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.
Good insight. I like that you connected this back to the fall and vocation. Your comment, "We will never be outside of the battle for good, so we have to live and learn in it" sums it up nicely.
ReplyDeleteYou made some great points here. We'll never be on the outside looking in. We're immersed in the life we're living, so we should always do out best and try our hardest to glorify God in whatever we do or say.
ReplyDeleteNice road metaphor, you should have slipped the road not taken in there somewhere. I like that you focused on the fact that there is no normal path, thats something that we all need to remind ourselves if we are going to get that cancerous idea out of our heads.
ReplyDeleteI like how you focused on the fact that life is never normal. It is so easy for us to get caught up in other things that we forget to have an eternal perspective. This seems to be a thread that Lewis goes back to over and over again. There is a world beyond what we can see and what happens in it is much more important than that happens in the world we can see.
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