The Magic Never Ends

Lewis says in “Learning In Wartime” that, “Life has never been normal.” Indeed it isn’t. We live in a glorious world that seems magical and is full of things to explore. The magic never ends. I have spent the last three weeks reading works of C.S. Lewis and Engaging God’s World by Cornelius Plantinga. Lewis is one of the greatest apologists of history and perhaps ‘Thee Christian Writer’ of the 20^th Century. Once one believes in God and Christianity there is still so much left to know; how to live, how to act, what laws to follow… As well as defending the faith, Lewis wrote answers to the questions that people have about how to live a Christian life in this world. These past three weeks have benefited me by answering my questions and showing me how I should live and view the world around me. All of the things I have read from Lewis have been extraordinary insightful; I am going to go over my reaction to the collection of what I have read and what it has taught me.

So many topics have been covered in what I’ve read that it’s hard to know where to start, but as I studied Lewis to learn, I am going to start with learning. Lewis describes learning in “Our English Syllabus” by differentiating in from education. Learning goes beyond learning skills and training our minds to where we actually delve into some subject and try to understand it and discover its secrets. Lewis didn’t like the idea of a liberal arts core selected by a college because it simplified a subject to where there was more teaching of certain facts than of actual learning on the part of the student. As a student I often feel like I am just learning certain points that the college thinks I should know rather than exploring a subject. In Philosophy I felt that exploration of how we think about the world. I now see that my choice of Chemistry as a major is probably a good one as that’s an area for which I push myself past my required studies to learn.

I think that learning is linked with passion. Lewis says we need to have a thirst for knowledge and that should be our reason for attending college. Without passion we would have no reason to go beyond what we are required to know. Lewis seems to say that in order to learn we have to be passionate about our subject and learn about all which will help us in this endeavor, not just what somebody says we should know about other subjects.

Lewis says, “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us…We are far too easily pleased.” We aren’t too passionate but rather not passionate enough. It seems that we have to be more passionate to fulfill our vocational calls. Vocation is a big idea at Calvin College. Lewis says that we don’t just need Christian pastors, but Christian authors, nurses, chemists, lawyers, and so on. The bible teaches that God created and saw that it was good. All goodness is just tainted evil according to Lewis and Plantinga, so the idea of having Christians in all areas is to try and ‘un-taint’ these areas. This is the reformed perspective from which Calvin was created. Calvin is a great institution in that it prepares students for their desired careers so that they may glorify God in that career.

In my Organic Chemistry class we had what were termed “bad science Fridays.” We would discuss poor ethics and poor portrayals of science in an attempt to teach us how to be ethical chemists. In my honors O. Chem. Section we went further into ethics, yet both are still examples of what kind of people Calvin wants its students to be. My parents tell me that Calvin is expensive, but you get what you pay for. This is because regardless of what skills I learn, Calvin is a place to develop a Christian mindset and grow in my faith.

I think sometimes we are being pushed as the next Calvin graduating class to go out and change the world, but I remember a prelude reading stressing that no matter how much we change the world it will change us more. In the closing plenary for DCM the speaker talked on this point and how we are bound to feel like failures. We are never going to accomplish shalom which we are seeking to turn the world into. Becoming disheartened is a serious problem if one seeks to change the world. As children we are sometimes told, “Be the best you that you can be.” Undoubtedly this sounds cheesy, but the speaker seemed to agree. If we try to follow Christ and act as positive influences in our community being good spouses, parents, council members, and employees then we will have made a difference in our world. We may not bring as many people to Christ as Billy Graham, but we will have brought glory to God.

One of the readings that I found most interesting on Lewis was “The Weight of Glory.” Lewis contended that there would certainly be glory in heaven. Glory is seen as God being delighted by us. Here on earth we try to please God with our lives as Christians, but we don’t actually experience God’s reaction to our attempts to please him. Lewis talks about proper goals when writing on education. A proper goal is the consummation of an act, as marriage is the consummation of Eros. We strive to please God and the perfect ending to that would be the discovery that God is pleased by us. It’s the consummation of our lives here on earth.

Here on earth we are also looking for happiness. We are hardwired to seek validation because we want God to be pleased with us; we want to be liked. People often look to be validated physically through sex, or in “The Inner Ring” Lewis talks about how people will do wrong in order to get into a select group of people. We will ultimately find no happiness by these means. These are simply ways by which we attempt to find the validation by which we ultimately need from God, even if one doesn’t believe in him. Lewis’ article “We Have No Right to Happiness’ argues that there is no way we are guaranteed happiness. If we go out of our way to get it we often trample on others. However; if we affirm God in our lives then we will have happiness. In the Garden I think that Adam and Eve were definitely happy because they were with God. We will again be with God in heaven, so happiness will be attained in heaven. If we walk with God here on earth then we can and will have happiness. When I am lacking happiness in my life it’s often because I have an internal issue or am not allowing God to walk with me.

When God is in a person’s life God brings happiness to his follower through the things in their life. One of the most intriguing messages in my last three weeks of reading is that people don’t receive happiness from the things in their life but through them. God’s creation and healthy relationships are two fruitions through which God gives me Joy.

In blogging I have twice mentioned the Discovery Channel “Boom Deh Yah Dah” song. A song created by the network to show how much they love the world, so much that they just want to break into song. The commercial ends with the caption, “The World is Just Awesome,” and I add so is the God that created it. Love of the world and of God is essential the reformed perspective. It is Lewis that said there is no evil only spoiled goodness. That’s this creation goodness that has been contaminated. I have a passion for removing that contamination. I love to hunt, fish, and camp. When outside I feel close to God, he is bringing me happiness through his creation. God created man in his image and set us over creation, that’s an incredible gift. There are sects of Christianity that try and separate themselves from the rest of the world, but there’s an important connection that we must have with the world.

There are many evils out there, but we know it is warfare. The Screwtape Letters brings this out in a way that chills my bones. The idea that the devil is actively trying to drag us on away from God without our knowing is frightening, but it is foolish to ignore this disposition. Passion with the right direction wins this battle and helps others in theirs. That’s the kind of person I want to be. One example given of how Wormwood’s patient is falling from God is that he is embarrassed to lay his sin before God in prayer. I too feel this same way.  There is a certain reluctance I have to name my sins. I feel like I have to win my struggles before I mention them to God when I need him to help me work through them. I want to win my inner battles and be honest to God in prayer and follow the law.

We sometimes fail to live out God’s wishes for us in our relationships with our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. When I look back to high school there was a lot of ‘drama.’ Everybody thought of themselves first and in their path was heartache for people all around them. One of my best qualities by the end of high school was that I was a good friend. I liked to please people. I cared about their needs and feelings. I wasn’t always thinking about myself first. What I took away from The Four Loves is that if we do this then God will bless our relationships and bring us happiness through them. These four types of Love are all gifts from God if we live them in the right way.

Lewis’ integration of reason, imagination and faith has helped me to develop a more Christian mindset and remember God’s love. There is something magical about love, something magical about God and his love for us. A love that would save Noah, bless Abraham, and sacrifice a blameless son. The magic never ends.

Our Problem

Lewis goes on about how we view the hardships and suffering in our life. According to Lewis it's necessary so that we can live in community. We won't love pity people if we have never suffered and will then not have compassion for our neighbors. I think Lewis has an interesting point here. This reminds me of the concept previously presented that there can be no evil without good. We don't know really understand joy until we've experienced sorrow.

It seems we need suffering in our lives to teach us lessons and for us to stay on the right track. Lewis talks about how when we are at our low points we often come to God. Then as soon as we are okay we turn our backs. Without suffering maybe we'd have a harder time giving God the wheel so to speak.

Some people say that they can't worship or even believe in a God that allows so much suffering to go on. I've never thought this. I have at times struggled after losing someone. In eighth grade my Grandma and Oma died and I somewhat frustrated, perhaps at God for this suffering. I grew stronger with God though. I see suffering as something that we brought on ourselves. We took the apple from the snake. We are sinners who deserve hell. We go through a little bit of suffering on this earth, but it's nothing compared to what we deserve. God is merciful and it is by his grace alone that we are saved. I am thankful and see any suffering as nothing compared to the undeserved suffering of Christ.

Back at Vocation

Here we are at vocation. Again! Vocation is a big idea here at Calvin College.  It was the conclusion of prelude. It’s the last chapter of Plantinga’s book. It’s the focal point of the reformed perspective. Creation, Fall, Redemption, and now Consummation or Restoration. Christians as followers of Christ are here to aid God in his plan of restoration. Creating shalom here on earth. Anyone in the reformed perspective has heard this countless times. I’ve already said this very thing several times in my blog posts. I am here to be an agent of renewal and the area where I do this is my vocation. As it was put in prelude where the worlds hunger meets my deepest gladness. Plantinga as everybody else points out that this can be in any area of life. Lewis contended and I agree that this needs to be in every area of life, culture, and the world. There needs to be Christian librarians, fireman, newscasters, and athletes. We need children’s books written by Christians (Narnia Books!). This restoration effort must consume every corner of creation so that as Plantinga discusses”Thy Kingdom Come.”

Plantinga brings to my attention the need for passion. This vocation is one of passion. That’s why it is where your great gladness meets the worlds hunger. In order to truly change this world we have to be passionate about this mission. We have to be passionate about creation as I have discussed (Recall the discovery channel song). Without passion we don’t convince the non Christians around us. We aren’t really helping the cause. I’m not sure that I have enough passion in my own life. We are taught vocation as what we are going to go out and do with our Calvin College degree, but in actuality we all chose to come here and have a mission of restoring student life. We were asked in Prelude how can we find a way to study that is pleasing to God? How can we find a way to party that is pleasing to God? We are in a vocation of our choice right now.  College is ours to transform. We can be better study partners, better listeners of our hard working professors, and better people to live with. Let’s serve our vocational calling today.

Man or Rabbit

Man or Rabbit is a Lewis work that I enjoyed thoroughly as it sparked the interest of many ongoing debates in my head.  The question that is the grounds for the article is, “Can someone live a good life without believing in Christianity?” I’ve been in arguments with many of my peers over the years because my instant answer has always been no. I think that Ghandi did some swell things, but would I say that he lived a good life. No, he was out doing good things in the name of a different religion. He wasn’t doing evil, but I wouldn’t say he lived a good life. Now I’m not sure that I am right here, but I do think that following the law of a different religion is not admirable even if it coincides with some Christian Law. Earlier today I went to see Cal Ripken Jr. talk and he said that you have to have not just motivation but the right motivation. I see followers of other religions or no religion as doing good but for the wrong motivations. When this is the case I think people often burn out.

Lewis says that if Christianity is true than it will affect the ability of a person to live their life if they know the knowledge. I think that it helps to motivate people. Christianity offers a full life of happiness in the Joy of one’s salvation.

I try not to be quick to address this question and I don’t think Lewis does either. The interesting question to me is if someone has never heard of God can they still enter the kingdom. In the last battle there is a character who is redeemed because he followed his God in a way that was pleasing to Aslan. I think Lewis says that it’s possible, but he doesn’t know.

I liked how Lewis pointed out that someone who had ruled Christianity out as false wouldn’t ask this question and obviously someone who had never heard of Christ wouldn’t either. It’s those on the doorstep who aren’t sure whether to follow or not and those who are losing interest in the church. But what I see is a person who does want to do good and live a good life. If this is the case then I think Christianity is the obvious choice. I think of people leaving the church for temptation and not for good. I’m not sure how to help people through this question.

Thankfully we have Lewis.

The Inner Circle

I found The Inner Ring to be fairly difficult to read through, but from what I gathered Lewis talks about social circles. An inner ring is simply an exclusive clique. He is expounding off a book on the matter, so I felt that it hindered me having never read this book. However; having just exited high school and still being a teenager, I am all too familiar with cliques. As Lewis described how one didn’t necessarily know whether or not they were in a clique when they were on the outside, I was reminded of my high school experience. Early on in high school everybody is struggling for acceptance. I remember it being hard to know exactly when you knew you were “in” with that new group of friends.

When you’re on the outside of that ring and want to be on the inside it is foolish to speak of the inner ring, Lewis is right about this. I recall my junior year something very strange happened in my high school. Many people started forming actual named cliques. BHBT (Bros Hoes Beers and Tobacco) and Crew 2 to be specific. A couple of my best friends were in Crew 2 and I remember thinking how foolish it was. People would even talk to me about starting a named clique, but I was in agreement with Lewis that there is something unhealthy about all these circles. I kept on hanging out with my friends and all of Crew 2 despite not being part of it. This made it seem even sillier to me, but I do recall that I never it to them or asked if I was in it. I think deep down maybe I did want to be in this inner circle, even if I disliked this idea.

In discussion I came across the question of whether or not there will be circles in heaven. The fact that there will be a resurrection of the body makes me think that heaven will be more like now than we think, more of a perfected earth. We all have lost loved ones that we wish to see in heaven and surely that would be a circle. I think that all of the turmoil and emotional pain will go away, but I think that social circles are tainted goodness. Lewis gave this as the definition for evil. They will just be restored to their proper place in heaven.

Eros

I found Lewis’ chapter on Eros in The Four Loves to be fascinating, offering new concepts and ideas to me. Eros is the love shared by lovers. Lewis starts by distinguishing this from the sexual desire that a man and a woman have for each other. Lewis points out that we are wrong when we say a man prowling the streets hoping to get laid wants a woman. He wants sex, for which he needs a woman. He has no use for her once he is done. Lewis says, “Sexual desire, without Eros, wants it, the thing in itself; Eros wants the Beloved.”

            People sometimes say that sex without Eros is wrong, but Lewis discusses how in history very seldom have marriages been built on Eros. Arranged marriages even from a young age have been more the case. There was nothing unwholesome about many of those good Christian unions. It has made me think that Eros as a necessity for marriage is more of a modern concept. We think that we have to be head over heels in love with a person to join with them in holy matrimony.

            So most of us single Christian college students are looking in our lives for Eros and eventually a spouse. We described the ideal male and ideal female lover on the board. For a woman caring, honesty, beauty, self-confidence, and adventurous were a few that made the board. In being sexually desired beauty is perhaps the only one of those qualities that is necessary or even looked at. Lewis says that very rarely does sex occur and then Eros comes into play. In my thoughts I’m extending this to if a man first sexually desires a woman, is it likely that he later feels Eros for her? I’m not sure I’m ready to answer that question, but I think it is less likely if he first desires her sexually. Sex is a funny thing; it can even come to control us. I’ve seen people who become so obsessive over chasing sexual pleasure that they no longer search for or seem to care about Eros. I think that a woman who is more beautiful can sometimes have a harder time having men feel Eros for her as they may first be sexually attracted to her.

            In order for people to feel Eros towards us, I think we have to exhibit the traits of these ideal lovers described. People today work very hard at looking as good as possible, but we also have to find ways to convey that we are caring, honest, strong… It is by conveying emotional depth and that we can carry a lover through the rough patches in our lives that they fall in love with our personalities.

           It isn’t even a choice to “fall in love.” There is a choice made down the road to “be in love.” I think this puts the choice more on the person who is being fallen in love with. If one shows that they have these characteristics they can almost make someone fall in love with them. Whether or not this lasts is another story.

Redemption

Upon reading this fourth chapter of Plantiga's book, I found that I am beginning to like the style of Plantinga. He tells history and puts in theology, explanations, and instructions for living a Christian life along the way. As he went through the early creation and years of man, I thought most hard about the part when God chose Abraham to be his chosen people. There’s something amazing about a God who wants to redeem and will do it through us if we are faithful. Abraham was faithful to God, so God chose him, still a sinner, to be the line through which He would save the world. This wasn’t the first time God did something like this. Before the world had been very sinful, but God saw one good man and chose to save him and his family when he destroyed the rest of the world with a flood. It is beautiful to me to serve a God that would save even if only one person on the entire earth was worth saving. It shows that he really cares about us. Many people think the flood story is a scary story of an angry God, but I see it as a story of the Love God has for those who are faithful to him.

Sidepoint: In class we briefly talked about whether or not it is good for animals to eat eachother as the lion will lay down with the lamb in shalom, but I think that the fact that the animals made the ark proves that there is goodness in them.

Here is a quote that I found interesting from Plantinga; “Ten Commandments, a set of requirements that people have to fulfill not in order to get rescued by God from slavery, but because they have been rescued.” I think that’s the best way to look at law. We can’t earn our salvation; we keep in accordance with God’s law as a response to our salvation. We have been redeemed and can no longer live in our sinful ways. There is a better life following Christ that we are now bound to follow.

Learning In War Time

Lewis writes on the tendency to abandon learning in times of great peril such as war. He points out that we are actually always in peril in a fight between good and evil in which eternity in hell is on one side and eternity in heaven is in the other. It’s the greatest battle and has more at stake for us than any other. Yet, we don’t often consider this reason to drop our learning and everyday life to spend every minute trying to get closer to God to aid in that struggle. Rather, as Lewis points out, we carry on as usual, and it is times of war when death is more prominent that we suddenly are made to become aware of our disposition. One of my favorite quotes from the passage, “The war creates no absolutely new situation: it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it.” There is no real change and so we shouldn’t abandon learning.

Lewis also says, “If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure the search would never have begun. We are mistaken when we compare war with "normal life". Life has never been normal.” These words intrigue me very much. We will never be outside of the battle for good, so we have to live and learn in it. I think this embodies the reformed perspective of restoration and consummation. We have to find the goodness in art, literature, biology… by sorting through the brokenness and finding a way for it to bring Glory to God. It goes back to love of the world as I discussed in a previous post. As for the un-normal life we are bound to lead, it perhaps all started with the fall. We won’t have the good life God intended, but I think that this can be seen as vocational in a way. There is no normal life. Many paths can be taken and none are normal paths. We are to take up the adventurous road of following Christ wherever it may take us.

The Fall

I found Plantinga’s third chapter on the fall to be the most interesting of the book thus far. Plantinga starts by recalling that God created the world and it was good. It was very good. When we took the apple from the snake the world fell from that original goodness. The Calvinist concept of total depravity was discussed in class. Total depravity meaning every aspect of creation has fallen. It’s because we are depraved that we need God’s redemption. He sent Christ so we can begin to be seen as good and that original goodness can be restored. It’s the story of the bible.

Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Plantinga says that evil does not exist on its own it is only tainted goodness, but there seems to have been this knowledge of evil even when all was good. I don’t think this has to mean Plantinga is wrong. He describes how sin is bad because it is deceit against God and destroys trust. Also he says that all sin is evil, but not all evil is sin. The example in the book is a 2 year causing the death of a baby. He had no wrong in his head and wasn’t sinning though it is certainly an evil of this world. I think that part of the tainting goodness is in our heads. I don’t think that Adam and Eve had natural law. They were more like children who could do no wrong and whose hearts were pure. Anything that would now be evil wasn’t evil or couldn’t happen as they only did for good. Being totally depraved it’s hard for us to think of a world that isn’t, but seeing how goodness has been tainted is important for restoring it.

Plantinga says some things that I really liked when he talked of a connection with nature. I love nature and there’s an important connection that I think we need to have with Gods creation. There is a song on the Discovery Channel that has been termed the “Boom De Ah Dah” song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at_f98qOGY0

This shows a love for creation that as Christians we should have. This video was shoes in quest when we discussed that we must love the practice of the Christian faith and love creation. One without the other will leave us short of a healthy Christian life. We want to restore creation and that means also loving it as Plantinga nails.

More On Natural Law

Lewis’ article entitled “The Poise of Subjectivism” follows very much along the same lines as the beginning of Mere Christianity. He talks about moral values and natural law in very much the same way he did before. A point that I found interesting is when Lewis says that the Third Reich defined justice as whatever was to the interest of the Reich. If there is no absolute morality than there is no tool by which to measure one set of morals against another. It’s all relative. Yet even someone who claims to be a moral relativist will undoubtedly say that certain sets of morals are better than others. He has natural moral law hardwired in him. Morals aren’t relative and it’s obvious to every person if they are forced to make a decision.

So morals aren’t relative, and we are all born with this natural law built in. However, what we consider right and wrong is very different from the practices of the Israelites over 2000 years ago. Lewis discusses whether morals are static or dynamic. I think it’s a tough question. In class I brought up how polygamy was once moral in Israel, but pursuing other wives would go against ones conscience today. I don’t think that this is natural law so much as conditioning which Lewis also talks about. It’s a difference in time and culture. I think that diction is one of the most prime examples. Ass was just a word for a donkey for a very long time, but now people know that they shouldn’t say it. That doesn’t mean that people used to be wrong and didn’t see that it was immoral. They just had different conditioning and culture.

Natural law is like a conscience. We can tell what is wrong most of the time. I think it’s very interesting that God gave us this. No matter what culture we are born into, our conditioning usually helps to aid our God given natural laws. This was one of the more difficult readings for me, but Lewis adds important ideas to his previous chapters on natural law which has helped to fill some of the holes in my thinking on this matter.

Simplified Christianity

When talking about Lewis the point was brought up that he wrote The Chronicles of Narnia not to evangalize but to tell a good story. This made me think of the Christian story, so I went and found this video which I shared in class

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut-UOhY0s8E

I liked it because it was illustrative. Many of us learn that way. It's from outside a Christian perspective and I realized that it didn't say anything about love. The whole story is because "God so loved the world." This also made me think about how we don't get an accurate picture of other religions. It is important to get an accurate picture of ours out there. The Chronicles actually do a good job. It's important to convey love in the gospel message.

Natural Law

I’ve always found natural law fascinating. From nearly every corner of the world, in all civilizations, the same basic set of laws to guide human behavior was recorded. Without any contact with other people in the world they all had done the same thing. I see this as one of those many evidences that there must be a God. These identical doctrines came because natural law is in every person, planted there by God so we can live in community.

Lewis starts Mere Christianity with natural law. I see this as a good place for him to start for several reasons. For one, every person regardless of religion has this moral law inside them. It’s a starting point; we have this moral law, why should we obey it? Second, it’s interesting. This phenomenon is a great opener and attention getter. It interests the reader to continue the book. Finally, Lewis was an apologist and in order to defend anything facts are needed as well as good argumentative skills. I’ve worked for the R&D dept. of a factory this past summer, and without data you can’t convince anyone of your point. Arguments need to be data driven. Natural law is an irrefutable point proven by fact. Lewis’ reader sees that he’s being logical and proving with fact. To argue well you have to win your audience over right away and starting with natural law does that.

Going in depth on natural law, Lewis uses an example of a man screaming for help and our reaction. We have two impulses, one to go and help him (herd instinct) and one to stay safe (self-preservation). I would have thought that the instinct to help the man is natural law. In actuality, natural law is the conscience telling us that we should choose to help the man because it’s the right thing to do. That is the lesser of our instincts according to the article as we have a stronger instinct to protect ourselves. Lewis says that natural law often leads us to our weaker instinct. I see that helping the man obeys the commandment “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” Without natural law we wouldn’t obey this, we wouldn’t obey God. I see it as an intricate aspect of creation that even if we have never heard of God we know to obey him, even if it’s not the logical choice.

To add one last point, I see natural law also as a clear counterargument to evolutionism. Darwin’s theory that man evolved from ape would seems implausible if no natural law is present in apes. It would be strange for man to all of a sudden gain moral law at a certain point in evolution. I don’t think that any animals exhibit moral law. They are all more concerned with Darwin’s survival and reproduction.

The Safe Road to Hell

Letter twelve of Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters is my favorite chapter of what is perhaps my favorite C.S. Lewis book. In the opening of the letter Screwtape tells Wormwood that his patient doesn’t see his position for what it really is as they do. The concept that there are demons around us trying to constantly lead us away from our God is a scary thought, one that we don’t like to think about. Lewis contends that it’s dangerous to deny their existence. One of the reasons that this is my favorite book is that it is from a demon perspective which is very abstract but also it illustrates our faith as a war, which in many ways it is. This book is important because it raises awareness to our disposition and reminds us that Christianity is not ‘safe;’ the devil and his servants want to pull us away.

Screwtape continues to tell the next stratagem for how Wormwood is to pull the patient away from God. The patient has just come to Christ and, as many of us, harbors sin and guilt. By not bringing this guilt to God, the patient would become less and less likely to come honestly before God in prayer. As Christians it’s important to put everything before God, even if we feel guilty or terrible about what we done. Not bringing before God creates an unhealthy prayer life and begins to separate us from God.

In their attempt to pull the patient from God, Screwtape is happy that the patient is still a churchgoer. This is alarming to me and should be to all of us. Screwtape says that this helps to hide his falling out with God from his consciousness, so just because we are still going to church and doing everything we typically do as routine doesn’t mean that our faith is still the same. Thinking that we’re still a Christian is good for our enemy. No strong Christian would say “yes” if asked to not be a Christian anymore, but if we are slowly pulled away while still thinking we are a Christian then this “yes” becomes easier and easier to being said. We fall further and further from sincerity in our faith till all of a sudden one might just say, “I don’t really feel like going to church anymore, what’s the point,” and the enemy has won. It’s my favorite quote from the book and one of my favorites ever, “Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.” We need to think carefully about our lives and make sure we’re not on a gradual road to Hell.

Creation

Plantingas second chapter is entitled creation and starts with how the bible says that God created through Christ. I with many people always saw Christ as existing in heaven during creation but playing little role until his incarnation on earth. The bible actually says that Christ was involved in creation and God created through Christ. Interestingly enough, Plantinga says that the bible calls Christ the “wisdom of God” and “the word of God”. Christ as the word of God makes perfect sense to me as Christ came to the earth to die and give us the word of God through his life and teachings.  However; I have always seen God the father as the wisest of the holy entities. I suppose that this verse may mean that God used his wisdom in creating the earth. Plantinga says that this shows how Jesus is the mediator with creation. But if Christ is a mediator then what was his purpose before creation?

I don’t really have an answer and I think part of the reason why is that as humans living on earth we have difficulty thinking outside of things we understand. We can’t grasp things outside of our reality. Lewis says that when we picture God we do it in terms of earthly things: the love of a father, the grandeur of a king, the magnificence of nature… I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to understand God because we’re trapped in our own experience.

In trying to reconcile my view of God by ‘earthifying’ him, I often thought that God must have created because he got lonely, bored, or wanted love from us. Plantinga instantly denounces these ideas upon discussing creation. There goes every reason that I ever thought of for creation. The interaction of the trinity with itself is more than enough relationship for God according to Plantinga. The ways in which I saw creation were reasons that people create and not Godly reasons for creation. Plantinga suggests that creation is an activity befitting a God that overflows with regards for others. This is a good way to look at it; creation not out of necessity but as a trait of God.

Glory: The Proper Goal

There are many ways to think about glory, and I appreciated how Lewis admitted that he had previously been wrong and seen glory in a way that didn’t make the most sense. Lewis says that he previously had thought of glory as one person being higher than another and was therefore a competitive entity of which it was somewhat selfish to strive for. As such, Lewis saw no place for glory in heaven. Others helped Lewis to see a new definition of Glory, where glory is having a superior be pleased with you. It then made sense to Lewis that glory should exist in heaven.

I agree with the existence of this glory in heaven. God is after all named “God the Father.” It would make sense if he was pleased with us much as a parent is pleased with a good child as Lewis puts it. Lewis talks of how marriage is the proper goal of love and victory of battle. Those are the consummation of those activities and thus the proper goal. I think that glory is the proper goal of our lives here on earth. Looking from a reformed perspective, we are supposed to be followers of Christ, “Christians.” We are supposed to try and reform all areas of creation. In every sphere of our lives we are supposed to try to glorify God. This makes sense in Lewis’ new definition of glory. We are doing things that are pleasing to God; our actions should be ones that God is happy with. Glory is I think only in heaven. We try to please God, yet we don’t really know that he is pleased with us until that day when we enter into his heavenly kingdom. It is the proper goal of our lives here on earth.

So we want God to be happy with us and we are never affirmed of this. It is I think due to this that we try and seek validation here on earth. In one of my previous entries, I discussed how Lewis said that God does not give us happiness from things on earth but through them. This is an example of that. We seek validation from our parents because it mimics the deeper longing of validation from God. Often we slip and try to seek validation in the wrong ways from the wrong people. For example promiscuity typically occurs because people are seeking validation from the other sex. As people we want to be liked and for people to be happy with us. This longing comes from an innate desire for the heavenly glory which is the consummation of our lives here on earth.

In “Our English Syllabus” Lewis discusses his views on schooling and acquiring knowledge. One of the points that grabbed me was that Lewis says in education the teacher is far superior to the student and is trying to make him a better person and teach him humanity. Learning on the other hand, Lewis describes as two people more equal and the lesser is already human so to speak and is trying to gain knowledge. In learning the superior is not trying to make a better person or give humanity to the lower. Learning is deeper and Lewis says that college is for learning and not for educating.

I’ve never heard these terms used like this, but Lewis has a point. In my earlier years of schooling I had to mature. I had to learn to write, think, talk, spell, reason, perform arithmetic, and so on. There was no deep understanding or knowledge acquired in those years; as Lewis would put it, I was becoming human. Once that was through with is when we can begin to learn. You have to have that base of education before you enter college and preferably before you finish high school. Lewis says that he spends some of his time educating college students, but he wishes it wasn’t so. If we are educated then we can begin to learn, to go deep into understanding various subjects and learn new things about the world we live in.

Different institutes of higher education have developed different methods of how to help their students in their quest for knowledge. Lewis calls the typical approach a composite. Colleges usually have some kind of core where they have a simplified version of many different subjects which every student will take. This better serves the purpose of education then the purpose of learning. One of Lewis’ main points is that we should go to school and take courses to acquire knowledge, not for a grade, not to make money later, and not to graduate. We should learn for the sake of knowledge. If we are simply taking a simplified course on all these subjects we aren’t really searching for our knowledge. It’s being given to us. Lewis’ problem with this is that someone else is choosing our path. I think it’s valuable to be able to look at a problem from the perspective of different subjects. Lewis agrees by saying in order to completely understand anything you must know everything about everything. In our learning we should then find the knowledge from all areas that helps us with what we are trying to learn and what is important to our learning.

Yearning

Plantinga starts his first chapter with an example from one of my favorite books, A Separate Peace by John Knowles. Amidst a time of war, Gene Forrester and his best friend Phinneus find peace at their New England Boarding school. On those summer mornings the main character, Gene, accounts waking up feeling joyful and almost in tears at the wondrousness of what those days could hold. We all in a way long for this. There is something very profound about the lives God has given us to live. There is a magnificent creation surrounding us, people to meet, engage, and love, and work to be done bettering the kingdom. Much happiness can be found in these things. Joy that has made me wish time would stop right in its tracks.

I recall various times in the past year of my life where I felt like life was "perfect". I was happy to get out of bed every morning, nothing could drag down the lasting joy within me. I wish we all felt like that all the time. There are as I now see it, sevral things which led me to a joyful state.

Right relationships was perhaps the most key. I loved and was loved by all the people I most regularly saw and cared about, one sided relationships lead to turmoil and a troubled mind. I've tried hard to avoid such relationships of this nature.

The next was that I was doing work which I thought was beneficial to me, the world, and glorified God. This is the type of Job I want to have some day. One that meets those criterea and will therefore contribute to my Joy.
Another important thing in my life was that I was actively engaging Gods creation. I have always loved nature and feel closest to God when in it. I know that for me to reach my potential in enjoying the Joy of my salvation I need to be outside; hunting, fishing, smelling, hearing, and enjoying what Gods wondrous hands have wrought, being thankful for the very weather he has provided.

I've always liked the quote, "Life isn't what happens to you, but how you respond to it." Most of our bad moods are internal, a positive outlook is always important to have and self pity won't get you anywhere. When I haven't felt sorry for myself and have been unselfish, I have been more joyful and this is the fourth and last thing that I now see as an ingredient for my Joy. One of my favorite songs is "Question" by The Moody Blues. The line that strikes me is, "when you stop and think about it, you won't believe it's true, that all the love you've been giving has all been meant for you." We all need to stop and think about our relationships, are we just pretending to love other people for our enjoyment? It takes a long time to think about, but if we are, there's something seriously wrong.

These most joyful times in my life were when I was spending every moment I could with my friends. and we all strived to make eachother happy. If you don't like to please other people, it's hard to be a good friend. I was happy in this state of friendship which is very similar to that in A Separate Peace. We all long for that Joy bursting out of us, and it's imortant to find what we need to do to find that and then do it. I thought the most striking statement in Plantingas first chapter is that we don't get Joy from earthly things but rather throught them. Plantinga suggests that all happiness is just the projection of God in our world. I like to think that God did put good things in our life to give us happiness through. I'm Joyful for the gifts God has given me in my life.

Have No 'Right To Happiness'

Lewis begins his article with fictitious character Mr. A divorcing his wife for Mrs. B who in turn divorces her husband. Mr. A and Mrs. B love each other and being together will bring them happiness. Lewis' character Clare says, "They had a right to happiness." Lewis discusses whether or not we do have a 'right to happiness' and sex is indeed the main focus of his article.

Hedonism has certainly led to the growth of this idea and the phrase "pursuit of happiness" is present in The Declaration of Independance. However, in the U.S. this is only within lawful means and I think the same holds true for Gods law. A right to happiness is a selfish concept. Lewis discusses how we start to see ourselves as good lover as Mr. A does and pity ourselves for having a lover who is not as great as we see ourselves. Mr. A leaving Mrs. A is dishonorable and dishonest. It breaks Gods law and infringes on the happiness of Mrs. A.

I don't think it's right to divorce a faithful partner, and I believe there is much agreement on this conclusion. Yet men and women are constantly doing this same thing that Mr. A and Mrs. B have done. Lewis says he has great sympathy for women because the characaristic by which they most easily possess a man, beauty fades fast as they age. The same is not true for men. Lewis explains that a good marriage requires two "good people; controlled, loyal, fair-minded, and mutually adaptable." Mr. A and Mrs. B are not such people though they may be in love, so their marriage will most likely turn to ashes.

Continuing on the same line Lewis says that women are biologically hardwired to be fore monogamous than men. I don't necessarily agree; by statistics this may look true, but I've seen plenty of examples to the contrary. What I do see is that a promiscuous man is seen as confident and sucessful by society; whereas a woman is seen as having low self esteem if she sleeps around. I agree that women get the short end of the stick in this type of world. It's clearly a fallen way to live life and I see why God didn't intend for us to live in this type of society.

Meditation In a Toolshed

In this article Lewis points out our tendency in modern society to say that an outside opinion is better than an inside one. His illustration is of a beam of light poking into a comletely dark toolshed. If you look along it you can see the outside of the barn, trees and the sun. If you lood at it you observe the beam itself, the particles of dust in it and such. You observed different things just as you do looking at or along various things in our world. We have come to trust so called "experts" that are outside the experience. Lewis brings up that we consider psychologists experts on love and not lovers.

In high school I had the typical experience of giving advice to my best friends on their relationships and love interests. I was an outside opinion looking at the relationship, and my friend was certainly looking along. I think this illustrates Lewis' point well because we both had different but important insights on the matter that the other wouldn't have come up with. Looking from the outside I couldn't really know how my friend feels inside about the girl in question. He on the otherhand needed a viewpoint looking at the relationship from the outside to give an unbiased opinion on wether the relationship was healthy, was it going to last, and was he really happier and a better person then before the relationship. There are important points from looking at and looking along. I see that this is the main point Lewis is making and wholeheartedly agree.

Bulverism

Both in Lewis' time and today, there is a trend of attacking a persons reasoning rather than the truthfulness of their arguments. Lewis named this Bulverism. Bulverism tries to show that thoughts are somehow tainted at the source. So, in order to prove that a thought, claim, argument is false one must attack the source and not the actual thought. For example, lets say I believe it to be below freezing. By attacking the source (me) one would say that my claim that it's below freezing is tainted by my sense that it's cold. One might say, "No it's not, you're just saying that because you're cold." In order to have actually attacked the claim one would have to show that water is not freezing at the current temperature.

Bulverist ideas attack whether or not our perceptions, which we obtain from our senses, about reality can be true. If they aren't we can't really know anything. I agree with Lewis that this kind of world doesn't make any kind of sense to me, and I don't think God create a world in which our minds are useless. Lewis explains our world in terms of causes and reasons. Causes being the ordinary observations of the world and reasons being explanations by our minds for what happens. Bulverism attacks the reasons that we create. It is as Lewis puts it "a proof that all proofs are invalid" which makes it invalid.

Even though it doesn't make sense, I see that Bulverism has a dangerous role in our society. It explains why someone is wrong without proving that they are wrong. Inn the case of Lewis and me, this is troubling to the standing of our religion. To use a religious example, lets take my belief in Jesus Christ's Resurrection. An atheist bulverizes me and says, "You're religion is false, you just have these beliefs because it makes u feel loved, gives you community, shows you morals, and provides joy in your life." These are some of the most attractive things about Christianity and many people come to the Christian faith for just these reasons and learn the good news of God's plan of salvation. Therefore this argument makes sense to a lot of people because it would make sense to INVENT an religion for these reasons, but the argument hasn't looked at the ORIGIN or TRUTH of Christianity. It's a dangerous way of thinking and I think we really ought to prove things are indeed false before we attack why they are false.