The Chest and the Will
The pub where the inklings met
A Dialogue Between
C. S. Lewis and Jean-Paul Sartre
Lewis: Welcome, Monsieur Sartre. Your writings,
though deeply at odds with my convictions, have fascinated me. Let us speak as
fellow pilgrims seeking truth, though our roads differ.
Sartre: (taking a seat) Fascinated, you say? Perhaps
what you call truth is no more than a mask for comfort, Monsieur Lewis—a refuge
from the brutal freedom that defines our existence.
Lewis: In media res. I like that. Freedom unmoored
from truth is not liberty but chaos. Yet, let us begin where I suspect we both
agree: the formation of the human being. What do you believe education ought to
accomplish?
Sartre: To educate is to awaken the child to their
radical freedom. Each person must invent their own essence; we are, as I have
written, condemned to be free. The teacher is merely a guide, clearly
presenting the choices so the child may shape their destiny.
Lewis: (leaning forward) But can one shape what is
not first grounded? You speak of freedom as though it were a self-sufficient
thing. Yet I see it as a capacity, like sight, which must be directed toward
something meaningful. Is it not the task of education to train the child to see
what is truly good, and to love it? And loving it, choose it?
Sartre: The “truly good,” as you call it, is an
illusion born of centuries of oppression. There is no inherent good—only the
values we choose for ourselves. A child is not a seed waiting to be cultivated;
they are pure potential, unbound, a blank canvas upon which either they or their
social class will paint.
Lewis: (smiling faintly) A blank canvas, you say? And
yet every painter begins with the rules of proportion, the discipline of
brushwork. Shall we teach the child nothing of virtue, of courage, of justice?
Shall we leave them adrift in a sea of choices without a compass or chart?
Sartre: (leaning back) You misunderstand me. The child
must learn, yes—but not what to love, only how to decide. Autonomy is the goal,
not conformity to some so-called natural order. Give them what they need to
paint their own pictures of themselves and the world and leave them alone.
Lewis: Autonomy, rightly understood, is the fruit of
mastery. Consider a violinist. Before they are free to express themselves
through music, they must first be bound by scales and technique – and to a
teacher they trust to show them the way to competence. It is no violation of their
autonomy to submit to the realities required by mastering the instrument. It
would be a violation to force them to learn the violin if they wanted to play
the piano. Like with the violin, the
child must be taught to love virtue and goodness, to train their emotions
through imaginative art, role models, proverbs, or history to love courageous,
just, self-disciplined, wise people, and through them to love courage, justice,
temperance, and wisdom. In the end, their reason may find a friend in their
passions rather than a rebel.
Sartre: And in this training, you enslave them! You
speak of ordering loves, yet whose loves? Whose order? Surely, it is but your
own preferences writ large—a subtle tyranny.
Lewis: (gently) Not my preferences. The point is to
conform your preferences to what is real and good. To conform your preference
to justice rather than injustice, courage rather than cowardice, and so on. And
you, in your rejection of order, impose another tyranny: the tyranny of
infinite choice without a guide. The soul of a child, Monsieur Sartre, is not
an empty slate but a garden. Left untended, it will grow wild with weeds.
Tended well, it may bloom in harmony with the truth of its design.
Sartre: (with intensity) You presume there is a
gardener, and worse, a design! I see no such thing. The child must rebel
against all imposed meaning to discover their own. That is freedom.
Lewis: (pausing, looking at the fire) But rebellion
is a tool, not an end. You would leave the child in perpetual revolt, without
offering them anything worthy of allegiance. The difference between us is that
I believe that reality tells us what is good, bad, beautiful, ugly, real, unreal.
I think a human being’s being forbids me to oppress him, and that it is not an
arbitrary choice. I am conforming my will to reality when I try to treat him
justly, whether I feel like it or not. (And I should feel like it though that
requires emotional education.) Tell me, what do you propose when the child
asks, “What is worth loving?”
Sartre: (after a pause) They must decide for
themselves. No one can make that choice for them. Your understanding of reality
in the end presupposes God, the Creator. My philosophy is a consequent
exploration of life assuming there is no God.
Lewis: (turning to Sartre) And yet, in your own life,
you made choices not in a vacuum but within a web of influences: language,
culture, mentors. Why deny the child the same gifts? You and I both served in
the army. You were active in the French resistance even if not in a combat
role. Do you not see that, in rejecting any higher reality, you rob children of
the chance to encounter something greater than themselves?
Sartre: Perhaps. But I would rather risk emptiness
than deceive them with comforting lies. My service expressed my subjectivity.
My service was not a conformity with some value deemed external.
Lewis: (with warmth) And I would rather they risk
discomfort in seeking the truth, not as a lie but as a treasure hidden in the
field. For without something to anchor their loves, what becomes of the child
but a reed tossed in the wind?
. . .
Lewis: (handing Sartre a cup) Perhaps we have
approached this from too high a vantage, speaking of education as though it
were an abstraction. Let us descend to particulars. Shall we speak of courage?
Sartre: (taking the cup) Courage, yes. A virtue I can
respect, though perhaps not as you conceive it. For me, courage is the
acceptance of absurdity and the assertion of one’s will despite it. It is a
rebellion against despair.
Lewis: A rebellion, you say? Yet courage also serves.
In the face of fear, courage aligns the soul with what is right, even when it
costs dearly. Consider the soldier who charges into battle not for his own
glory but to protect his comrades.
Sartre: A noble picture, but I would ask: did the
soldier choose this path freely, or was he coerced by duty, propaganda, or
tradition? Is it courage if he acts merely from unexamined loyalty?
Lewis: (nodding) True courage must be freely chosen,
yet it does not arise from freedom alone. The soldier acts not merely from
loyalty but from love—love for his comrades, for his homeland, even for the
ideal of justice. Can courage exist without such loves to anchor it? I don’t
think so.
Sartre: Love, you say? Love too can be a trap. A
soldier may die for a false ideal, a romanticized nation, or an unjust cause.
What matters is not the object but the act: to choose freely in the face of
nothingness. Only that is authentic. To act based on a comforting illusion is
bad faith – deferring the locus of decision to a place outside the self.
Lewis: (thoughtfully) Yet a free choice made without
regard to truth risks becoming a mockery of itself. If courage can be
misguided, then surely there is a standard—something that tells us when courage
is rightly directed. Surely, we would call ‘courage’ when the SS guards showed
when even in the face of the Red Army they stayed to force the remaining
prisoners on death marches?
Sartre: (leaning forward) But who defines this
standard? You would impose it from above, while I would have each person define
it for themselves even if it means accepting that the SS guards showed a kind
of courage. But then they were brainwashed by the regime. That is why I don’t
recognize what they did as courage even though it involved risk.
Lewis: (with a smile) Let us leave courage for now
and turn to a different virtue: chastity. Here, too, is a battle, though fought
in quieter fields. What would you say of it?
Sartre: (with a wry smile) I would say it is a relic
of repressive morality. Why suppress one’s desires when they are an expression
of freedom? To deny them is to deny oneself.
Lewis: (gently) Yet is not self-denial sometimes
necessary to attain something greater? Chastity is not repression but mastery—a
channeling of desire so that it serves love rather than consuming it. Would you
not agree that unchecked desires often lead to misery?
Sartre: Perhaps. But misery also arises from denying
oneself too rigidly, from bowing to rules imposed by others. Desire, like
freedom, must be authentic, not shaped by fear or guilt.
Lewis: And yet unchecked desire is its own tyrant.
Consider the one who indulges every whim, only to find themselves enslaved by
their passions. Is this the freedom you advocate? When the rules are imposed by
others, I agree with you. But in the case of a virtue, the good of the human
person determines the rules. I know you deny that there is a real good of the
human person. It is that denial that leads to your radically immoral
philosophy.
Sartre: (pausing) You speak of enslavement, but I see
something different: the freedom to make mistakes, to live authentically, even
at a cost. I would rather fail on my own terms than succeed by yours.
Lewis: (nodding slowly) I understand your point. Satan
made the same point in Paradise Lost. But let us take one more virtue:
justice. Surely, here we might find common ground. What is justice, if not the
right ordering of relationships, ensuring that each receives their due?
Sartre: Justice, as you describe it, is an ideal. In
practice, it is a construct, shaped by power dynamics and historical
contingencies. What one culture calls justice, another may call oppression.
Lewis: And yet some acts are universally condemned:
treachery, exploitation, cruelty. Are these not violations of justice,
regardless of culture? Does not every human heart, however shaped by time and
place, recoil at such things?
Sartre: (after a pause) Perhaps. But even if we agree
on certain wrongs, we may still disagree on what is right. Christians believe
abortion is a violation of our humanity; feminists believe it is an essential
part of emancipation. Justice, like all virtues, must be redefined by each age,
each individual.
Lewis: (smiling faintly) Here, then, is our
divergence. I see justice not as a human invention but as a reflection of a
higher reality—a reality that calls us not to create but to conform, not to
impose our will but to align it.
. . .
Lewis: Jean-Paul, let us consider the role of art,
particularly stories and fairy tales, in shaping the moral imagination. Do you
believe these tales have any bearing on the formation of character?
Sartre: I approach such stories with suspicion. They
risk embedding in the child a ready-made moral order, a world of absolutes that
denies their freedom. Why teach a child that they must always be the hero who
slays the dragon? Why not let them choose to ally with the dragon, or reject
the narrative altogether?
Lewis: Because the stories are not arbitrary
constructs but mirrors to truth, albeit truth refracted through the lens of
imagination. Fairy tales invite the child into a moral universe where courage
defeats cowardice, and good triumphs over evil. They are not constraints on
freedom but guides, much like a map to one who ventures into the wilderness.
Sartre: And yet, such maps impose paths and
destinations. They make the world appear pre-ordained, discouraging the child
from imagining their own horizon. I would rather let the child confront life
without such preconceptions, finding their own meaning in the dragon, the hero,
or the wilderness.
Lewis: But, Jean-Paul, a child left utterly unformed
is not free—they are lost. Freedom is not the absence of form but the discovery
of the right form. A child who learns from fairy tales learns to see bravery as
noble, treachery as vile. These stories awaken the heart, preparing it to make
free, wise choices when the time comes.
Sartre: What of the distortions these tales carry?
The damsel always in distress, the prince always rescuing her—what do such
patterns teach but the perpetuation of stereotypes?
Lewis: Ah, a fair critique, but an incomplete one.
The archetypes of fairy tales are not meant as blueprints but as starting
points. They sketch the contours of a moral world. From there, the child grows
to ask deeper questions: Can the prince also learn humility? Might the damsel
show courage? The key is not to discard the tale but to let it spark reflection
and refinement.
Sartre: Perhaps there is value in a story that
challenges rather than affirms—a fairy tale where the dragon is misunderstood,
the hero flawed, the damsel in control of her fate. Would that not better serve
freedom?
Lewis: Some stories may indeed offer such
complexities, but even they must stand on some foundation. A story without any
moral structure disorients rather than liberates. Complexity has its place, but
first the child must learn to recognize virtue and vice in their clearer forms.
Only then can they wrestle with ambiguity.
Sartre: So, you see art as pedagogy, a primer for
life’s moral questions. But does that not rob art of its autonomy, its pure
aesthetic joy?
Lewis: Art is richer than that. Its beauty is not
diminished by its power to instruct; indeed, the two are intertwined. A fairy
tale’s aesthetic joy lies not only in its enchantment but in its resonance with
truths we cannot articulate fully in propositions. The dragon’s defeat stirs us
because it whispers that evil can be overcome.
Sartre: And yet, for me, art must liberate, not
prescribe. Perhaps we are both asking art to serve our philosophies—mine of
freedom, yours of virtue.
Lewis: And perhaps, in the best stories, the two are
not so far apart. For what is freedom without virtue? And what is virtue if not
the capacity to choose the good freely?
. . .
Lewis: Jean-Paul, you define human nature as radical
freedom, the capacity to transcend any given fact or essence and create meaning
ex nihilo. But is this freedom truly liberating—or is it, as Milton’s Satan
demonstrates, the root of our estrangement from the Good?
Sartre: Estrangement? No, Lewis. Freedom is the
essence of human dignity. Satan, in Paradise Lost, proclaims,
"Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven." That sentiment
captures the human condition: the refusal to accept a predetermined order.
Freedom is the rejection of servitude. And God – the embodiment of external
authority – is the enemy of freedom, of autonomy.
Lewis: But in seeking to reign, Satan denies his own
nature as a creature. He severs himself from the Source of being, choosing
autonomy over communion. In his rebellion, he is not liberated but enslaved to
his own will. Radical freedom, as you call it, becomes a prison of the self.
Sartre: Only if you see his rebellion as a fall
rather than an ascent. I see no Source of being external to us. Autonomy is not
a prison but the foundation of authenticity. Satan’s rebellion is heroic
because he refuses to bow to an arbitrary divine order.
Lewis: Heroic? Jean-Paul, look closer. Satan’s
speeches brim with despair, not triumph. His supposed autonomy renders him
fragmented, his mind a chaos of contradictions. He becomes, as Milton so
masterfully shows, a being at war with himself, consumed by envy and rage. Is
that the authentic life you envision?
Sartre: Perhaps Satan is tragic, yes, but his tragedy
lies in the cost of freedom. To choose is to risk failure, to accept the
anguish of being. Yet it is better than your “communion,” which I see as a
surrender, a negation of one’s own will.
Lewis: You misunderstand the nature of communion. It
is not the negation of the will but its fulfillment in alignment with reality.
Satan, in rejecting the Good, also rejects the reality of his own nature. He
attempts to unmake himself, to become something impossible—a self-created
being.
Sartre: And why should he not? If there is no fixed
nature, then existence precedes essence. We are free to define ourselves, even
if it means creating a new kind of being. Satan’s defiance is the ultimate
expression of freedom.
Lewis: But at what cost? In defining himself apart
from the Good, Satan rejects the very conditions of joy, truth, and love. He
becomes, in Milton’s words, "his own tormentor." The ontological
fault line you defend—that freedom means radical self-definition—is the very
ground of despair.
Sartre: Despair is an inescapable part of freedom.
But it is a despair we must own. Better despair than delusion. Your Good, your
fixed nature, strikes me as a comforting fiction, a way to escape the anguish
of choosing for oneself.
Lewis: On the contrary, the Good is not an escape
but the foundation of freedom rightly understood. Milton’s Satan, for all his
pride, is the epitome of delusion. His cry of "Better to reign in
Hell" reveals not strength but self-deception. For in Hell, he reigns over
nothing—just as radical freedom, unanchored from the Good, masters nothing but
emptiness.
Sartre: And yet, Lewis, I must ask—why should your
Good compel me? If it exists, why is it not self-evident? Why do so many, like
Satan, see only domination, not love, in the so-called Source of being?
Lewis: That, Jean-Paul, is the great tragedy of our
fallen state. We see dimly, as through a glass darkly. Our wills are turned
inward, and thus we mistake the love of God for tyranny. It is only through
grace—and, yes, the guidance of true stories and traditions—that we begin to
see clearly.
Sartre: Grace? Stories? Perhaps you and I will never
agree, Lewis. But I cannot help admiring your conviction, even as I reject its
foundation. Freedom, to me, remains a first principle, even if it leads me into
darkness.
Lewis: And yet, even in the darkness, a light
shines. I can only hope, Jean-Paul, that one day you will see it not as a
threat to your freedom but as its fulfillment.
p.s. This was an experiment with ChatGPT. It generated a dialog and I modified it.
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