That You May Know the Certainty . . .

   Sheldon Vanauken’s book,  A Severe Mercy, has been described as “a real-life love story full of wonder and hope.” It is this, but it is much more. I recall my first reading the story when it was published in an inexpensive paperback reprint edition. It is a true story of faith mixed with sorrow, which includes Vanauken turning to the British author and apologist, C. S. Lewis, for guidance. Vanauken was grappling with tough questions that came from his wife Jean falling prey to a mysterious illness that resulted in her death.

   The book includes 18 previously unpublished letters written by C. S. Lewis. Midway through the book, Vanauken describes the first face-to-face meeting he had with Lewis. He made the following observations about Lewis: “[N]ever was there a man who so swiftly could cut through anything that even approached fuzzy thinking . . . who, in brilliance, in wit, and in incisiveness, could hold his own with any man that ever lived” [I am sure Sheldon Vanauken would have made one exception to this and that is the God-Man, Jesus Christ]. Although the years that have passed are numerous, I still remember when I read the above quotation for the first time and exclaimed to myself, “That describes Thomas B. Warren!” And, taking pen in hand, I wrote the name, Thomas B. Warren, in the margin next to the line on page 106, where Vanauken’s description of C. S. Lewis appeared in the paperback from which I was reading. I still have that tattered copy of Sheldon Vanauken’s great story though also blessed now with a beautiful first edition (1977) hardcover copy. I treasure both copies. I never met C. S. Lewis. However, I do not doubt there is a sense in which the above quotation accurately describes Lewis. I think this would be true in light of his prolific writing such as Mere Christianity, rightly called an apologetics classic.

   I knew Thomas B. Warren well, and I remain confident that the above quotation from Vanauken, although not written originally about Dr. Warren, does indeed describe him to a T! He was a remarkable thinker—an expert logician. In 1958, his dear friend Roy Deaver wrote, “I know Thomas B. Warren as no other man knows him. We have worked, argued, studied, prayed, and debated together for several years. He is the greatest ‘thinking machine’ I have ever known.” (“Foreword,” Lectures on Church Cooperation and Orphan Homes, 8). All a person needs to do to see that Warren was truly “a man who could so swiftly cut through anything that even approached fuzzy thinking” is read The Warren-Flew Debate; The Warren-Matson Debate, et al., or study Dr. Warren’s Have Atheists Proved There Is No God?, which Frank Pack, the late distinguished professor at Pepperdine University, called “one of the best logical refutations I have ever read . . . some of the best insight of modern theistic thinking.”

   Thomas B. Warren possessed an abiding passion to help all (especially a younger generation) know the following: “Christian Theism makes the obligation to present the case which allows others to come to knowledge that Jesus Christ is the Son of God . . . Luke 1:1-4, esp. v. 4 ‘might know the certainty.’ . . . It is a matter of knowledge. . . . The case for [Christian] theism can be—and has been—set out and proved” (The God Question, 23, 32).

   I am confident he did it as well, or better, than any during the time in which he was on Earth, even unto the present since his death in 2000. His thinking, speaking, and writing echoe the clarion call of Dr. Luke of the New Testament—“. . . that you may know the certainty. . . .” That statement of the beloved physician (cf. Colossians 4:14) impacts my life every day. Thomas B. Warren, above all others, taught me to grasp the truth of it and the power of the knowledge of that truth. I shall forever be indebted to him.