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.