Good morning YIMC Book Club Members! If week #1 and week #2 were sleepers, this week's readings are anything but. Lewis starts shooting the lights out and fires off a fussilade of thoughts that left me cheering for more. Jack, "fire for effect!"
Like last week, I'm going to let readers produce most of the ideas here. I am going to share a few of my favorite passages though. There was so much good stuff to choose from that frankly, this is a difficult post to write! Here are a few of my impressions of this week's readings.
Last week ended with Lewis using an analogy that Christians are living in enemy-occupied territory. Obviously not the kind of thought that resonates with modern-day residents of the United States. The last time US citizens lived in enemy occupied territory was in the Civil War. But these words were spoken during the Blitz. Austria had been annexed, Poland invaded, France fell, and Germany was focused on taking Britain next. The listeners to this radio program understood this message loud and clear. It makes a lot of sense to me too.
This week starts with Chapter 3 The Shocking Alternative. Right off the bat Lewis uses an analogy that any parent can sympathize with. A mother teaches her children that it is proper to keep their rooms neat and clean. The children know this is what they should do and yet, they make a mess of things against Mom's will. This sounds a lot like my childhood, not to mention sympathizing with my role as a parent! Lewis writes,
She would prefer the children to be tidy. But on the other hand, it is her will which has left the children free to be untidy. The same thing arises in any regiment, or trade union, or school. You make a thing voluntary and then half the people do not do it. That is not what you willed, but your will has made it possible.
What, you haven't given your children absolute free will? Golly, me neither. Point well taken Mr. Lewis! I read this and thought, yeah Jack, now you are right on target. And he makes his argument for this being the case throughout all of God's creation. Mankind has been given the gift of freewill. What the Founding Fathers of the U.S. deemed unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But what if this freedom is used badly?
Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently He thought it worth the risk.
Stick around here long enough and you'll quickly realize that I am not a risk-averse individual. So nice shot Jack. See, EPG? I'm warming up to CSL now! Wait a second. This is baloney and I don't like it. I argue that a perfect and all-knowing God would never deign to stoop so low as to...give me freedom? Yeah, the argument falls flat because,
When you are arguing against Him (God) you are arguing against the very power that makes you able to argue at all: it is like cutting off the branch you are sitting on.
Mental picture of Wile-E-Coyote popping into your head yet? Here, let me help.
Talk about the "fall"! This is the price of freedom. You've heard the remark that "freedom isn't free?" Whaaat?! You just thought it was some trite remark to honor the sacrifices of veterans like me and CS Lewis? Are you smelling the coffee yet? Jack shoots another round right into the black. This is his genius coming to the fore.
Speaking of the fall,
What Satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they could "be like gods"-could set up on their own as if they had created themselves-be their own masters-invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history-money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery-the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.
We also learn how, and I use Jack's word, asinine it is to describe the conduct of Jesus in any other way other than as that of God. No man would say he was God and would forgive all of your sins regardless of how heinous they are to the offended party. But that's enough from me on this chapter, because other wise I could just post every single word of it and we would be here all day!
Chapter 4 is The Perfect Penitent where Jack leads us to understand that, given what we have learned this far,
it seems to me obvious that He (Jesus) was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God. God has landed on this enemy-occupied world in human form. And now, what was the purpose of it all?
The central Christian belief is that Christ's death has somehow put us right with God and given us a fresh start...A good many different theories have been held as to how it works; what all Christians are agreed on is that it does work.
Rally on the Beacon of Light troops! Because God has given us a do-over of epic proportions! How?
We believe that the death of Christ is just that point in history at which something absolutely unimaginable from outside shows through into our own world...We are told that Christ was killed for us, that His death has washed out our sins, and that by dying He disabled death itself. That is the formula. That is Christianity. That is what has to be believed.
And another thing. Remember how we are in enemy territory? What most haven't realized is that they are also in the rebel army. This is like the movie The Matrix when Neo takes the little red pill to be awakened to reality! We read, fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms. Lewis goes on to give a spectacular lecture on the nuts and bolts of how Christian salvation works. And it works because Christ is the perfect penitent for He is Perfect and as a human, he was humiliated and surrendered willingly to this sacrifice. Leadership by example troops!
Chapter 5 The Practical Conclusion we see that Christ is the New Adam. Lewis is brilliant again in his exposition on how this comes about and how we as Christians have our own lives transformed.
There are three things that spread the Christ life to us: baptism, belief, and that mysterious action which different Christians call by different names-Holy Communion, the Mass, the Lord's Supper. At least, those are the three ordinary methods.
(Jesus) taught His followers that the new life was communicated in this way. In other words, I believe it on His authority. Do not be scared by the word authority. Believing things on authority only means believing them because you have been told them by someone you think trustworthy. Ninety-nine per cent of the things you believe are believed on authority.
Chapter 1 of Book III is The Three Parts of Morality and they are humdingers! Lewis sums them up as follows:
Morality, then, seems to be concerned with three things. Firstly, with fair play and harmony between individuals. Secondly, with what might be called tidying up or harmonising the things inside each individual. Thirdly, with the general purpose of human life as a whole: what man was made for: what course the whole fleet ought to be on: what tune the conductor of the band wants it to play.
I'm not gonna share anymore on this because I want to hear from you now. Has everyone else enjoyed this weeks section of readings as much as I have? I promised there would be no pop quizzes, but I wasn't expecting this much fun this week. Thanks, Jack! See you next week.
Next week we read Book III Chapters 2, 3, 4, and 5.
