Integrative Essay

In this essay I will try to explain each of the five chapters in Plantinga’s Engaging God’s World, and then I will compare that with some of the things that Lewis has said in the essays that we have read. The first chapter, on longing and hope, is seen in “We Have no Right to Happiness,” and The Four Loves. Comments on how to view creation are in “Our English Syllabus,” and “The Poison of Subjectivism.” The fall and the implications of it are seen in “The Weight of Glory.” “Learning in Wartime” has some thoughts on redemption and “The Inner Ring” and “Man or Rabbit” mention things that can be related to chapter five and our vocation.

The first chapter of Cornelius Plantinga's book, Engaging God's World, has three sections; longing, hope, and shalom. In the first section Plantinga talks about our longings as humans and how they are never fully satisfied. We have longings for many little things in life but behind every little longing lays our true longing which is for God. "But, if they come, they will not fill all our niches because we want more than these things can give." We may fulfill some of our longings in life, such as finding a job, and these accomplishments will make us feel satisfied at first but in time that satisfaction and joy will die out because our true longing is for God and only through him can we find true joy. The second section is about hope and how longings are a part of our hopes and dreams. I think of hopes as more specific longings or for things that are more realistic. A couple examples are: you long for a job and hope for a specific job that you prefer; if you are in a difficult time in your life you may long to go back to the times when you were a child and everything was so simple, while you hope that you will be able to make it through the difficulties quickly. The last section is about shalom and how we should hope and long for it. When translated into English, shalom means peace but its actual meaning is much greater than that. "In the Bible, shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness, and delight - a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts fruitfully employed, all under the arch of God's love. Shalom, in other words, is the way things are supposed to be."

Lewis does not directly talk about this in either of these two readings but both relate well to it. The first is the essay, “We Have No Right to Happiness.” We think at times that we have a right to happiness and so this is something that we hope for. This happiness is different from joy and I don’t think a right to happiness is a part of shalom. Lewis’ book The Four Loves, talks about topics that have to do with this as well. Eros love is something we long for because it is the romantic love that we all want. This is not all of our longing though and it will not fulfill us. We truly long for the agape love and more specifically the agape love from God. We long for this love and for God to bring shalom so that all can be right in the world.

Plantinga's second chapter of his book is titled creation and discusses how God created humans in his image, and what the eight implications of creation are. God created everything and therefore we can see God in everything but he created humans in his image so God can be seen even more in humans. The first way in which we are created like God is that he gave us authority in the world and we have a responsibility to honor God with that authority. Second, we have relationships with each other just as God has relationships with us. Last, we are like God because we are like Jesus. Jesus suffered and died and everyone on earth will experience that so we mirror God in that way. A couple of the implications of creation are: God created everything with a purpose and he gave us intelligence so that we can discover that purpose. We can learn things about God through creation.

“Our English Syllabus” gives a need for creation not directly mentioned in Plantinga’s chapter but it is still important. Lewis talks about choosing what to study and the analogy of the tree. When studying the Bible it is sometimes easy to just cut out the Old Testament because we think it does not apply to us anymore but to understand God’s story we need to study the whole thing and so creation is important. “The Poison of Subjectivism” also brings up an interesting point about how we are made in the image of God. It talks about the Trinity as being like a 3D object and we are only 2D so we cannot understand it. I think we are made in the image of God this way too. We are like God but we cannot know everything about him because we are just like a 2D image of him.

The third chapter of Engaging God's World is about the fall and how it has corrupted man and society. Evil is what has corrupted the world, not just sin, because evil is more than sin. Plantinga says that evil is any spoiling of shalom, and all sin is evil but not all evil is sin. A natural disaster would be an example of an evil that is not a sin because there is no one responsible for it. A sin would be an evil that someone commits. As humans we can be corrupted more than animals because we have more initial good to be corrupted. "The better stuff a creature is made of--the cleverer and stronger and freer it is--then the better it will be if it goes right, but also the worse it will be if it goes wrong." Humans can be better or worse than animals, and supernatural beings can be better or worse than us. When we sin we are corrupting ourselves but we also need to remember that we may be corrupting others as well. This gives us a greater responsibility not to sin because we are affecting other people, as well as ourselves, when we sin. We need to be careful who we surround ourselves with because if they are sinning they are likely corrupting you. I think this can also work to some extent in the opposite direction as well. If we are doing good around people we can help make them less corrupt and less inclined to sin.

 “The Weight of Glory” has something to say about the last part of the chapter. C.S. Lewis says at the end of the essay, “All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations (eternal splendor or horror). It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.” This is important because we are always helping people either towards splendor or horror. This also fits under the redemption chapter. We are fallen and have evil in us but because we have been redeemed we can help people get out of their sin by our actions around them.

Because the world is fallen, God had to send his son to redeem us and that is what the fourth chapter of Engaging God's World, is about: redemption. Jesus was sent to redeem all of creation because everything is fallen. As Plantinga said, when Jesus came into the world, "he acted like a repentant sinner. He got himself baptized, like every sinner. He absorbed accusations. He accepted rebuke without protest. He endured gossip about his choice of friends and his eating and drinking habits." Jesus didn't just live without sin, he also went through everything, and a lot more, than every sinner has to go through. He showed us how to live, and redeemed us through his death and resurrection. In “Learning in War-Time” Lewis Talks about how we should not wait for our life to be normal to do things. Our life will never be normal and it is just an excuse to get away from doing things. As Plantinga says, the whole world has to be reformed and if everyone waited for their life to be normal, no one would get anything done. We have been redeemed but we can’t just wait for everything to work out perfectly before we act.

The fifth and final chapter of Plantinga's Engaging God's World is all about our vocation in the kingdom of God. Our vocation is our calling and Plantinga talks about how our calling is not just what our job will be once we graduate, but it is much more than that. Our calling has many parts to it and we have to try to fit all those parts together to honor God. Some of these callings might include being a student or teacher, being a parent, being a husband or wife or child or friend. It is hard to know what God wants from us though, because He doesn't just tell us. We have to be patient and do the best we can to follow God's calling for us. A quote that I liked by Joseph Hall was, "the homeliest service that we do in an honest calling, though it be to plow, or dig, if done in obedience, and conscience of God's Commandment, is crowned with an ample reward; whereas the best works of their kind (preaching, praying, offering Evangelical sacrifices) if without respect of God's injunction and glory, are loaded with curses. God loves adverbs; and cares not how good, but how well." God doesn't ask that we all do the "best" things. He just asks us to do our very best at whatever our calling is and that we do it for him.

Lewis’ essays, “The Inner Ring” and “Man or Rabbit” are good examples of parts of our vocation. “The Inner Ring” talks about how we are always trying to become an insider of whatever we are doing. There are “inner rings” in all of our vocations and we have to stay focused on God’s purpose for us rather than worrying about becoming an insider. The quote at the end of “Man or Rabbit” is talking about morality but I th9nk it also applies to vocation. “Morality is a mountain which we cannot climb by our own efforts; and if we could we should only perish in the ice and unbreathable air of the summit, lacking those wings with which the rest of the journey has to be accomplished. For it is from there that the real ascent begins. The ropes and axes are 'done away' and the rest is a matter of flying." We all have specific callings and our callings, along with God, equip us for the climb and the further ascent afterwards.

Plantinga gives a good outline of the Christian faith in Engaging God’s World, and the essays of C.S. Lewis that we read paralleled many of the ideas in Plantinga’s book. Lewis is very good at putting theological topics in easy to understand terms. Reading Lewis alongside Engaging God’s World, made everything easier to understand and more enjoyable than just studying one theological book. 

The Problem of Pain

Chapter six of Lewis's book, The Problem of Pain, is titled human pain, and talks about where pain comes from and what it is. "When souls become wicked they will certainly use this possibility to hurt one another; and this, perhaps, accounts for four-fifths of the sufferings of men. It is men, not God, who have produced racks, whips, prisons, slavery, guns, bayonets, and bombs; it is by human avarice or human stupidity, not by the churlishness of nature, that we have poverty and overwork." We have created this kind of pain in the world, but physical pain is not the only type of pain in the world. "Pain is synonymous with suffering, anguish, tribulation, adversity, or trouble, and it is about it that the problem of pain arises." If God is all powerful and all good, then how is there pain in the world? That is the question, and the problem of pain. As seen in Lewis' quote earlier, mankind has created much of the pain in the world. Some of the other pains, such as diseases, are controlled by Satan as seen in the Bible in Job. Another explanation is that pain can be good for us. Many times it takes people pain or some big event in their life to turn back to God. We want God as our backup but in the good times when everything is going right we don't think we need him. As a friend of Lewis said, "We regard God as an airman regards his parachute; its there for emergencies but he hopes he'll never have to use it," The pain of being poor can actually be good because we don't have the distraction of money to keep us from God, but it can also get in the way if our poverty is all we worry about. "Poverty is blessed and yet ought to be removed."

Engaging God's World: Chapter 5

The fifth and final chapter of Plantinga's Engaging God's World, is all about our vocation in the kingdom of God. Our vocation is our calling and Plantinga talks about how our calling is not just what our job will be once we graduate, but it is much more than that. Our calling has many parts to it and we have to try to fit all those parts together to honor God. Some of these callings might include being a student or teacher, being a parent, being a husband or wife or child or friend. It is hard to know what God wants from us though, because He doesn't just tell us. We have to be patient and do the best we can to follow God's calling for us. A quote that I liked by Joseph Hall was, "the homeliest service that we do in an honest calling, though it be to plow, or dig, if done in obedience, and conscience of God's Commandment, is crowned with an ample reward; whereas the best works of their kind (preaching, praying, offering Evangelical sacrifices) if without respect of God's injunction and glory, are loaded with curses. God loves adverbs; and cares not how good, but how well." God doesn't ask that we all do the "best" things. He just asks us to do our very best at whatever our calling is and that we do it for him. The one part I don't agree with on that quote is where it says that the best works without respect of God are filled with curses. I agree that they are not as good, and those people are not fulfilling their vocation, but God still uses those works to do good things even if they are for the wrong reasons. A way to try to make sure we are working for God is that when picking a job we should "strive first for the kingdom." We need to take the job in our calling that best suits us to do the most good for God's kingdom. This may mean taking a job with less benefits but it doesn't always mean that. Just because a job has a higher salary and better benefits, doesn't mean it is worse, those just shouldn't be the main reason for picking a specific job.

Man or Rabbit?

"Man or Rabbit" is an essay in which C.S. Lewis answers the question of whether or not we can still live a good and successful life without being a Christian. Lewis first describes how Christians and non-Christians act differently and how their definitions of good are different. Christians know that individuals are the most important because they are eternal while materialists believe that civilizations and organizations are the most important because they can last much longer than a human will live. This causes materialists to try to do whatever brings the most happiness to the most amount of people. Lewis also says that their definition of happiness is wrong though. They think that happiness is whatever makes you feel best; while Christians believe that the only way to bring people true and lasting happiness is to unite them with God. The real question that is being asked is not whether you can be good without being a Christian but rather, "Need I bother about it? Mayn't I just evade the whole issue, just let sleeping dogs lie, and get on with my being 'good'? Aren't good intentions enough to keep me safe without knocking at that dreadful door and making sure there is or isn't someone inside?" They don't want to bother with it because they are worried that they might find the truth and then that could disturb what they think is a good life. "He is like the man who won't go to the doctor when he first feels a mysterious pain because he is afraid of what the doctor might tell him." "Morality is a mountain which we cannot climb by our own efforts; and if we could we should only perish in the ice and unbreathable air of the summit, lacking those wings with which the rest of the journey has to be accomplished. For it is from there that the real ascent begins. The ropes and axes are 'done away' and the rest is a matter of flying." I like this quote a lot because it is a great picture of what happens to many people. They think they can live a good life without God, and when they finally reach their summit, they are left there by themselves either to freeze, or to go back down right to where they started.

The Inner Ring

In "The Inner Ring" C.S. Lewis talks about how everyone is trying to get into an inner ring and what that does to us. Everyone wants to be in the inner ring and I think we are all working towards that goal whether we realize it or not. Getting into the inner ring could mean a lot different things like being a part of a certain group of friends, working your way up in a large corporation, or joining a gang. "In the whole of your life as you now remember it, has the desire to be on the right side of that invisible line ever prompted you to any act or word on which, in the cold small hours of a wakeful night, you can look back with satisfaction?" When we try to get into those inner rings, generally we do things that we will later regret and Lewis says that getting into these inner rings makes us into scoundrels. Also, whenever you make into that group, there is almost always a more inner ring that will draw you in. The rings are like an onion that keep getting smaller until there is nothing. "You are trying to peel an onion: if you succeed there will be nothing left. Until you conquer the fear of being an outsider, an outsider you will remain." We are always on the outside of some ring and we have to learn to accept being an outsider or else our whole life will be given away trying to get into the inner ring and we will never be satisfied. Inner rings are always exclusive because if they were not exclusive then nobody would care if they were a part of it. We want to be a part of the inner ring because we are searching for that sense of belonging and we think that getting into that certain group will bring that. There are rings that exist that are not bad though. These rings are rings of friendship that form mostly because of similar interest. This is seen a lot in high school with groups of sports or music. I had a group of four friends that loved to golf, and that formed a sort of inner ring because people that didn't like golf weren't a part of that group. This is not a bad type of ring because we were still friends with those other people, but just outside of golf. We can join rings but we need to make sure that they are not a bad influence on us and that we are not losing friends because we join these rings.

The Four Loves: Eros

The Four Loves, is a book in which Lewis describes the four types of loves in our lives and the use of all of them. The first is Storge which is the affectionate love that you have for someone that you are familiar with. This is commonly seen between family members. The second is Phileo which is the love of friendship. This is the bond between close friends and is more than just companionship. The third love is Eros which is the romance love. And the fourth is Agape, or charity. This is the unconditional love and the love that God is full of. Our reading and this blog post will focus on Eros, the love of romance. Eros is the sense of being in love and is different than sexuality. Eros loves someone for who they are and does not just judge by how they act or look. It does not long for the sexual connection but rather an emotional connection with the other person. "What comes first is simply a delighted pre-occupation with the Beloved--a general, unspecified pre-occupation with her in her totality." The sexual appeal is not what comes first in falling in love but rather, it is that she is all you can think about and you just want to know her better. With Eros, their appearance doesn't matter as much because when you love someone you see them as even more beautiful whether other people think so or not. Lewis says that falling in love happens but being in love is a choice. I thought it was interesting because you cant always control who you fall in love with but you can control if you pursue that feeling or not. He also said some interesting things about what love does when you are married. When you are married, and even before that, both people are trying to change the other in little ways so that they can become the 'ideal' man or woman. This will end up leaving both people unhappy with each other because neither will ever become that perfect image that they have in their minds. I think it is important to understand what the Eros love is but sometimes it is hard to completely grasp. I think it would be interesting to read this again after being married for a little while so that we could understand it in a different way.

Engaging God's World: Chapter 4

Because the world is fallen, God had to send his son to redeem us and that is what the fourth chapter of Engaging God's World, is about: redemption. Jesus was sent to redeem all of creation because everything is fallen. As Plantinga said, when Jesus came into the world, "he acted like a repentant sinner. He got himself baptized, like every sinner. He absorbed accusations. He accepted rebuke without protest. He endured gossip about his choice of friends and his eating and drinking habits." Jesus didn't just live without sin, he also went through everything, and a lot more, than every sinner has to go through. He showed us how to live, and redeemed us through his death and resurrection. One thing that Plantinga says is that "nobody gains union with Christ by himself." I don't completely agree with this. This means that you need a church or at least a group of believers to be unified with Christ. What if there is one person in a remote country who comes to believe in God and there are no other Christians around? Does this mean he can't be unified with God and is doomed just because of his geographical location and culture? I think a church is still important but I also think it is possible, but not easy, to become a unified with God without one.

Jesus died and then rose again and we can symbolize being unified with him through baptism. The act of baptism is like a death and resurrection. Being immersed in water symbolizes death and then you are "resurrected" in being pulled back up. We are redeemed by Christ and baptism shows that we believe and understand that. Our job is not done though once we believe in God. We need to help bring others to know the truth and try to change the parts of our lives that are bringing us further away from the perfect peace of shalom. We do this by using the Bible as a guide to help us know what shalom looks like and what we can do to help.

Learning in War-Time

In "Learning in War-Time" C.S. Lewis how we should live our life in war and if it should be much different from "normal" times. "The war creates no absolutely new situation: it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Life has never been normal." We cannot wait around for life to be normal before we decide to follow God because normal will never come. There are things that we may die for in life but we shouldn't live for anything besides God because anything else is a waste. If we learn how to swim and save a drowning person and then go wait by the beach for someone to drown we would be living for that. It is better to just know how to save someone and then if you happen to be in a situation where someone needs help, then you can save them.

Lewis then goes on to list the three main mental enemies that war brings upon us. The first one is excitement. We get excited about the war and that is all we can think about and that makes it hard for us to get our work done. "The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they will seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable." In college there are a lot of things that can distract us; it might be a break that is coming soon, or a family member that is sick or injured. Although it is not bad to think about these things, we need to be able to focus when it is time to learn. The second enemy is frustration. If we procrastinate on a paper or project and wait until late the night before to start, it is easy to get frustrated and start thinking that you will never finish it. All this does though, is slow you down even more and keeps you from thinking about the job you need to do. The third enemy is fear. "What does war do to death? It certainly does not make it more frequent; 100 percent of us die." War should not make us fear death because it does not increase the chances and could actually give a less painful death than later in our life, so it is not pain that we fear. The thought of death is what we fear. We are always worried about staying healthy and looking good and we try to forget about death altogether. War makes us think about death which brings us fear. Sometimes we can just be so worried about our grades that we actually keep us from learning be cause we are so worried about how to get the best grade rather than how to learn the best. The enemies of wartime that Lewis lists are not just in war but at all times because life is never truly normal.

Engaging God's World: Chapter 3

The third chapter of Engaging God's World, is about the fall and how it has corrupted man and society. Evil is what has corrupted the world, not just sin, because evil is more than sin. Plantinga says that evil is any spoiling of shalom, and all sin is evil but not all evil is sin. A natural disaster would be an example of an evil that is not a sin because there is no one responsible for it. A sin would be an evil that someone commits. As humans we can be corrupted more than animals because we have more initial good to be corrupted. "The better stuff a creature is made of--the cleverer and stronger and freer it is--then the better it will be if it goes right, but also the worse ti will be if it goes wrong." Humans can be better or worse than animals and supernatural beings can be better or worse than us, that is why the fall of the some of the angels was such a huge change. When we sin we are corrupting ourselves but we also need to remember that we may be corrupting others as well. This gives us a greater responsibility not to sin because we are affecting other people, as well as ourselves, when we sin. We need to be careful who we surround ourselves with because if they are sinning they are likely corrupting you. I think this can also work to some extent in the opposite direction as well. If we are doing good around people we can help make them less corrupt and less inclined to sin.

One of the questions that Plantinga brought up in the book was whether there were carnivores in the Garden of Eden. This kind of confused me because it was something I had never really thought about before. If there weren't, then either animals like lions became carnivores after the fall or they didn't exist before it. If they became carnivores at the fall though, it would seem that a lion could hardly have the strength of a lion without meat. The best explanation that I can think of for this is that perhaps the different fruits in the Garden were more strengthening than the fruit we have today.

The Poison of Subjectivism

In his essay, "The Poison of Subjectivism," Lewis gives another proof for a natural moral law just as he did in the first chapters of Mere Christianity. Lewis claims that we all are born with the same moral law and that we just interpret it differently based on our culture and social position. He then gives the two main objections to this statement and then his arguments against them. The first is that if we say that there is a never changing moral code that we all judge and act by, we are cutting off  all progress. "The square on the hypotenuse has not gone moldy by continuing to equal the sum of the square on the other two sides." This goes to show that just because something stays the same, it doesn't mean that it becomes worse. Also, if the point we are trying to progress towards (good), is always changing, we can never get closer to it, just as a train wouldn't be able to get closer to its destination if that destination was moving as well. The second argument against natural law is that "morality is different in different times and places." He refutes this by saying it is just purely false and then gives examples of how throughout time and cultures the morals have the same basics although they have their differences.

Then Lewis describes what God's relation to the natural law is. "Are these things right because God commands them or does God command them because they are right?" Neither of these options are acceptable because if God commands goodness, then God's goodness means nothing because he would be defining himself as good. But if they are right without God making them right then that means they would not be controlled by God. "God neither obeys nor creates the moral law." The best explanation for this is just that we cannot comprehend God, just as people in a 2D world would not be able to imagine what a cube would look like even if it was being described by someone from a 3D world. We have to learn what we can about God but understand that we can't know everything. We all have morals that we are born with and we have to try to interpret them in the correct way in order to align ourselves with God's will, which can be hard because that may mean going against the flow of culture.

Mere Christianity

In the preface, Lewis describes what he was trying to accomplish in writing this book. He wanted to give the basis of Christianity and he wanted it to not resemble any particular denomination, he just wanted 'mere' Christianity. He says that Christianity is like a hall with many rooms and the rooms being the denominations. "If I can bring anyone into that hall I shall have done what I attempted. But it is in the rooms, not in the hall, that there are fires and chairs and meals. The hall is a place to wait in, a place from which to try the various doors, not a place to live in." In order to do this he had to say nothing about all aspects that were controversial among different denominations. In order to do this Lewis had to go step by step through Christianity. He does a good job of proving one point first before he builds on it and moves on. Also, I liked that he has the entire second chapter for answering questions that people had about his first chapter.

In the first chapter, Lewis explains what the law of human nature is and how it is seen in everyone. There are moral standards that we have built into us and when we break one we try to make up excuses for why it was not our fault or why there was an exception to the rule. Lewis uses the example of taking someones seat. If someone sits down somewhere first and then gets up and you take their seat, you both know that it should not be taken. You will try to justify it though by saying that he left or some other excuse. You never try to convince the other person that taking their seat isn't wrong because you know it is. People say that the law of human nature is just instincts and not a law of what is right and wrong. The example of someone drowning can be used to explain this. If someone is drowning you have the instinct to help them but also the instinct of self-preservation. Saving yourself would likely be the stronger instinct so if there is no moral law to guide you then you would not save them. The fact that many times people do go against their stronger instincts shows that there is a moral law. I think these chapters are good for us to read because it is always helpful to get a logical and simple proof of something we believe in.

Screwtape Letters

The Screwtape Letters, is probably my favorite book or essay I've read by C.S. Lewis as it is full of tons of good thoughts about Christian life. Also, I think its great to be able to read something that is written from the devil's perspective so that we can imagine what they think about our everyday actions. In letter 12, Screwtape tells Wormwood to try to keep the patient just lukewarm in his faith and that it is ok if he is still going to church as long as he has a bad attitude about it. They didn't want anything too dramatic to happen because that could cause him to wake up and see the light again. They want to keep him doing minor sins and let them build up over time because, "The safest road to Hell is the gradual one--the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts."

To me, the most intriguing part of this letter and throughout the book is what is said about our prayer. "A few weeks ago you had to tempt him to unreality and inattention in his prayers: but now you will find him opening his arms to you and almost begging you to distract his purpose and benumb his heart." When the patient first becomes a Christian he wants to pray and Wormwood has to try to distract him from "the Enemy" in any way possible. This is difficult for Wormwood at first but eventually, once the patient's faith cools down and is mostly lukewarm, he is distracted in prayer so easily it is like he wants to be distracted. I think this happens to us a lot and we need to be aware of it. When we pray we need to be focused on God and block out any distractions that may keep us from connecting with God through prayer. This can also be true when we read the bible, because it is easy to just read something and not really think about it. If we make reading the Bible and prayer feel like work, then we are letting ourselves be tempted and will not get anything out of either.

Engaging God's World: Chapter 2

Plantinga's second chapter of his book, Engaging God's World, is titled creation and discusses how God created humans in his image, and what the eight implications of creation are. God created everything and therefore we can see God in everything but he created humans in his image so God can be seen even more in humans. The first way in which we are created like God is that he gave us authority in the world and we have a responsibility to honor God with that authority. Second, we have relationships with each other just as God has relationships with us. Last, we are like God because we are like Jesus. Jesus suffered and died and everyone on earth will experience that so we mirror God in that way.

Next, there are eight implications that creation has. The first is that everything was created good and although we are fallen we all have some good in us. "No human being is as good as he can be; but, because of the strength of creation and of God's faithfulness in preserving it, no human is as bad as he could be either." Second, God created everything with a purpose and he gave us intelligence so that we can discover that purpose. Third, we can learn things about God through creation. Because he created the world entirely good, we can know that he is a good God, and the fact that he is able to create all of this shows that he has immense power. Fourth, we are naturally going to love nature and the creation because God created it but we should not worship it because it is not God himself. Fifth, after God created Adam and Eve he told them to work in the Garden of Eden and also to populate the earth. This shows that work and marriage are good things and we can glorify God in all types of work, not just things such as preaching. Sixth, as humans we all have responsibilities to God. He created us and gave us authority and every single human was created by God and has a purpose here. This is seen when C. S. Lewis says, "There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal." Seventh, we are all individuals and are unique in our own way. We all have different talents that we bring to the church and we need to respect that in other people. Last, we are images of God and through other people we can know God better. "To sum up, the first act in the world's drama is God's act of creating and sustaining 'all things visible and invisible,' out of a generous desire to enlarge the realm of being, to bestow life and goodness on others, and to assist others to flourish in the realm created for them.

The Weight of Glory

In Lewis' sermon, "The Weight of Glory," he talks about our desires and the weight that glory puts on us. Although we sometimes think that our desires are too strong, Lewis refutes this by saying that we are too easily pleased because we go after earthly pleasures while things such as infinite joy is out there. Stronger desires can be good but they can also be bad as well. If we are seeking after God because we desire rewards, we do not have the right intentions and will not be satisfied but if we truly seek God, those rewards will come along with it. Next, Lewis talks about glory and the burden it brings us. Lewis describes glory as either "fame" or "luminosity", and we would normally say that fame is a bad thing because it is saying that you are better than others. "I suddenly remembered that no one can enter heaven except as a child; and nothing is so obvious in a child--not a conceited child, but in a good one--as its great and undisguised pleasure in being praised. Not only in a child, either, but even in a dog or a horse." The glory that we seek as a child is not a sin and it is just the wanting to be acknowledged. We work to glorify God because he deserves it but when he gives us the gift of glory it is like a burden to us because we don't deserve it. "To please God...to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness...to be loves by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in his son--it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain." This can be pictured in an analogy of a car. If a friend were to just give you a new car, you would almost feel bad taking it and it would be great but also somewhat of a burden. If you just didn't use it, then you would be wasting the gift and also if you misused it and crashed it you would be wasting the gift as well. Also, I like the examples that Lewis uses in the previous quote. He says, "as an artist delights in his work or a father his son." He chooses these examples because God is both our artist and our father so he delights in us as his artwork and as his children.

Our English Syllabus

In "Our English Syllabus" Lewis describes the difference between education and learning and talks about how to choose what you learn. Lewis says that education is what makes you 'human' while learning is the pursuit of knowledge. "The assumption is that the master is already human, the pupil a mere candidate for humanity--an unregenerate little bundle of appetites which is to be kneaded and molded  into human shape by one who knows better." When we are educated it is by someone who has been previously educated which means we are being educated under them. This is different in learning because in learning we are learning with someone more than learning under them.

Later, Lewis talks about how to study and how to choose what to study in your learning. "The proper question for a freshman is not 'What will do me the most good?' but 'What do I most want to learn?'" Lewis does not like the idea of a wide range of topics in learning but rather a more thorough learning of a specific topic. This is difficult because later he agrees with Hegel when he says, "A perfect study of anything requires a knowledge of everything." It is impossible then to have perfect knowledge of anything so we have to choose which things are the most important to our understanding. Lewis uses the example of a tree where all of the possible learning topics are the roots. You have to keep the main roots of the subject and as many of the smaller ones that you have time for, but besides that you must cut out everything else. Although the tree may not grow to its full potential it will still live. Then Lewis says, "Things are understood by what precedes them rather than by what follows them. It may be disappointing to stop a story in the middle, but you can understand it as far as you have gone; you cannot understand it if you begin in the middle." This is true in stories and learning and I also think it is true with the Bible. Some people will just read the New Testament because they think the Old Testament doesn't apply to us anymore and so it isn't important. This isn't true because, to understand God more and understand the story, we have to know it from the start of creation.

Engaging God's World: Chapter 1

The first chapter of Cornelius Plantinga's book, Engaging God's World, is titled Longing ad Hope. there are three sections in this chapter; longing, hope, and shalom. In the first section Plantinga talks about our longings as humans and how they are never fully satisfied. We have longings for many little things in life but behind every little longing lies our true longing which is for God. "But, if they come, they will not fill all our niches because we want more than these things can give." We may fulfill some of our longings in life, such as finding a job, and these accomplishments will make us feel satisfied at first but in time that satisfaction and joy will die out because our true longing is for God and only through him can we find true joy. The second section is about hope and how longings are a part of our hopes and dreams. I think of hopes as more specific longings or for things that are more realistic. A couple examples are: you long for a job and hope for a specific job that you prefer; if you are in a difficult time in you life you may long to go back to the times when you were a child and everything was so simple, while you hope that you will be able to make it through the difficulties quickly. The last section is about shalom and how we should hope and long for it. When translated into English, shalom means peace but its actual meaning is much greater than that. "In the Bible, shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness, and delight - a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts fruitfully employed, all under the arch of God's love. Shalom, in other words, is the way things are supposed to be." Naturally as humans we long for shalom because we love God's creation and we long for it to be perfect. This longing is good and it is given to us by God. Longing for shalom brings us to God because it is a longing for perfection and God is the only perfection that exists.

We Have No "Right to Happiness"

In this essay Lewis discusses whether or not we have a right to happiness. Lewis starts by giving the scenario of two couples, A and B, that got divorced so that Mr. A and Mrs. B could get married. Mr. A said that he justified their divorce because he had the right to happiness. Then Lewis defines a right to be something that you are guaranteed by laws. That is a legal right, but there are also moral rights. Mr. A is legally allowed to divorce his wife and remarry, but moral rights are different. Lewis says that behind laws there is a moral code that governs people and that is what decides if something is morally right or not. Lewis says that when people talk about a right to happiness they almost always mean a right to sexual happiness, not any other kinds. People say that sexual impulse is just an instinct and should be followed but as Lewis said, "Absolute obedience to your instinct for self-preservation is what we call cowardice." All impulses need to be restrained at times. The question of whether Mr. A has the right to divorce his wife for another woman is therefore a question of sexual morality. We need to have a standard by which we live and that needs to hold true in all parts of our life. Mr. A cannot just throw away his wife because he is not as happy with her anymore and she isn't as good looking. If he lives by this standard then there is no saying if in a couple of years he will get tired of Mrs. B and move on again. Also when you start to believe you have a right to happiness in one aspect of life it will surely slow into other parts. In Lewis's last statement he says, "Though the 'right to happiness' is chiefly claimed for the sexual impulse, it seems to me impossible that the matter should stay there." If you have the right to happiness in every part in life then basically anyone can do whatever they want to make them happy even if it hurts someone else.

Bulverism

In C.S. Lewis' essay, "Bulverism," he talks about a form of argument that he names Bulverism. Bulverism could be defined as arguing without proving that the other person is wrong, but rather only telling them why they are wrong. "Assume your opponent is wrong, and then explain his error, and the world will be at your feet." That is Lewis' quote of the fictitious creator of bulverism, E. Bulver. The purpose of Bulverism is to ignore reason in arguments but as Lewis says: "You must reason even to Bulverize. You are trying to prove that all proofs are invalid. If you fail, you fail. If you succeed, then you fail even more - for the proof that all proofs are invalid must be invalid itself." Then Lewis goes on to explain the differences between causes and reasons and how Bulverism uses it. Causes are just random events that do not prove things while reasons are special causes that have a purpose. Bulverism tries to tell someone that they have only cause and that is why they are wrong. After this, the essay switches to notes that were taken down while he spoke at a club. In this section he talks about where the causes and reasons come from and use them in a way to prove the supernatural exists.


Bulverism is still very present in our culture today. It is seen in many arguments and is probably most prevalent in politics. In politics everyone chooses a side they are on and then they just assume that the other one is wrong without listening to what they have to say. This also happens to everyone in little arguments. People are too prideful to admit that they might be wrong so they just argue without really seeking out the truth. This is a problem but it can be dealt with. We need to be humble when we have a disagreement and we need to look at the situation logically to find the truth. This is much easier said then done though and can be nearly impossible when the other person is using bulverism. Overcoming bulverism is not easy and it takes practice to defeat it.

Meditation in a Toolshed

In his essay, "Meditation in a Toolshed," C.S. Lewis discusses the differences of looking along an experience and looking at one. He first uses a light beam in a toolshed to describe it. Looking at the beam it looks like just light hitting dust but when you look along the beam you see the trees and sun outside. If you only look at or along it, you cannot fully understand the beam so you have to look at both. Lewis says this has not been followed though. "It has been assumed without discussion that if you want the true account of religion you must go, not to religious people, but to anthropologists; that if you want the true account of sexual love you must go, not to lovers, but to psychologists; that if you want to understand some “ideology” (such as medieval chivalry or the nineteenth-century idea of a “gentleman”), you must listen not to those who lived inside it, but to sociologists." Then Lewis goes on to give some practical examples of what this looks like in everyday situations. Love is one of the examples he uses. Someone may say they are in love but a scientist looking at the experience will say it is just in his genes and mind. Lewis also mentions how it is almost impossible to describe something accurately if you have not experienced it. Lewis' example of pain works well here as it would be very difficult to describe pain if you had never felt it. All of this is perhaps why C.S. Lewis is such a captivating Christian writer. He was an atheist so he looked at Christianity for a long time before becoming a Christian. Lewis, having looked both along and at Christianity, can more easily describe it to others and put it into his writings whether they be fictional stories or theological books. As Christians we need to be sure to look both at and along things and then determine if either view is right, and if both are right we need to be able to balance the views to form the complete picture.