If I Had Lunch with C. S. Lewis: Exploring the Ideas of C. S. Lewis on the Meaning of Life

by Alister E. McGrath

“Let’s have lunch!” is not a suggestion that we just eat food; it’s a request to spend time together, to get to know people better and talk things through.

After all, as Lewis himself pointed out, there are few greater pleasures than sharing food, drink, and companionship.

We might meet in one of Lewis’s favourite watering holes in Oxford—such as The Eagle and Child or its close neighbour The Lamb & Flag.

Or we might be more adventurous, following the walks that Lewis so loved along the river through Port Meadow to village pubs—such as The Perch at Binsey or The Trout at Wolvercote.

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.

Frankl realised that someone’s chance of survival depended on a will to live, which in turn depended on being able to find meaning and purpose in hopeless situations.

those who cope best are those who can see beneath the surface of an apparently random and pointless world and grasp the deeper structure of reality.

We are invited to enter into a new way of seeing things, which is also the right way of seeing things—not because anyone imposes it on us, but because we have discovered it, and realised its reliability and trustworthiness.