Into the Wardrobe

For my own clarification, what moral law would he have been breaking were he to have had a relationship with Mrs. Moore? Sex outside of marriage?

Here again is my argument that Lewis's relationship with the Moores is the episode omitted from SBJ, and this is the last that I will have to say in this thread:

• Lewis says in SBJ that he is omitting "one huge and complex episode" that occurred (or began) around the time of his return to Oxford after the war. We know of such an episode -- his relationship with Mrs Moore and her daughter. Note that I am not making any claim as to the exact nature of that relationship--it is not relevant to this argument. It is beyond dispute that around 1919 he began a close domestic relationship with the Moores, which lasted over three decades. By all accounts, the relationship was a difficult one, particularly toward the end of Mrs Moore's life, but Lewis remained loyal and supportive. We also know from the correspondence of Albert and Warren Lewis that the relationship caused consternation among Lewis's relatives, and strained his relationships with them. Thus it seems both huge and complex.

• He makes no mention whatsoever in SBJ of the Moores.

• Moordarjeeling contends that there may be another huge episode omitted about which we know nothing. If there were such another episode, would Lewis not have said in SBJ that he was omitting "two" or "several huge and complex episodes"? He clearly uses the singular, in the word "one".

• Therefore, since he has omitted mention of the Moores from SBJ, and he says he is omitting one major episode, the inference is that the Moores are that one episode.

Why is it necessary to postulate another huge, entirely unknown episode, when we have one ready at hand that fits all the facts? Lewis was a prolific letter writer, and his life has been well examined by several biographers. He was noted for having close friends who knew him well. To think that a major episode, on the scale of his relationship with the Moores, could completely escape notice is to venture beyond what seems reasonable.

A key question is that if it was "suppressed by Jack" (particularly being, if true, a pre-Christian episode, for him) why do we go to such trouble to uncover it??? What is it with people that makes them want to dig it up and air it out? Why don't we, as moredarjeeling said, 'mind our own business'? I personally have more shame over my sexual sins than any others, and would never want them to be dragged up again and again (in some Pharisaical 'search for truth') in my lifetime or after my death.

Well, Mrs Moore's husband was still alive, so we should be very reluctant to speculate on an inappropriate relationship with a married woman, even before conversion, by a Christian apologist.

(I speak as someone whose private circumstances CSL would have condemned totally.)

Lewis said something (iirc in MIRACLES) like, Aristotle said that in each matter we must seek the degree and kind of certainty possible in that matter. In POP he said that the argument for Christianity does not amount to logical compulsion.

And yet, he then sets out to believe as though the thing were certain.

It is as though, in a court of law, we are given fuzzy and incomplete evidence, but required to produce a black or white verdict on which a man may be hanged.

In law, and perhaps in religion, this may be necessary. But it is not necessary in biography. Given fuzzy evidence, we may and should keep our conclusion fuzzy and our statements qualified.

What we must keep distinct, imo, is the degree of certainty we have, and have not: what is sure fact vs what is mere opinion (no matter how many or how respected the opiners are).

*waves at Leslie and Larry ... long time no see :)*

hey who are you?

i come back after a while and the place is full of ...NOOBS!

*rummages for a good spider picture*