In showing the strength of his Christian faith and the rhetoric behind his revelations, Lewis uses the theme of his wife's death as a rhetorical devise. Lewis provides a rationale for the death of his wife in the context of grief. He argues, "[T]here's no denying that in some sense I 'feel better,' and with that comes at once a sort of shame, and a feeling that one is under a sort of obligation to cherish and foment and prolong one's unhappiness." Lewis within this passage concludes that prolonged grief after the death of his wife is a selfish act, because it is a pretense of "heroic love and tragedy." In putting forth this claim, Lewis carefully begins both his recovery and the explanation of his reaffirmation in Christianity. He cloaks this revelation in pessimism, "Praise in due order; of Him as the giver, of her as the gift. I have lost the fruition I once had with H (his wife). And I am far, far away in the valley of my unlikeness, from the fruition which, if His mercies are infinite, I may some time have of God... But by praising I can still, in some degree, enjoy her, and already, in some degree, enjoy Him. Better than nothing." Lewis reconciles himself with his faith by explaining that despite the pain of his loss, he realizes that she is inherent within the eternal nature of God. By worshipping God, he is worshipping his wife's spirit, which provides him with a sense of reprieve. The reason that this logic is so appealing and convincing is that Lewis has engendered our sympathy through his bereavement. By claiming that he finds peace through the worship of God, it...
Lewis concludes his reflections with, "Sometimes, Lord, one is tempted to say that if you wanted us to behave like the lilies of the field you might have given us an organization more like theirs. But that, I suppose, is just your grand experiment. Or no; not an experiment, for you have no need to find things out. Rather your grand enterprise. To make an organism which is also spirit; to make that terrible oxymoron, a 'spiritual animal? To take a poor primate, a beast with nerve-endings all over it, and a creature with a stomach that wants to be filled, a breeding animal that wants its mate, and say, 'Now get on with it. Become a god." The suggestion here that God has given us pain as a method to put us through a trial by fire is tantalizingly logical. His further connotation that God's ultimate purpose for us is to be something like gods ourselves is both optimistic and a very nontraditional. It is the unorthodoxy of his reaffirmation in his faith that makes this book so convincing.
Personally, I found Lewis's defense of God to be very convincing. The genuine nature of his "shaken faith" leads me to empathize with his character, and ultimately to traverse the path towards finding God again with him. As a result, his apparent reaffirmation in the strength of God and his explanation for his suffering are both very strong and real to me. Lewis's strength is that he uses pathos to immerse us into his personal miseries and doubts, and through a catharsis bring us back into God's flock.
