Relation of the physical and spiritual

The point is that, though we do not fully understand what God is, to emphasize what He is not may lead us to imagine Him as a being less real than ourselves, rather than more, and may also mislead us into thinking there can be no similarities between ourselves and Him.

Summary:
Some things may be both spiritual and physical. Something in the New Testament that literally happened may also have symbolic significance.

Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism

A great essay. Actually, I was quite frustrated with the first three of Lewis' four "bleats", because I could not understand them in the least. He used too many comparisons and phrasings that I could not understand or was not familiar with.

But his fourth bleat made me want to pass him a high five. I have always disagreed with teachers who made their english students read into an author of some text (usually Shakespeare) to the point where it was far beyond anything that I would ever give the author credit for. Lewis seems to agree that "reconstructing" the author or the environment based solely on the text is an activity with a very high failure rate.

Miracles: Holes

I'm sorry, but there are many holes in the reasoning Lewis uses to justify Miracles. For example, on pages 94-95 (chapter 8), he states:

It is therefore inaccurate to define a miracle as something that breaks the laws of Nature. It doesn't. ... If God creates a miraculous spermatozoon in the body of a virgin, it does not proceed to break any laws. The laws at once take it over. Nature is ready. Pregnancy follows, according to all the normal laws...
If events ever come from beyond Nature altogether, she will be no more incommoded by them. Be sure she will rush to t

he point where she is invaded, ... and there hasten to accommodate the newcomer. The moment it enters her realm it obeys all her laws. ... miraculous bread will be digested. ... It does not violate the law's proviso, 'If A, then B': it says, 'But this tiem instead of A, A2'.

But Lewis uses lots of examples (most skipped above) that only support his hypothesis. He skips the ones that do not, and there are plenty. I could immediately think of the manna from heaven, which did not go moldy on the Sabbath, but did on every other day. That is a "newcomer" that did not obey the laws of nature.

Earlier in the book, Lewis says that if atoms move about randomly, then in no way could man's mind reason. He works up to the random atoms argument very comprehensively. He works from man's inability to reason quite well. But the leap from atoms to man's mind is a shot in the dark, with no explanation or attention drawn to the fact.
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I have just finished the book. I can't say I was nearly as impressed with it as with many of the author's other books.
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Added 10/26/04
In the original chapter 3 of the book, the "Self Contradiction of the Naturalist", I believe I found the hole in the argument. Lewis suggests that when the naturalist states that everything is a natural result of something preceding it, and that nothing thinks, and then discovers that atoms are random, Lewis suggests the naturalist annihilates his own argument because "naturally" if atoms are random, and a brain is made of atoms, then a brain cannot be logical. He then proceeds on without any justification of his argument. I believe that random things can come together to make a logical thing. Take a desk. A desk is made of quantum particles that are jumping around with no apparent logic or predictability to them. Yet the desk as a whole is very predictable. Why not with the brain?

The Weight of Glory

A good sermon. Lewis lists five main "heads" to salvation:

1. We shall be with Christ
2. We shall be like Him
3. We shall have "glory"
4. We shall be fed or feasted or entertained
5. We shall have some sort of official position in the universe-ruling cities, judging angels, being pillars of God's temple
   

He makes the point that he doesn't see any reward useful besides the first one: being with Christ. So I now put Lewis in the same category with some of my Christian friends who think that salvation is all about being in heaven, doing nothing but saying "holy, holy, holy" over and over again for all eternity to our Maker. I'm sorry. But I don't see God as someone so taken with Himself that he saves us to do nothing but worship Him.

Now don't misunderstand me. God deserves to be worshipped. I am only stating that our salvation is meant to be more than that. God wants to save us so we can be productive in doing what He does. And what does He do? As stated in Moses 1:39

And this is my work and my glory: to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.

I prefer to think that the last four promised blessings of salvation are very relevant and desireable indeed.

Mere Christianity summary

Below I will provide one sentence summaries of each chapter I read from the book Mere Christianity.

Book 1
We as humans are created by some being who also dictates, through our conscience, how we ought to behave.

All of humanity feels the weight of some Law of Human Nature, which dictates to everyone's conscience a common sense of Right and Wrong, yet all of us fail to live up to it. Although instincts also persuade us in some course of action or another, this Law can override or promote instincts in a way that superscedes instinct. Attempts to justify the Law by reasoning fail with circular reasoning, but it is nevertheless true. Two opposing views exist on the creation of the Earth, and the Religious view proposes that God gives us this Law within us to suit His purposes. If God exists and has dictated His morals as Law to us, we are condemned by it, because we do not keep it.

Book 2
Christianity is the only logical explanation for the world we live in.

The very notion of good and bad promotes the stance that God exists. Christianity is not simple, and the details include the reality of a devil, in whose territory we are. God gave us free will so that we could love, and because of His love and our faults He had to take our sins upon Him. God became man and suffered and died so that we could live. When we become Christians, we actually become the body of Christ.

Book 3
Christian behavior begets Christian identity.

Three goods exist for upholding morality: society's, self's, and direction's. Cultivate virtue for its own sake. Live the Golden Rule to a sacrificing degree. Your secret reason for actions is what is judged. Those struggling with sexual morality should keep trying. Christian marriage is more than civil marriage. Loving your neighbor doesn't mean being fond of him. Don't be proud you are better than others. That longing within us for a better world is a beacon from heaven. Faith is holding onto convictions when fears and imaginations press otherwise. Faith is turning ourselves over to God.

Book 4
How man becomes God-like

Theology is a guide to God's interactions with man. The three that make up the Godhead form a trinity (ick). God lives in an eternal Now, not subject to time. Some false doctrine, and the Holy Ghost works within us. All humans are connected, so Christ's life saves all of us. God made us human and fallible; just because we are one Christian body does not mean we cannot be individuals. When we pray, we pretend to be Christ -- as we actually slowly become Him. Being Christian means that our will is wholly swallowed up in the Will of the Father. Once started, conversion will lead to a total change in you. Each of us are in our own spot in our progression towards full conversion. Everyone has a choice to become this new man.

Mere Christianity: conditions of salvation, part I

I say part I because I suspect I will have much more to say on this topic as I read on through Lewis' book. I am currently in Book 3, chapter 2.

Lewis explains how virtues are very good to have and be, not just to do. His points about doing things for the right reasons so that the actions because who you are rather than remain what you do are very good points. The way he qualifies them, reminding the reader that achieving virtues do not qualify you for heaven, but merely make it more enjoyable for you, I believe is wrong. True, there is no grand scale that God will measure you up to and throw you out if you don't meet, but God has a personal scale for you. He knows what you have been capable of. Where much is given much is required. Remember the parable of the talents that the Savior taught in the New Testament. If you do not use the facilities you are given in this life, and magnify them, you will be thrust out.

What Are We to Make of Jesus Christ?

A good article. It is true, Jesus seems to leave only two extremes to believe in. But I believe it is possible to teach sound doctrinal principles while falsely believing you are God. Think back to recent history with some of the cults that have arisen, led by men who claimed to be some diety. Some of them had some persuasive doctrines. If Jesus was especially good at it, then its plausible that a middle ground is believable.

Of course I am Christian. I just don't buy into the "you have to believe he was God or a mad man" philosophy.

Mere Christianity: on forgiveness

Lewis has really hit something on page 51 (chapter 3 of book 2), where he considers the incredibleness of Christ's ability to forgive sin. I quote Lewis:

We can all understand how a man forgives offences against himself. You tread on my toes and I forgive you, you steal my money and I forgive you. But what should we make of a man, himself unrobbed and untrodden on, who announced that he gorgave you for treading on other men's toes and stealing other men's money? ... Yet this is what Jesus did. He told people that their sins were forgiven, and never waited to consult all the other people whom their sins had undoubtedly injured. He unhesitatingly behaved as if He was the party chiefly concerned, the person chiefly offended in all offences.

emphasis added

What struck me so hard here was that I understood His forgiveness a little more than I ever have before. How could Christ forgive so-and-so when it was me that the person had offended? The answer is that Christ took all sins upon himself. That means that so-and-so's sin injured Christ as much as it injured me. That gives Christ authority to forgive the sin against Himself. But what about me? Can He forgive in spite of what he still did to me? Consider that Christ offers us Rest. We are taught in scripture that we need not "tread the winepress alone", because Christ has done that for us. Christ can take away our pain, hurt and sorrow. Because he felt it for us. He felt it for us because he felt the sin that caused it. Therefore, He can forgive sin because:

1. He felt the effects of the sin in taking upon Himself the sins of the world, and
   
2. He offers to relieve the afflicted of the pain and anguish the sin against them caused.

If these are truly the reasons that He can forgive sin, then they must be very true reasons. If that is the case, then it is a reason I can have significantly stronger faith when I pray for strength or relief -- because it is on His promise of granting that petition that His right to forgive rests.

I believe this, in fact, more than Lewis' own reason in chapter 4 for the need of the Atonement.

Mere Christianity: Can God do wrong?

On page 48 (book 2, chapter 3), Lewis writes:

"Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong; I cannot."

I can. God is free to do wrong. But He has no possibility of doing wrong. Not because he does not have the freedom, but because He is unchanging. (see also Mormon 9:19)

Mere Christianity: pure evil?

Mere Christianity is a great book. Lewis has a way of putting things in a very reasonable way so that if I were not Christian already I might be persuaded to become one. But because a bunch of "I agree's" do not a web log make, I will put a mix of my strong agreements, my added thoughts, and my objections here, because that makes it interesting.

As you read these objections, just remember that between each idea that I object to are many, many sentences that I agree with. Overall, I agree with nearly everything Lewis says. But also realize that the following objections are not a comprehensive list of everything I disagree with. Just the ones I chose to write about.

On page 44 (book 2, chapter 2), C. S. Lewis asserts that

"No one ever did a cruel action simply because cruelty is wrong--only because cruelty was pleasant or useful to him."

I disagree. I believe that men can become so satanic as to do things for only the sake of evil. The example I can think of now is that of a gang bent on hatred of some race of people. In some real gangs, entrance is granted to those who have killed someone in the hated race. Now the man who is in charge of that gang, who invented that rule, stands to gain nothing from that rule. He gains no pleasure from a killing he had no part or knowledge of. Yet because it is wrong he does it. And it strikes me that there is no other reason.

The Great Divorce

I found this book very frustrating during the first few chapters. Because the author does not explain where the principle character is or where he is going on the omnibus, I found myself in dismay when the character glances out the window of the bus and casually says, "The bus has left ground." What? How did the bus leave ground? And how do houses just appear into existence at the thought of some town resident?

Eventually of course, it is revealed that the grey town was Hell, and the destination of the bus that the character is on is Heaven. That solved most of the frustration. The last bit was the result of the paragraph marks seperating the same character's part in the conversation. For example, typically in a typed conversation, each character's part of the conversation makes up a paragraph, which has its first line indented. In The Great Divorce, sometimes characters will speak a bit, and then speak a little bit more, spanning two paragraphs, each paragraph only one line long. Yet no metatext explains who is speaking. It takes a lot of context figuring to see that it is actually the same character speaking twice rather than the two characters switch turns.

Despite the frustration, there were many great truths into the Gospel of Jesus Christ that are "revealed" in the book. I say revealed, not that C. S. Lewis taught the principles for the first time they have been taught, but because he has a knack for taking truths we have always known in our subconcious, and putting them in just a simple way that it is as if we realize them for the first time.

My favorite example of this is quoted briefly below. It is the exchange of the principle character and his Teacher, a spirit from Heaven who is explaining how he still has a chance to leave Hell permanently. The character wonders at how he just happened to get on the bus that came here and found this out. And he is concerned about the others in Hell who never happen to try out that bus.

`But what of the poor Ghosts who never get into the omnibus at all?'
`Everyone who wishes it does. Never fear. There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.'

- The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis. Chapter 9

Screwtape Letters: In the news

I find that C. S. Lewis has amazing insight into the strategies of the devil. I believe in this case, knowledge is power. To recognize that the devil is patient when it suits his purposes in tempting you can be a powerful devil deterrant if applied. The following quotation is an example of a gem:

"But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy. It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed, the safest road to hell is the gradual one -- the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts."

- Screwtape Letters, Chapter 12, last paragraph

Another is the power of the press in the hands of the devil. I cannot now find the location of it in the letters. Wherever it is, the Screwtape talks of how the media has allowed so many philosophies to be broadcast to the world, completely regardless as to whether they are true or not. By this the world is in mass confusion because they have so many ideas rattling in their heads that often are not worth any time spent thinking about. Truth and falsehood is turned into just two of many Points of View, which only confuse the issue that really can be as simple as good and bad.