Discovery Institute | Page 769 | Public policy think tank advancing a culture of purpose, creativity, and innovation.

A New 1998 Screwtape Letter

Discovered and Copyrighted by Berni Phillips (An entry in the Screwtape Letter Contest at Mythcon XXIX) My dear Gallstone, I cannot emphasize to you enough how valuable a resource the Internet is to us today. Consider, for starters, the initial purchase. Your man must be convinced that only the fastest and most up-to-date (and therefore expensive) machine is suitable for Read More ›

C. S. Lewis’s Last Will and Testament

E-mail text provided by Mike W. Perry, Seattle, Washington This text faithfully reproduces C. S. Lewis’s last will exactly as typed including all capitalization and punctuation. (Paragraphs did not end in periods.) A Codicil was apparently attached to the will but was not available at the time this text was reproduced. The amounts in pounds, shillings and pence at the Read More ›

In the High Court of Justice

The Principal Probate Registry BE IT KNOWN that CLIVE STAPLES LEWIS of The Kilns Headington Quarry Oxford died there on the 22nd day of November 1963 domiciled in England AND BE IT FURTHER KNOWN that at the date hereunder written the last Will and Testament with a Codicil thereto (a copy whereof is hereunto annexed) of the said deceased was Read More ›

More about the Will

from James O’Fee David Gaston, Solicitor, who originally found the copy of C. S. Lewis’s Will in Belfast writes: I am surprised at the interest which has been generated in the copy of the Will which I unearthed. As a document of public record I had assumed it was already in the public domain. I am not sure if I Read More ›

Walter Hooper’s Famous Chapel Hill Collection

Manuscripts Department Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill SOUTHERN HISTORICAL COLLECTION#4236 WALTER MCGEHEE HOOPER PAPERSInventory Abstract: Correspondence of Walter McGehee Hooper (1931- ) and colleagues, friends, acquaintances, and admirers of C. S. Lewis. Included are a few letters from Lewis and his brother, Warren Hamilton Lewis, to Hooper. Some of the correspondence contains anecdotal material about Read More ›

What is the Truth?

“As per the request of Walter Hooper,” files in Box 2 are closed until 2012 or notification of the death of the writers. But the contents of Box 1 are allegedly open to researchers. Is this really true? Some of the letters in Box 1 disprove some of Hooper’s most important claims, such as his purported secretaryship. When one researcher Read More ›

The Secret History of C. S. Lewis’s “Interesting Relics”

Near the end of the Hooper Papers Inventory (see “Other Material” in the previous column) one reads of “a few pages of notes about the contents of Lewis’s home in Oxford.” But this is a very erroneous description. These are five small pages of Lewis’s meticulous handwritten instructions (with a sketch) telling Walter Hooper exactly how to clear out Lewis’s Read More ›

“Very Controversial Walter Hooper” “Firmly But Charitably Put in His Place”

First Things is a journal of conservative political opinion and commentary edited (and largely written) by Richard John Neuhouse, a Roman Catholic. The current issue (October 1998) contains Michael Aeschliman’s fine essay “C. S. Lewis on Mere Science” and the following unsigned review of The C. S. Lewis Reader’s Encyclopedia in the “Briefly Noted” section (pp. 77-78): “A hundred years Read More ›

Thanksgiving: A Scientist’s Psalm

by Walter Hearn (First published in HIS Magazine in March, 1964) Praise the Lord, created thing!Let all space with praises ring!Space itself, Hosannas sing,Unto God, Jehovah, King! I Subatomic Particles Particles in smallest cracks,Known but by emulsion tracks;Let all mesons praise Messiah!Songs of praise mount ever higher! Alpha, beta, gamma rays:Join the chorus of His praise!Be you ultimate or not,All Read More ›

joshua-ness-225844-unsplash
Two people having coffee across from each other
Photo by Joshua Ness on Unsplash

Fruitful Interchange or Polite Chitchat?

The demand that epistemic support be explicated as rational compulsion has consistently undermined the dialogue between theology and science. Rational compulsion entails too restrictive a form of epistemic support for most scientific theorizing, let alone interdisciplinary dialogue. This essay presents a less restrictive form of epistemic support, explicated not as rational compulsion but as explanatory power. Once this notion of epistemic support is developed, a genuinely productive interdisciplinary dialogue between theology and science becomes possible. This essay closes by sketching how the Big Bang model from cosmology and the Christian doctrine of Creation can be viewed as supporting each other. Read More ›