CS Lewis on God and Hell

These are great metaphors!
I feel like you could almost use this as a Prelude to a Dante theory and how it's in relation to PMO.
You are a well rounded speaker and the jumping off point here is sound for transition to something more complex for the audience.
Well thought out.
Terrific piece.
*nodding*

 

I'm not so sure. All theology is on speculative and shaky ground. I remember reading C.S. Lewis on suffering, where suffering was like the blows of a chisel on marble, hammering out a more perfect form. I'm not sure why we feel the need to explain it. All writing is, and should be understood, as art, whereby our imagination is rehabilitated to the divine mystery.

 

I like that concept

 

Well, my point is that acts of imagination transcend explanation. They are at best a momentary and limited insight. Yet from them people often try to create a theology, or a theodicy as in the case above. And then from the theology comes the dissension, where a monk might insist on grace alone, and a stoic insist on the pursuit of virtue.

In my opinion, faith is a way of being that involves an almost pre-cognitive mode of understanding the world [standing under]. It does not so much see through all things [C.S. Lewis's criticism of skepticism], but sees through all explanations. It can also be the ground which creates 'explanations'.... and the creator, the creative thinker, is always greater than the creation, the thought. It is ataraxy, enlightened skepticism, negative capability, fantasia, and the uncertainty principle all rolled into one, and allied with a simple faith in the Christian story as transmitted by the Church. In contrast to this, modern thought is something like a reversal of the Copernican Revolution, where an individual ego imagines all to revolve around it. It starts its career with 'Here I stand, I can do not other', and would never have been possible but for the burgeoning attitude seen earlier in thinkers such as St. Anselm with his 'faith seeking understanding'. This stands on its head the 'I believe in order to know' of St. Augustine.

There can be no 'all-encompassing' philosophy of reading, for reading should always be in flux. Our language is NOT to be pinned down like the statues of Daedulus, which were so life-like they escaped in the night when no one was looking. They are just vessels which constantly spill meaning, just as mine is. God's language on the other hand....

 

Exactly.

But perhaps exactly the opposite here. In a pre-cognitive poetic scheme of things, in an attitude of awe before the world we live in, all language is metaphorical. It is all symbolic. But we only call it symbolic from a modern perspective, where we contrast it with literalism [rational representation]. And it is this literalism that strips the world of meaning. Why? Because it is at heart the mind's desire for power over the world [and over its self]. In creating the world in our own image, we detach ourselves from it and imagine ourselves looking down as from a height; we alienate ourselves both from it and God. It's the libido dominandi as illustrated by St. Augustine.

 

It's said that the damned soul throws itself into Hell to get away from God, because being in His presence makes it suffer. Archbishop Fulton J Sheen used the analogy of someone who chose to live in a deep dark cave. By doing so they've changed themselves. Their eyes no longer having contact with the sun become incredibly sensitive to the light, so when they're pulled out into the suns presence it actually causes them a lot of pain. But is the sun evil for causing them pain? No. The sun is still good, but sadly they can't stand to be in its presence, so they throw themselves back into the cave.

Another saying is that the gates of hell are locked from the inside.

 

My concern about modern apologetics is that it has tended to commit itself to a rationalist thought and culture that the contemporary world is in the process of leaving behind. It is like the theologians have staked their ground, only to see it left high and dry as the world moves on... it becomes an anachronism. Christians need more imaginative modes of thinking and being today more than ever. Yet it seems to be in the very nature of Protestantism to be immovable, rational [Here I stand, I can do no other]. It is arguably the main contributory factor as to why the gulf between Christian culture and the contemporary world became so great... after all, it was all about the privatization of religion.

 

Great criticisms. Can you offer any suggestions then on how to do things differently or on how a Christian can be more imaginative?

 

I think there is something deeply paradoxical about Plato's cave, from which all these stories of cavemen derive. First the mass of men are alienated from reality, as in lost in cave. Then a select few emerge, through a painful process, into the divine light of day. I have a hate love relationship with this image, as I do with Plato, and for that matter, every thinker under the sun.

There are multiple levels on which to read it, that is, if you don't completely buy into Plato's vision. It first assumes a dichotomy between appearance and reality giving rise to the history of Western philosophy. It then assumes a transcendent intelligible reality to which reason is orientated, an unchanging Being. Philosophy is thought to be a superior mode of being in so far as it engages with It. But who's to say that this cave story has not gone full circle, and reason is itself not the cave. I mean, what else is the cogito?

 

You seem to consistently have very rational arguments for why we shouldn't be so rational.

So, should there be no biblical commentary at all? Should there be no rational approach to studying the scriptures whatsoever? Personally, I like C.S. Lewis because he seems to me like a nice blend of the rational and artistic. Can't we prayerfully approach the scriptures with our faculties of reason without suffering from this libido dominandi thing?

I can see where you're coming from, saying that some of the magic is being taken out of the faith by reformed theologians who want to write books that pick apart minute doctrinal issues like a mathematical proof. But I propose that we can maintain an awe of God and personal humility through our prayers and interactions with people while approaching the scriptures and our faith with a rational mind.

It seems to me that by attacking someone like CS Lewis, you're not allowing even a middle ground. I have to admit that it seems odd to me that you, as someone who composes such logical arguments (although there is certainly an artistic aspect to your use of language), would so attack rational thought.

 

I don't see how the incomprehensible nature of God is somehow threatened by the rational apologetics of certain revealed doctrines of the faith. God has given us rational minds to find Him, to know Him (not completely but sufficiently), and from there to follow Him by faith. I agree there needs to be an appreciation for mystery, since we're constantly living among it, even when it comes to knowing ourselves, but I don't see the rational side of Christian apologetics as being in opposition to the mystery of God. On the contrary I see it as complimenting the mystery of God.

I think magic would also be a poor choice of words when it comes to God. Magic is an illusion. Maybe wonderment would be a better word? Just a thought.

 

I agree. I think that it is good to have a mystery of God. I think it is good that there are some things that humans will never be able to comprehend or understand. It actually makes it fun to speculate. I also agree that God allows to know him sufficiently but not completely and I don't think that apologetics is a threat to it.

 

Cheers. Given that will and creativity are central, and all language is instrumental, there is a way in which we can put new wine into old wine skins. Also, the essential project should be one of securing our own voice. But this voice consists as a creative spirit, which is both individual and collective, and not the product of self conscious cogitation. Aesthetic appreciation [rational imagination] is the driving factor, not the clear and distinct ideas of ideology.

 

Speaking of Dante, I will never forget the punishment in limbo.

"For such defects, and not for other guilt,
Lost are we and are only so far punished,
That without hope we live on in desire.”

Mutato nomine, de te fabula narratur. - Horace

 

I don't think I'm offering a rational argument at all. It's more like I'm outlining the limitations of reason, where reason picks itself apart so to speak. It is self-contained reason [ideology] that I'm critical of, where the self is central. It is not destructive of reason altogether, but opens it to the limits and conditions for its own being. Here there are no strict dichotomies [though there still may be distinctions] between art and reason, the individual and the collective etc. Everything is inter-related in a harmony of spheres.

 

I think Christ Himself advised against doing that, lol.