2. Early experience in Christianity
Since his parents were Ulster Protestants, Lewis was always taught to say his prayers and taken to church every Sunday. However, he found that it was
uninspiring because he saw that going to church was more like a political statement than a statement of faith; meaning to say demonstration that they were
not Catholics. This idea formed such kind a of distaste for Christianity in his life which lasted even into his adulthood. There was also the time when he was taught
Sehnsucht; a kind of longing, yet it did not bring genuine religious experiences. In August 1908 his mother died which made him feel that all settled
happiness disappeared from his life. However, Lewis said that this experience was indeed his first religious experience and that it taught him to believe in the power
of prayer for healing his mother and also to hope for a miracle. When her case was pronounced hopeless I remembered what I had been
taught; that prayers for her recovery would be successful: and, as I thought, I achieved it. When nevertheless she died I shifted my groan and worked
myself into a belief that there was to be miracle 1955:20.
3. The initial discovery of Joy
One day, Lewis mysteriously felt a memory of an earlier happy morning; a memory when his brother had brought his toy garden into the nursery. This
feeling rose just in an instant of time, yet he felt that in a particular sense anything that had ever happened in him was insignificant in comparison. This experience
became his initial step in searching for what he called Joy.
I call it joy, which is here a technical term and must be sharply distinguished both from Happiness and from Pleasure. Joy in my sense has indeed one
characteristic, and one only, in common with them; the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again 1955:18.
4. Norsemen and rediscovery of Joy
Lewis was sent to a preparatory school named Cherbourg where he could discover his interest in The music of Richard Wagner from whom Lewis started to
know about epic operas of the ring cycle, which introduced him to Norse mythology. He felt that the music and mythology had caused momentary but
intense feelings reminding him of “Joy”. With the purpose to obtaining his “Joy”
again, he decided to study Norse mythology as he was sent to secondary school at Malvern College. At this time, however, he also again lost his Christian faith as he
felt that he was made up of two separate elements: one for the longing of Joy, and another for a fixed and certain belief in scientific materialism. He started to
approach atheism.
5. College Life and Conversion
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