Lewis: The Personhood of God

C. S. Lewis 3God is not the Force of the Star Wars saga. Neither is He some vague “idea” floating around out there. He’s not Ralph Waldo Emerson’s transcendentalist Oversoul. He is a Person; in fact, more of a person than either you or I. In one of his essays, “On Obstinacy in Belief,” C. S. Lewis shows how we need to come face to face with that reality:

To believe that God—at least this God—exists is to believe that you as a person now stand in the presence of God as a Person. What would, a moment before, have been variations in opinion, now become variations in your personal attitude to a Person. You are no longer faced with an argument which demands your assent, but with a Person who demands your confidence.

Once we realize His personhood, and comprehend that this Person is the very One behind the creation of all things, and that we indeed are not our own little god, we are faced with the most monumental decision of our lives: what is my relationship to this Person? In The Four Loves, Lewis clarifies:

Our whole being by its very nature is one vast need; incomplete, preparatory, empty yet cluttered, crying out for Him who can untie things that are now knotted together and tie up things that are still dangling loose.

In other words, only through God do all things find their proper place. Only through Him do we find our purpose for existing. He is the reason we even live, move, and have our being.