C.S. Lewis Contra Mundum: How the Whole World Groaned and Found Itself Modernist

C.S. Lewis writes an introductory essay to St Athanasius’s On the Incarnation, a famous treatise against 4th Century Christian heresy Arianism which denies the Incarnation. It is said Athanasius stands ‘contra mundum’, against the world, as a defender of orthodoxy. Arianism—a belief that the Son is not fully the image of the Father—sweeps into power with such rapidity St Jerome famously complains that one day, ‘the whole world groaned and was astonished to find itself Arian’; almost overnight, Athanasius is the lone champion of orthodox belief against the new Arian thought, which he fights bitterly against—in clear, persuasive (one might even say, Lewisian) language. Just as Athanasius stands against Arianism (the new, elite, faith of the ruling class of his day), Lewis stands against Modernism (the new, elite literary movement of his own day). This paper will explore Lewis’s pugnacious resistance to Modernism in the light of his core theological convictions, which include (not coincidentally), like Athanasius, a firm belief in Incarnation— in the embodiment of ultimate goodness (Logos) in the material world. In treating this topic, this paper will consider Lewis’s main opponent, Modernist poet T.S. Eliot, who seemingly represents all that Lewis fights against; what is more, it will explore the theological underpinnings of Lewis’s disagreement with Eliot, even examining the possible role Eliot’s formative faith, Unitarianism (latter-day Arianism), might be said to play in the conflict.