Vocation

(In response to chapter 5 "Vocation in the Kingdom of God" from Engaging God's World by Plantinga Jr.)

I enjoyed the chapter on Vocation by Plantinga. I felt that it reinforced Lewis's piece on learning in wartime. It outlined for yet another time that education is not to prepare us for a job but to prepare us for kingdom work within the Kingdom of God. "The full value of your education is that it will help you find and prepare for your vocation--which, as we've just seen, is much bigger than any particular occupation."

As a political science major I enjoyed the quote by John Calvin, "civil authority is a calling, not only holy and lawful before God, but also the most sacred and by far the most honorable of all callings in the whole life of mortal men." Especially because I am seeking a career in public service.

Pertaining to the argument between Christian and public education I agreed with his view. I believe that it is easier to learn within a Christian community, where spiritual growth is encouraged and cultivated. I also believe that it is possible to do these things at a public institution; however, I believe that it is much harder because there is not a strong sense of community of believers at a public university. While either school may have believers and unbelievers I believe that it is a better environment for the cultivation of spirituality among young Christians.

(This post is shorter because I feel that we have dealt with this topic and covered it completely.)

Learning in War-Time

(In response to "Learning in War-Time", a sermon preached in the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford, Autum, 1939)

Lewis poses the Question that I believe many early Christians struggle with, "how it is right, or even psychologically possible, for creatures who are every moment advancing either to heaven or to hell, to spend any fraction of the little time allowed them in this world on such comparative trivialities as literature or art, mathematics or biology." This also goes along with the immanent return of Jesus Christ. This question can be answered several ways and Lewis looks at a few of them. If we live our lives only seeking those things that we deem sacred then we are limiting our lives to only those things that we as humans understand as within God. All of God's creation is wonderful and "everything under the sun" (Ecclesiastes) can be done to the honor and glory of God.

"Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure the search would never have begun." If we were always waiting for the conditions to be perfect we would have never started anything in this world. If we were constantly living our lives in the knowledge that Christ's return is immanent then we will miss the reason we are here on earth for now; for the honor and glory of God, to be a living sacrifice of worship to God.

"How can you be so frivolous and selfish as to think about anything but the salvation of human souls?" This question can be best answered by John Calvin who believes that everything can be done to the honor of God and therefore we should seek perfection in all aspects of our lives. Calvin would take it as far to say, if we are not writing perfect English and are not seeking to better ourselves then we are not living to the honor of God and are not good Christians. There is also the debate of what is sacred and what is not. I believe that everything is created by God and therefore everything is religious or sacred. Everything that you do in your life can be done in two ways. Either for the glory of God, or not. Therefore, everything you do can be sacred or not sacred based on your motives for doing so. Lewis puts it simply, "And every duty is a religious duty, and our obligation to perform every duty is therefore absolute." The Bible puts it eloquently, "Whether ye eat or drink or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God."

So why don't we all just abandon our jobs and go to work in the church? "A mole must dig to the glory of God and a cock must crow. We are members of one body, but differentiated members, each with his own vocation." We are all made for a specific purpose in the kingdom of God.

Lewis goes on to warn us several enemies that we have along our search for vocation and knowledge. Each appears rather docile at first but at further investigation can lead us into temptation and a sheltered outlook on life. They are:
Excitement
Frustration
Fear

A few quotes that I enjoyed from the passage:

"War makes death real to us: and that would have been regarded as one of its blessings by most of the great Christians of the past. They thought it good for us to be always aware of our mortality. I am inclined to think they were right."

"If we thought we were building up a heaven on earth, if we looked for something that would turn the present world from a place of pilgrimage into a permanent city satisfying the soul of man, we are disillusioned, and not a moment too soon. But if we thought that for some souls, and at some times, the life of learning, humbly offered to God, was, in its own small way, one of the appointed approaches to the Divine reality and the Divine beauty which we hope to enjoy hereafter, we can think so still."

Letter IX

(In response to Letter IX of the Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis)

This letter furthers the discussion between Wormwood and Screwtape as to how to manipulate humans within their trough periods. A part that I specifically found interesting is when Screwtape advises Wormwood to use pleasure withing trough periods. "I know we have won many a soul through pleasure. All the same, it is His invention, not ours. He made the pleasures: all our research so far has not enabled us to produce one." This furthers the belief that God created everything, and it is only through the fall, mans first trough, and through the manipulation of the Devil that these perfect pleasures are perverted and misconstrued to deceive us into committing another sin.

I also thought interesting the point of trying to persuade the subject that his trough was permanent, even though he has experienced several troughs and crests. It was still imperative to make them believe that it was permanent, and because I believe we as humans are all susceptible to this it can only be by the grace of God that we are saved from this belief that our trough is permanent. It also suggests keeping the subject away from "experienced Christians" those who might be able to see through the deception and be able to pull one up out of a trough. I believe that this is represented by the church and is one of the main reasons that we feel a constant pull to not attend church. When we feel this persuasion we must know that it is the devil working against us to distract us.

We so commonly hear that "everything in moderation" is ok. However, it is true that everything in moderation is worse than nothing at all. Everything in moderation makes our faith void. Our faith is the opposite of everything in moderation and therefore should not fall victim to this common mantra.

Another tactic of the devil is to persuade people that what they are in is just a phase. By making the person think that it is just a phase means that the person has given up on trying to fix it and believes that it will work itself out. Something that most certainly will not happen if we are in a trough. Phases are things that cease to exist out of natural occurrence. Our troughs cease to exist because they are acted upon by the Holy Spirits intercession, by the Church, or by a realization through the word of God. Troughs are not phases and will not work themselves out. It is therefore imperative that we not treat our sins as phases and that we seek to remedy every sin that we commit against God and others.

Letter VIII

(In response to Letter VIII of the Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis)

"Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation—the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks." When I read this the first time I wasn't exactly sure what it meant. After reading it through a few times I am fairly sure that it refers to the fact that within a fallen world the only hope of consistency we have is knowing that there is nothing constant. We can count on the fact that we can't count on anything. Because we are body and soul we know that we are constantly yearning to fulfill our spiritual desires, however, the body aspect of our humanity brings us back down. This is the only thing in life that we can count on. This is not encouraging, but if we are ready for it we can find comfort in that expectation. Lewis also points out the fact that because we are destined to fall back into a trough due to the law of undulation we will therefore find the need pray to God, through our prayers God finds a way to bring us closer to him. "Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best." ( I like to take the series of troughs and crests that Lewis describes as a two steps forward one step back approach. We may fall back but we are still moving forward--towards a closer spiritual relationship with God)

"But He never allows this state of affairs to last long. Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs—to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish."

I'm not exactly sure how this quote relates to Lewis's beliefs. I struggle to believe that Lewis believes that God would withdrawal himself. Maybe Lewis has a deistic view of God, or maybe I'm reading it wrong. I find it hard to believe that God withdrawals himself from us. This goes into the free-will predestination debate. Regardless, any view that has God withdrawing himself diminishes my view of God, it lessens the personal relationship that I seek with him as well as creates a deistic view.

What are your thoughts? Is Lewis a diest?

Reason, Truth, Material Needs and Science

(In Response to "Reason, Truth, Material Needs and Science Fundamental Principles for Seeking Direction" by C.S. Lewis)

"The trouble about argument is that it moves the whole struggle onto the Enemy's own ground. He can argue too; whereas in really practical propaganda of the kind I am suggesting He has been shown for centuries to be greatly the inferior of Our Father Below."

When I encountered this portion of the letter it made me think. So often we think that as Christians we are on the irrational, illogical side of things. We feel that if we had to "prove" our religion that we couldn't actually do it because our religion requires faith, it requires the belief in something that is impossible to prove. When this came up that the little devil did not want to argue with us because we can argue to it struck me. So often we just take the poor me role when people ask us to account for our faith. This gave me great hope in the knowledge that I can argue too. I may not be able to argue to a conversion, but the mere fact that I'm in the arena of arguing gives some validity to my cause.

This was my first taste of reading the Screwtape Letters and I enjoyed it. It was interesting to see our daily struggle from another point of view. It further displays how vulnerable we are to temptation in this world and how easy it is to slip up. Our enemy does not have to persuade us that God is false, they don't have to get us to change our beliefs; they merely need to distract us and keep our minds off of the things that make our faith an integral part of our lives. It really makes you think of all the times you are being tempted and not even knowing it. Everything can be used against you and it is only by the grace of God that we are still in the game.

Show and Tell

(In response to the assignment of show and tell, René Descartes Discourse on Method IV)

Link: http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/descartes/descartes_method.html

Descartes, born in the late 1500's, is very important philosopher to the Christians. In Descartes Discourses on Method sets out prove the existence of God. He realizes, however, that in order to do so he cannot base his reasoning on anything of this world because there are mistakes in everything. Even if there is a possibility of perfection there is still possibility of failure and because of this he must resolve to strip himself of all modern knowledge as well as the senses. The first three discourses on method are an outline on how Descartes will set up his quest for knowledge of his own uninfluenced by the senses and mans fallacies.

In the 4th discourse Descartes starts his experience. He strips himself to only his mind and not his senses. This is where the phrase "I think, Therefore I am" comes from. So, Descartes proves that he exists because he is thinking. He then says, "I was led to inquire whence I had learned to think of something more perfect than myself; and I clearly recognized that I must hold this notion from some nature which in reality was more perfect." He talks about how he can look out into nature and know that he is better than the sky, or a tree, because he is capable of things that they are not. He also knows that the notion of these things were not inherent in his mind because he has seen them. However, he has not seen this perfect being, there is nothing that suggests that one exists; yet still there is a notion in his mind that a being more powerful than him exists. This notion can only be explained in one way. That there is a God. Something that had to begin, something that had to have placed the notion in all that is living, that has placed his imprint on all of nature and on all of his creation.

The Discourse on Method IV is powerful in the sense that Descartes stripped himself of everything that he knew and yet still came up with a concept of a God. This speaks volumes to us as humans and especially to us as Christians.

I encourage all of you to go to the link and read the Discourse on Method IV, if you cannot read all of it at least read the 4th paragraph where this post speaks of. Hopefully it will mean as much to you as it has meant to me.

Our English Syllabus

(In Response to "Our English Syllabus" by C.S. Lewis)
The topic of this essay is one that I feel every student should read. Not only every student but every human. This essay embodies the theme that was projected to us in prelude. That we are not here to prepare ourselves for a vocation but to be educated. Education in the sense of not knowing facts and formulas but expanding our minds and learning to think and write critically. We must not train ones mind what it must think but rather how to think for itself. "You see at once that education is essentially for freemen and vocational training for slaves."

Lewis is trying to open up the minds of his students and show to them that they are not here to learn specific facts or trades but to be guided along their own personal journey of learning. That they have already developed a love for learning and that they are merely in a community of people seeking to learn more, guiding each other where each has insight. "The student is, or ought to be, a young man who is already beginning to follow learning for its own sake, and who attaches himself to an older student, not precisely to be taught, but to pick up what he can."

Lewis expands his idea by explaining that "learning is not education; but it can be used educationally by those who do not propose to pursue learning all their lives." Education is much more than learning for four years and saying you are done; rather, education is a means of cultivating that love of learning and developing that into the need to constantly yearn for knowledge.

I feel that this might properly be remedied with the exclusion of grades. When grades are present people learn the material in order to meet a requirement. They don't learn for the joy, they learn out of necessity, with high grades come better job opportunities and so forth. With grades our journey of learning becomes an education that can be completed in four years. Without grades one could learn for the sake of learning and bettering ones self, they could grasp concepts rather than committing insignificant facts to memory. With grades students are more likely to learn in order to pass a test, where education should be learning to better oneself and fulfill the thirst for knowledge.

"It is time you [we] learned to wrestle with nature for yourself [ourselves]."

Right to Happiness

(In response to "We Have No Right to Happiness" by C.S. Lewis)
After reading paragraph one I was pretty sure I understood where Lewis was going with this article. I had assumed that he was stating that yes we do have a right to be happy, but this is only in certain situations and obviously not in the case of Mr. A. and Mrs. B. I too, "Can understand a right as a freedom guaranteed me by the laws of society I live in," and "as a claim guaranteed me by the laws, and correlative to an obligation on someone else's part." This is where Lewis brings up an excellent point by stating the motive for Clare's belief, "She meant that he had not only a legal but moral right to act as he did." This brought the factor of morality into my thought process of this argument. This made me think. I almost felt shorted. When beginning this article I had hoped to find an article preaching that we all had a right to be happy in Christ Jesus. I had hoped that this was going to build upon the other articles about us having joy on earth but a greater joy in heaven. But it does not.

Lets say there is a law that says you can go wherever you want to go. Does this mean that you can drive your can off of roads and into people's backyards ruining everything in your path? No, no it does not. This simple means that following all other penned and unwritten laws you may go wherever you want. One rule does not supersede all of the others, rather, a rule has to correlate with other laws. Not only must it reaffirm all other laws that are written, it must also pass the natural and moral laws.

C.S. Lewis goes on to say that Clare has never condoned a drunkard's actions simply because he was happy when he was drunk. It is here that one looks at himself and says, he's caught me. As much as I want to be able to say that everyone has a right to be happy, it is clear that this is not the case. I also believe it is here that Lewis changes the scope of his article. He then goes on to describe what is really at the heart of the argument. Not that man seeks happiness, but that man seeks "happiness" through temporary sexual impulses. This is where it became clear to me. This article does have correlation to the other articles we have read. It speaks of denying ourselves in the here and now, in the short term, because the things we experience here on earth are only fractions of the ecstasy that we will experience when we are living our eternal lives with him in heaven.

"To be in love involves the almost irresistible conviction that one will go on being in love until one dies,... not merely frequent ecstasies. /... When two people achieve lasting happiness, this is not solely because they are great lovers but because they are also.. good people; controlled, loyal, fair-minded, mutually adaptable people." People under control, denying themselves, picking up their crosses, and following Christ into eternal life.

Longing and Hope

(In response to chapter 1 "Longing and Hope" from Engaging God's World by Plantinga Jr.)
Plantinga states that "Not everybody can report times of wanting to 'break out crying from stabs of hopeless joy,' but many do know what it feels like to yearn." This further validates the argument that we are not made for this world. Everyone knows how to yearn, and everyone yearns for something. The possibility that we might not have to yearn anymore, that we may experience stabs of hopeless joy that bring us to tears is incredible. We are not made for this world, our bodies yearn for better world.

"I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singin' about.... I like to think they were singin' about something so beautiful it can't be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you those voices soared, higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made these walls dissolve away... and for the briefest of moments, every last man at Shawshank felt free."
--Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding-- from the movie Shawshank Redemption
This quotation is said in response to a man broking into a room and played a record on the loudspeakers of a maximum security prison. This was the first time in many years that these men had heard any music, many of them serving life for some crime or another. But I feel that this quotation would correctly describe our response if we were given a glimpse of Heaven on earth. It is almost as if we are in a maximum security prison here on earth, living out our life sentences yearning for freedom: a freedom that can only be experienced on the outside. Any glimpse of this freedom this wonderful experience of joy here on earth can only elicit the type of emotions that will be magnified when we experience the full reward in heaven.

St. Augustine says, "You have made us for yourself [God], and our heart is restless until it rests in you." We cannot not experience the extent of fulfilled joy until our hearts our at rest in the arms of our father. Until then we are left to yearn for the kingdom of God in heaven. We must, however, be careful not to "only hope for ourselves." Rather, we should "keep our head up so that we can look out toward the future of others."

This chapter has further built my anticipation of heaven and what it will be to experience perfect joy. It has also laid the groundwork on how to prepare myself for my journey in this life with the goal of reaching the afterlife.

Weight of Glory

(In response to C.S. Lewis article titled "The Weight of Glory")
In my philosophy class we've been reading an article by Russell Bertrum titled "Why I'm not a Christian." In it he states that one of the reasons he is not a Christian is because he doesn't believe that there is a hell. This popped into my head when I was reading Weight of Glory. On the first page Lewis says that "marriage is the proper reward for love." It got me thinking, God already loves us, and when we love we we are rewarded with a marriage to him. Reformed Doctrine says that baptism is the courtship and public profession of faith is the wedding ceremony. Heaven therefore would be a realization of this relationship. In the same way we are rewarded with marriage out of love, the lack thereof for Christ produces the opposite reward, hell.

I felt that Lewis's analogy of the schoolboy was again right on point. He goes on to elaborate on the topic of the schoolboy relishing in English poets before he comes to the realization of his love for Greek poetry. I believe this would perfectly describe the Christian walk, not only of one from atheist to Christ, but of a Christian born into faith. We as humans has been created un-whole, with a void to fill. There is only one thing that will fill that void, and no matter what we try nothing can substitute for a personal relationships with Jesus Christ. Even then we will still find ourselves struggling in this foreign world waiting for our trip to our eternal resting place. Lewis describes the irony of those trying to convince us that earth is our final destination. They try to convince us falsely how we can make heaven on earth.

"The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God. To please God...to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness...to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son--it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is."

Lewis makes some excellent points in this quotation from page 6 of the article. The words that I bold-ed are words/phrases that really stuck out in my mind as I was reading the excerpt. It seems impossible that us in our infinite sinful nature can please God. That God will not merely feel sorry for us. No, rather he will delight in us as an artist delights in his work. This seems something incomprehensible but this is a reality.

Lewis goes on to describe many different interpretations and explanations of glory. We all know what glory is, and when spoken in a humanistic sense has a negative connotation. However, we seem to be confused by this word when we use it in reference to God, because in that sense it cannot have a negative connotation. Image a being perfectly humble yet is worshiped by millions, one who can do anything he wants, yet does good. Our God is glorious in every sense of the word.

Finally, I realize sometimes it's kind of hard to comment on other people's posts, let me pose a question from the piece to elicit conversation. "Perhaps it seems rather crude to describe glory as the fact of being 'noticed' by God." What are your thoughts on this statement?

Bulverism

(In Response to C.S. Lewis's article titled "Bulverism")
In reading the article about Bulverism I cannot help but think of my older brothers. This "tactic" or reasoning is parallel to that of an older brother "always knowing what is best" if they are wrong or not. As a younger brother you are always assumed wrong, when you finally are in the know and have a solid argument it is defeated by what I know deem as Bulverism. In this instance I am assumed wrong and ridiculed on past and irrelevant happenings until I have been discredited to the point where no one has any idea of how the argument started or is about. In this manner the older siblings have successfully avoided looking less intelligent and can now claim that they have still never been wrong. After employing the system of Bulverism a person is likely to use the argument against that person claiming that they originated the idea.

I not only see this in my family but everywhere I go. Political debates, church politics, friendship circles and many other areas where arguments take place. Rarely are arguments won by rationalization and sound logic. They are won, however, by whoever is the most dominating. Whoever speaks louder, whoever has the last word, whoever intimidates his opponent will win the argument regardless. Rarely is this untrue.

The essay delves deeper into the heart of the matter towards the end of the portion by C.S. Lewis. He acknowledges that even though it may not produce results we would still all rather have reason than implement bulverism. Lewis poses the question of whether one must believe in God in order to "know." A notion that we all must answer in the negative. However, if knowing means to truly know in the sense that only absolute truth comes from God and that a close relationship with him means a closer relationship with the truth, then yes, one must believe in order to truly know.

Lewis makes the claim that all truth and argument must be founded on either causes or reason. "Causes are mindless events which can produce other results than belief. Reasons arise from axioms and inferences and affect only beliefs. Bulverism tries to show that the other man has causes and not reasons and that we have reasons and not causes." ... "If these are the results of causes, then there is no possibility of knowledge. Either we can know nothing or thought has reasons only, and no causes." Obviously we have know something which lends itself to reason, to knowledge, to truly knowing, to belief, where a belief is the strongest argument based and rooted in God.