Reflections on God … Man … Life
When C. S. Lewis’s wife Joy died, he went through a crisis of faith. He wrote a book at the time into which he poured out his questions to God. It was called A Grief Observed. This quote is taken from that book, and is part of what he had to learn through this experience. You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you. It is… Read more »
C. S. Lewis had to make the journey from atheism to Christianity. In his book Mere Christianity, he explains how he came up against the lack of logic in his atheistic position: [When I was an atheist] my argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was… Read more »
C. S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce is one of my favorite books, as it depicts a fanciful journey from hell to heaven so that those in hell can see what they have missed. Any Lewis book is full of pithy insights. Here’s one from The Great Divorce that I find particularly lucid: 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,… Read more »
Lewis took on the role of an apologist for the Christian faith. In an essay entitled “Christian Apologetics,” he honed in on one of the big problems Christians have when trying to explain the truth of Christianity. It’s not a problem with the message itself, but with the hearers of the message: One of the great difficulties is to keep before the audience’s mind the question of Truth. They always think you are recommending Christianity not because it is true… Read more »
One of the books that catapulted C. S. Lewis to worldwide fame was The Screwtape Letters, published in the early 1940s. It was a fanciful interpretation of how a senior devil—Screwtape—gives advice to a junior devil—Wormwood–on how to lead people into sin and ensure they never enter into a relationship with God. Here’s part of that “advice”: The long, dull, monotonous years of middle-aged prosperity or middle-aged adversity are excellent campaigning weather. You see, it is so hard for these… Read more »
Over Thanksgiving, I was browsing through a Barnes and Noble in Tucson when I came across a volume I didn’t know existed—a massive compilation of C.S. Lewis’s most memorable quotes. Since Lewis is one of my all-time favorite writers, I was delighted with my find. As I’ve begun to plumb its depths, I’ve been renewed in my appreciation of the insights he offers. Normally, I’ve rested from this blog on Saturdays, but with the addition of this book to my… Read more »
I’m grateful for the Thanksgiving break last week. It was good to get away, spend time with extended family and some “old” friends/former students, and kind of let the world do whatever it chose to do for a while without my involvement. Yes, I did check in from time to time to see if the world was still here. While on my hiatus, the following events transpired: More layoffs occurred or have been planned by businesses since the election. The… Read more »