Lewis: The Intrusive God

A lot of people don’t mind the idea of a god of some kind; they just don’t want him/it/whatever to be too personal or make any demands. Avoiding accountability for one’s actions is a very human trait, and I don’t mean that as a compliment.

C. S. Lewis 6C. S. Lewis touched on this issue in his book Miracles:

Men are reluctant to pass over from the notion of an abstract and negative deity to the living God. I do not wonder.

Here lies the deepest tap-root of Pantheism and of the objection to traditional imagery. It was hated not, at bottom, because it pictured Him as man but because it pictured Him as king, or even as warrior.

The Pantheist’s God does nothing, demands nothing. He is there if you wish for Him, like a book on a shelf. He will not pursue you. There is no danger that at any time heaven and earth should flee away at His glance.

That’s not the real nature of God. He is quite intrusive, to the point of leaving the Throne Room of heaven to live amongst men, and then suffer and die for them, that they might find their way back to what they were originally created for—fellowship with the Creator of all things and the Lover of their souls.

Thank you, Lord, for the Great Intrusion.