once. So one must apply to it a quite different kind of standard.
I think we are rather in this position. Supposing you had before you a manuscript of some great work, either a symphony or a novel. There then comes to you a person, saying, ‘Here is a new bit of the manuscript that I found; it is the central passage of that symphony, or the central chapter of that novel. The text is incomplete without it. I have got the missing passage which is really the centre of the whole work.’ The only thing you could do would be to put this new piece of the manuscript in that central position, and then see how it reacted on the whole of the rest of the work. If it constantly brought out new meanings for the whole of the rest of the work, if it made you notice things in the rest of the work which you had not noticed before, then I think you would decide that it was authentic. On the other hand, if it failed to do that, then, however attractive it was in itself, you would reject it.
Now, what is the missing chapter in this case, the chapter which Christians are offering? The story of the Incarnation is the story of a descent and resurrection. When I say ‘resurrection’ here, I am not referring simply to the first few hours, or the first few weeks of the Resurrection. I am talking of this whole, huge pattern of descent, down, down, and then up again. What we ordinarily call the Resurrection being just, so to speak, the point at which it turns. Think what that descent is. The coming down, not only into humanity, but into those
