Those who talk of reading the Bible "as literature" sometimes mean, I think, reading it without attending to the main thing it is about; like reading Burke with no interest in politics, or reading the Aeneid with no interest in Rome. That seems to me to be nonsense. But there is a saner sense in which the Bible, since it is after all literature, cannot properly be read except as literature; and the different parts of it as the different sorts of literature they are. Most emphatically, the Psalms must be read as poems; as lyrics, with all the licenses and all the formalities, the hyperboles, the emotional rather than logical connections, which are proper to lyric poetry.
C.S. Lewis, Reflection on the Psalms, p. 3.
Showing posts with label C.S. Lewis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label C.S. Lewis. Show all posts
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Saturday, June 20, 2009
C.S. Lewis and "Vague Religion"
I never get tired of reading C.S. Lewis. Mere Christianity is quite simply an amazing book. I peer into it every now and again and come away in awe of Lewis' penetrating use of analogy.
In fact, that is just why a vague religion--all about feeling God in nature, and so on--is so attractive. It is all thrills and no work: like watching the waves from the beach. But you will not get to Newfoundland by studying the Atlantic that way, and you will not get eternal life by simply feeling the presence of God in flowers or music. Neither will you get anywhere by looking at maps without going to sea. Nor will you be very safe if you go to sea without a map. (pp. 154-155).
As is often the case, "both/and" describes the course we should take. Experience of God (going to sea) and learning about God (looking at maps). Lewis reminds us about an important aspect of faith. The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines the theological virtue of faith as:
Faith is the theological virtue by which we believe in God and believe all that he has said and revealed to us, and that Holy Church proposes for our belief, because he is truth itself. (Section 1814).
The definition does not stop at "Faith is the theological virtue by which we believe in God." The reason is that Satan believes in God, but he does not believe all that God has said and revealed and that the Church proposes for our belief. That is why simply experiencing God is not enough. "It is all thrills and no work." While we certainly cannot work our way to heaven (that is the heresy of Pelagianism that was condemned in the early Church), it is also true that we cannot simply say "Yes, I believe" and not have that belief transform our lives into ones where we follow God's will and do good things.
Besides faith, we also need the theological virtue of charity. The Catechism defines charity as:
Charity is the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for love of God. (Section 1822).
We cannot simply say, "I love you, Lord" and not have obligations, any more we can tell our wife or husband or children "I love you" and not have obligations to them. Men who abuse their wives often apologize for abusing them and then tell them how much they love them, but their actions say otherwise. Love is not a feeling, but an act of the will.
Vague religion is very popular these days. That is because it is easy. True religion, like true love, makes demands on us.
In fact, that is just why a vague religion--all about feeling God in nature, and so on--is so attractive. It is all thrills and no work: like watching the waves from the beach. But you will not get to Newfoundland by studying the Atlantic that way, and you will not get eternal life by simply feeling the presence of God in flowers or music. Neither will you get anywhere by looking at maps without going to sea. Nor will you be very safe if you go to sea without a map. (pp. 154-155).
As is often the case, "both/and" describes the course we should take. Experience of God (going to sea) and learning about God (looking at maps). Lewis reminds us about an important aspect of faith. The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines the theological virtue of faith as:
Faith is the theological virtue by which we believe in God and believe all that he has said and revealed to us, and that Holy Church proposes for our belief, because he is truth itself. (Section 1814).
The definition does not stop at "Faith is the theological virtue by which we believe in God." The reason is that Satan believes in God, but he does not believe all that God has said and revealed and that the Church proposes for our belief. That is why simply experiencing God is not enough. "It is all thrills and no work." While we certainly cannot work our way to heaven (that is the heresy of Pelagianism that was condemned in the early Church), it is also true that we cannot simply say "Yes, I believe" and not have that belief transform our lives into ones where we follow God's will and do good things.
Besides faith, we also need the theological virtue of charity. The Catechism defines charity as:
Charity is the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for love of God. (Section 1822).
We cannot simply say, "I love you, Lord" and not have obligations, any more we can tell our wife or husband or children "I love you" and not have obligations to them. Men who abuse their wives often apologize for abusing them and then tell them how much they love them, but their actions say otherwise. Love is not a feeling, but an act of the will.
Vague religion is very popular these days. That is because it is easy. True religion, like true love, makes demands on us.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
From Irritation to Blessing
I have been reading the Chronicles of Narnia books to my children (who are six and five). We have gotten through The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian. We have also seen the recent movies of those books. We just started Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
As someone who thinks that C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity is simply an amazing book, I am fascinated by the Narnia novels. Lewis was clearly a better expository writer than novelist (as one would expect from a scholar), but he does create some wonderful moments of dialogue and imagery.
One of those moments came to me at mass last week. My kids like to sit in the front row so they can see what is going on, but we arrived too late to mass to sit in the front row. We sat toward the back, but the kids were upset because they could not see the altar. So we took them into the "cry room." The cry room is on the second floor, with a plate glass window overlooking the main aisle of the church and the altar. I was irritated because now, instead of sitting in the front row, we were now in the cry room with several children who were up there for the reason that we have a cry room - because they were being too loud or too mobile for the main part of the church.
But God changed my irritation into a blessing. From that angle, we could see the altar surface. Normally, we are a little below the altar and cannot see the surface. Suddenly, seeing the table top of the altar, the image of Aslan's sacrifice on "the stone table" in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe came to me. Aslan, the lion, is an analogue to Christ in the novel, and I had been extremely moved by the scene of his sacrifice. I had understood the symbolism of the slaying of Aslan as paralleling the Crucifixion. But what I had not appreciated was the simultaneous symbolism of the sacrifice of the the mass, of the Victim upon the altar. Suddenly, the "stone table" upon which Aslan was killed, so clearly shed light on the altar that I had looked upon each week but had not really seen.
God has this uncanny way of changing our point of view, even when we wish to remain stuck in our current, limited ways of seeing. There is a great 17th-century Japanese poem by Mizuta Masahide that illustrates this truth:
Barn's burnt down
now
I can see the moon.
As someone who thinks that C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity is simply an amazing book, I am fascinated by the Narnia novels. Lewis was clearly a better expository writer than novelist (as one would expect from a scholar), but he does create some wonderful moments of dialogue and imagery.
One of those moments came to me at mass last week. My kids like to sit in the front row so they can see what is going on, but we arrived too late to mass to sit in the front row. We sat toward the back, but the kids were upset because they could not see the altar. So we took them into the "cry room." The cry room is on the second floor, with a plate glass window overlooking the main aisle of the church and the altar. I was irritated because now, instead of sitting in the front row, we were now in the cry room with several children who were up there for the reason that we have a cry room - because they were being too loud or too mobile for the main part of the church.
But God changed my irritation into a blessing. From that angle, we could see the altar surface. Normally, we are a little below the altar and cannot see the surface. Suddenly, seeing the table top of the altar, the image of Aslan's sacrifice on "the stone table" in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe came to me. Aslan, the lion, is an analogue to Christ in the novel, and I had been extremely moved by the scene of his sacrifice. I had understood the symbolism of the slaying of Aslan as paralleling the Crucifixion. But what I had not appreciated was the simultaneous symbolism of the sacrifice of the the mass, of the Victim upon the altar. Suddenly, the "stone table" upon which Aslan was killed, so clearly shed light on the altar that I had looked upon each week but had not really seen.
God has this uncanny way of changing our point of view, even when we wish to remain stuck in our current, limited ways of seeing. There is a great 17th-century Japanese poem by Mizuta Masahide that illustrates this truth:
Barn's burnt down
now
I can see the moon.
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