Sacramental Realism of Chesterton and Lewis

Abstract

The aim of this study is to present G. K. Chesterton’s and C. S. Lewis’s understanding of sacramental realism and its possible adoption in pre-evangelisation. It is demonstrated that G. K. Chesterton’s works influenced C.S Lewis’s conversion, his Christian literary thinking, and his apologetics. Both Chesterton and Lewis offered sacramental perceptions of the world, available through the baptism of imagination. In their works, imagination helps reason to expand and recognise the supernatural in the natural. Therefore, imagination is an essential part of their apologetics of Christianity, which still appeals to contemporary man. In this way, new imaginative apologetics can serve as a suitable preparation for the proclamation of the Gospel today.