The World's Last Night and Other Essays

Originally published in the Christian Herald and entitled “Will We Lose God in Outer Space,” Lewis's essay on the subject was first published in 1958 and later became titled “Religion and Rocketry.” The essay was written in partial response to the writings of Professor Fred Hoyle, the Cambridge astronomer and founder of the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge.

Christopher H. Derrick of Geoffrey Bles publishers, presumably in 1963 and before Lewis's death, wrote a proposal for a book that was to include “Religion and Rocketry,” stating that “This essay seems to have been written in rebuttal of an argument which is only likely to be brought forward by a rather silly minority (though an academically distinguished one)…” Hoyle would have been part of that academically distinguished, but silly, minority.

Later, in 1977, Hoyle championed the ancient theory of panspermia, supported these days by Richard Dawkins, that life on earth originated with the importation of living cells from space.

Science is not equipped to do theology and evaluate the arguments for the existence of God, and, furthermore, the discovery of life in other parts of the universe would have no effect upon Christianity.

Both positions, Lewis wrote, claim to show the absurdity of the Christian belief in divine origins and the Incarnation of Christ.

In Paul's letter to the Romans (8:19–23), Lewis argued, God hints that the longing for redemption is cosmic, and therefore not limited to this world.

And to speculate about other creatures in other worlds takes us into the imaginative narrative that comprises Lewis's Ransom Trilogy, especially Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra.

Its purpose is stated in the first paragraph of the essay: "I shall endeavor to deal with some of the thoughts that may deter modern men from a firm belief in, or a due attention to, the return or Second Coming of the Saviour."