"Godliness and Good Learning"

A good word from Mike Ovey, head of Oak Hill Theological College in London, on the very thing driving this blog: the necessary conjunction of head and heart in theology. It comes in a review of Piper's book on justification.

Our Christian Duty: Happiness

C. S. Lewis, in a letter to a bereaved man:

There is great good in bearing sorrow patiently: I don't know that there is any virtue in sorrow just as such. It is a Christian duty, as you know, for everyone to be as happy as he can.

--Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy 1950-1963, 593

More TWHF

In light of just finishing Till We Have Faces (see below), I was interested to read the following in a letter from Lewis, to Katherine Farrar, Feb 1955:

. . . my version of Cupid and Psyche. Apuleius got it all wrong. The elder sister (I reduce her to one) couldn't see Psyche's palace when she visited her. She saw only rock and heather. When P. said she was giving her noble wine, the poor sister saw and tasted only spring water. Hence her dreadful problem: 'is P. mad or am I blind?' As you see, tho' I didn't start from that, it is the story of every nice, affectionate agnostic whose dearest one suddenly 'gets religion'; or even every lukewarm Christian whose dearest gets a Vocation. Never, I think, treated sympathetically by a Christian writer before. I do it all thro' the mouth of the elder sister.

--Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis: Narnia, Cambridge and Joy 1950-1963, 590

(Gav, this would seem to vindicate your comment below...)

Till We Have Faces

Yesterday I finished C. S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces. I read it eight years ago but all I remembered was that I enjoyed the book - I didn't remember one thing about the story itself.

It is a story, I think, about one very ugly woman's journey of self-discovery that real joy is found not in being loved but in loving. Until she stands before the gods and finally realizes this, however, she is gradually building up a series of complaints in anticipation of unloading on the gods once she has the chance. Yet it is when she stands before the gods - rather, God - that her accusations disappear. (Makes me think of Job 38, when Yahweh appears to Job and answers him out of the whirlwind, and all Job's complaints vanish.) If any of you have read it I'd be curious to know how you would put the point of the book in one sentence.

My two favorite passages are these. The first is that from which the title of the book is drawn.

When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years, which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you'll not talk about joy of words. I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces? (p. 294)

The second is the last page of the book. (Ninety percent of the book is Book I; Book II is the last ten percent, which is an addition in light of new discoveries.)

I ended my first book with the words no answer. I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. (p. 308)

o

In a letter, Lewis later wrote this when describing the significance of the title:

How can they (i.e. the gods) meet us face to face till we have faces? The idea was that a human being must become real before it can expect to receive any message from the superhuman; that is, it must be speaking with its own voice (not one of its borrowed voices), expressing its actual desires (not what it imagines that it desires), being for good or ill itself, not any mask, veil, or persona.

--C. S. Lewis in a letter to Dorothea Conybeare (Walter Hooper, Companion, p. 252)

Wheaton Panel

Fascinating time yesterday with my friend Uche here on campus listening to Mark Noll, John Piper, and Nathan Hatch discuss together how Evangelicalism has changed in the last forty years. They all graduated from Wheaton 40 years ago this weekend.

Their consensus bottom line: Evangelicalism is way worse off and way better off than four decades ago.

Worse: defragmented, "hollowed out," the gospel core of Henry/Schaeffer/Graham has dissolved, entertainment-saturated. Better: lots of fresh energy for a doctrinally robust mission to a fallen world, especially among the younger generation.

Not Interested in Success

Powerful anecdote from Michael Bird.

Lewis: The Divine Meridian

Helped when I read this last night in Lewis' Collected Letters, in a note to Walter Hooper, Nov 30, 1954, who would eventually edit this very collection of correspondence:

We should, I believe, distrust states of mind which turn our attention upon ourselves. Even at our sins we should look no longer than is necessary to know and to repent them: and our virtues or progress (if any) are certainly a dangerous object of contemplation. When the sun is vertically above a man he casts no shadow: similarly when we have come to the Divine meridian our spiritual shadow (that is, our consciousness of self) will vanish.

--Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy 1950-1963, p. 535

Regeneration in Narnia

From the blog mentioned in the previous post I was reminded of this quote from the end of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which provides a beautiful picture of the biblical portrait of the new birth:

It would be nice, and fairly nearly true, to say that “from that time forth Eustace was a different boy.” To be strictly accurate, he began to be a different boy. He had relapses. There were still many days when he could be very tiresome. But most of those I shall not notice. The cure had begun.

The dragon-transformation, with the peeling off of the scales that is so painful yet feels so good, is, of course, another beautiful depiction of the new birth.

The whole post is worth reading.

Clive Staples

I didn't know about this C. S. Lewis Blog.

Thankful

Five men who make me grateful to be at Wheaton: Gary Lavanchy, small groups coordinator and asst football coach, for his love for discipleship; Steve Kellough, chaplain, for his concern for the spiritual welfare of the students; Doug Moo, NT professor, for his kind friendship and excellent supervision of my research; John Monson, OT professor, for his cheerful and buoyant spirit, so rare; and Dan Block, OT professor, for his indefatigable love for others.

Many more could be mentioned.