Pastor John, how did the influence of C.S. Lewis prepare you to discover the theology of Jonathan Edwards? Here's the connection, at least the best I've been able to figure out what God was doing, not just between '64 and '68, the Wheaton years, but '68 to '71, the Fuller years.

I see the Lewis, Clyde Kilby, my lit professor, Wheaton connection, that cluster of influences as putting the intellectual and aesthetic kindling in place, and it was a very big pile. I mean these were dry and unbelievably flammable sticks that were being put in place, the sticks of logic and the sticks of aesthetic awareness, the sticks of longing and aching and yearning, the sticks of awareness of beauty and the desire to see it, know it, all those sticks were being put in place so that when the fire of Reformed theology, namely Dan Fuller, the Puritans, fell in the years '68 to '71, they had sticks ready to burn.

That's the way I understand what God was doing. I didn't get the content so much of my theology at Wheaton as I did the categories of thinking and the categories of feeling and the intensification of a soul engagement with the world, so that when I began to read God's book, the Bible, having schooled myself on God's book, the world, everything in it just exploded.

All the ways that Lewis had spoken about seeing things for what they really are, feeling them for what they really are, speaking them in words that awaken the true value of them, all of that came to bear on my reading of The End for Which God Created the World by Edwards or the Religious Affections by Edwards or The Freedom of the Will by Edwards.

I felt no conflict between what I had become under C.S. Lewis. Theologically, I think there are conflicts. At least we're going to explore that. Doug Wilson doesn't think there are conflicts between Lewis and Reformed theology, and I'm real eager to hear how he works that out, but what I had met in the Problem of Pain by C.S.

Lewis and what I met in The Freedom of the Will didn't sound the same to me, and I would be happy to be shown how they're coherent. But yes, I think Lewis was a remarkable preparation and guide and help in many ways in preparing me for Jonathan Edwards. Thank you, Pastor John.

We will be studying the enduring influence of C.S. Lewis later this fall on September 27, 28, and 29 here in Minneapolis at the Desiring God National Conference. The conference is titled "The Romantic Rationalist--God, Life, and Imagination in the Work of C.S. Lewis." More details and registration will be available soon at DesiringGod.org on the blog and under the Events tab.

I'm your host Tony Rehnke, thanks for listening.