Some thoughts on the Trinity

Lewis makes some interesting and unique points on the trinity at the center of the Christian faith.

First, he points out that God is love. Many people, even non-Christians love to claim that God is love.  In reality however, they are making the claim that love is God - whenever, however and to whatever end, when love arises in man we ought to regard that as sacrosanct and adore it. The Christian claim that God is love is vastly different than the world's same vapid pronouncement. When a Christian claims God is love, the Christian is claiming that a "dynamic activity of love has been going on in God forever and has created everything else" (Lewis, 41).

Second, by pointing out that God is love he notes that God must at least be two persons. If He were only one person, then He would not have been love prior to creation. The fact that God is love is evidence for at least a two-personed God, and in the case of Christianity, a triune one.

He makes an interesting point about the Father and the Son. The New Testament paints a good picture of the relationship between the Father and the Son. It is clear and gives a good idea of what that relationship is. When we try to go further and give more in depth we struggle because we end up painting a picture of two separate things rather than one thing with two persons. "Naturally God knows how to describe Himself much better than we know how to describe Him" (Lewis, Mere Christianity).

Lewis calls the Son, "the self-expression of the Father". He states that relationship between God the Father and Jesus the son is simple, "The Father delights in His Son; the Son looks up to His Father" (Lewis, Mere Christianity).

On the subject of the Holy Spirit, Lewis makes a startling analogy. When you get a group of individuals together like a family or a club you hear people talk about the 'spirit' of that family or club. That spirit is a naturally developed way of talking, a developed way of behaving and other qualities that wouldn't have developed had not it been for that union of individuals. The spirit of the family or club is like another member. Of course, it is not a real entity in the case of the family or club. But the union of Father and Son in love creates a Spirit and because Father and Son is God that Spirit is a real entity and the third person of the Trinity.

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this analogy. On the one hand it's a good description of the Spirit. But on the other hand, it almost makes it seem like the Spirit is a created being. I'm on the fence about this one.

"If you think of the Father as something 'out there', in front of you, and the Son as someone standing at your side, helping you to pray, trying to turn you into another son, then you have to think of the third Person as something inside you, or behind you" (Lewis, Mere Christianity). Because the Holy Spirit works from inside you or behind you, he is harder to understand, harder to pin down.

No compartmentalizing.

In giving to God one must surrender all. We must become less so that He can become more inside us. If we try to hold on to a little area that is purely our own and not part of God in us, then we hold onto an area of death and refuse the life that God offers us. We shouldn't seek to have a God-part of our lives and an ordinary part for ourselves. In short, do not compartmentalize. I'm terrible at this. I am the quintessential compartmentalizer.

In the end, if you don't choose the Kingdom of God over anything else it will not matter what you have chosen. That's a hard thought. It means that if you choose money or women or alcohol or even positive things like a good job, ambition, education these are all the same in God's eyes - the wrong choice. Lewis puts it bluntly, "Does it matter to a man dying in a desert by which choice of route he missed the only well?" (Lewis, The Weight of Glory).

Help me to get all my compartments filled with things of the Kingdom of God. Help me not to be distracted or to take hold of something as my own. Lewis thinks that you must fight against this on a daily basis, but in the end only God can fully force out our desire for 'limited liabilities' with God. We shouldn't sit back and let God do his thing. We ought to strive to accept the fullness of God in our daily devotions, confident that He will remove this desire for temporal things, the desire to compartmentalize and the desire to have something entirely of our own.

The bare minimum

I'm still playing catch up with C.S. Lewis. His notes for January 29-31 deal with a great temptation for the Christian - to try and reach the bare minimum requirements to be a good Christian. He likens our approach in this temptation to being a tax payer. "Our temptation is to look eagerly for the minimum that will be accepted. We are in fact very like honest but reluctant taxpayers. We approve of an income tax in principle. We are very careful to pay no more than is necessary. And we hope - we very ardently hope - that after we have paid it there will still be enough left to live on" (Lewis, The Weight of Glory).

He talks about going to God in his daily devotions and proceeding with caution. He wants to have that experience with God, but he hopes that God doesn't ask him to do anything that will too seriously disrupt his 'normal' life. Lewis sees this as the temptation to hang on to the temporal things in life instead of grasping for the eternal. I know that I am guilty of this, quite guilty. Lord, help me not to achieve the bare minimum. Help me to not grasp for the temporal at the sake of the eternal.

Some Notes on Christianity from C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis states that the three things that spread the Christ-life (the new life in Christ) are baptism, belief and communion. Lewis states he doesn't know why this is the case, but he knows why he believes it is the case: Jesus says so. Lewis trusts the authority of Christ. He then makes a good apologetic for doing so. We trust things on authority all the time. Even though he had never been to New York, he trusts that there is such a place by the authority of others that have been there. "Every historical statement in the world is believed on authority... A man who jibbed at authority in other things as some people do in religion would have to be content to know nothing all his life" (Lewis, Mere Christianity)

It is pointless to seek comfort in Christianity as the first step. He believes that in the long run Christianity is a thing of 'unspeakable comfort' but to seek something out for its comfort rather than for its truth is both wrong and futile.

Lewis compares the Christian religion to reality. Both are slightly odd. They are not what you expect. The fact that Christianity, like reality, in being something that is not what you would've guessed, is one of the reasons he believes Christianity is true.

On goodness Lewis writes, "Good, as it ripens, becomes continually ore different not only from evil but from other good" (Lewis, The Great Divorce)

Lewis notes that there is a qualitative difference between Christians and those who are trying to be good people. "That is why the Christian is in a different position from other people who are trying to be good. They hope, by being good, to please God if there is one; or - if they thing there is not - at least they hope to deserve approval from good men. But the Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us; just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it" (Lewis, Mere Christianity)

Myths that mirror the Christ story are good dreams sent by God

A couple of days ago I wrote about a post I titled as Myths as a basis for believing in Christ as a note about my (sightly behind schedule) daily readings in A Year With C.S. Lewis. January 22nd's post (I know, I'm more that slightly behind schedule) follows up on this. I'm not sure when I first came to think that Christianity was foreshadowed by earlier myths or even partially understand as a part of our human nature, but it might have been with C.S. Lewis. It also might have been in college when I became interested in exactly what the Imago Dei meant to us. I think that I believe that being made in the image of God, we have an innate understanding of who God is. While this innate idea is neither perfect nor complete, it allows us to have, at least at a subconscious level, a deep understanding of even some of the finer points of Christian theology. While Lewis doesn't necessarily point to the whole being made in the image of God as a reason, I don't think he would disagree either. He talks more about what God has done, rather than what we can glean from being made in the image of God. In this post he writes:

"And what did God do? First of all He left us conscience, the sense of right and wrong: and all through history there have been people trying (some of them very hard) to obey it. None of them quite succeeded. Secondly, He sent the human race what I call good dreams: I mean those queer stories scattered all through the heathen religions about a god who dies and comes to life again, and by his death, has somehow given new life to men" (Lewis, from Mere Christianity).

Myths as a basis for believing in Christ

One of the things that many detractors from Christianity love to throw out there is the similarity between things from the Scriptures and other ancient religions that may have been older than what happened in the Scriptures. Recently, I've seen lots of posts about Horus or Osiris and how their stories both predates Christ's and are very similar. I've always wondered wether this is a valid criticism of Christianity, maybe they are correct in assuming that Christianity has just borrowed concepts from older religions. But, being a believer, I've always thought that there had to be another explanation.

I've wondered if the reason as to why many of the Biblical stories mirror other myths is that God has used those myths as a way of preparing the way for all peoples to have some sort of base so that they can more easily accept the truth of God. Lewis seems to think something similar as he notes in Is Theology Poetry?  

He notes that theology offers special revelation, but also a general one too. "We should, therefore, expect to find in the imagination of great Pagan teachers and myth makers some glimpse of that theme which we believe to be the very plot of the whole cosmic story - the theme of incarnation, death and rebirth. And the differences between the Pagan Christs (Balder, Osiris, etc.) and the Christ Himself is much what we should expect to find. The Pagan stories are all about someone dying and rising, either every year, or else nobody knows where and nobody knows when" (Lewis from Is Theology of Poetry?). Lewis points out that comparing the myths to Christianity is "like watching something come gradually into focus; first it hangs in the clouds of myth and ritual, vast and vague, then it condenses, grows hard and in a sense small, as a historical event in first century Palestine".

When Christ came down to earth he partly emptied himself of his glory. Lewis points out that all things come down from heaven to earth (general revelation) and in doing so they too have been emptied partially of some of their glory. That is why myths are partially correct. In and of themselves, the myths can't lead to salvation; but they can provide the basis for coming to understand the truth that leads to salvation.

I'd love to explore this topic further.

God and the Atlantic Ocean

Lewis describes how after giving a speech to the Royal Air Force an old officer exclaimed that he had no time for creeds of Christianity because they were meaningless. He believed in God and had in fact experienced him in his own life. But, the creeds and theology of Christianity felt less real than that type of experience.

Lewis compared this to seeing the Atlantic ocean in real life and seeing it on a map. Of course seeing it in real life was a more tangible experience, but the map is made from thousands of persons' experience with the Atlantic Ocean. You, as a single person, can experience the Atlantic Ocean in a one-on-one level as much as you like. But, to sail across it one will need maps. It's the same thing with Scripture and theology. You can experience God at a one-on-one level, but without a map you're going to have a lot of walks on the beach, but your not going to make it across the Atlantic.

Interestingly, he notes that the experiences we have with God at that one-on-one level are certainly exciting, but like the old officer, often nothing comes of it. "It leads nowhere. There is nothing to do about it... It is all thrills and no work" (Lewis, from Mere Christianity). But, when using the maps (theology and Scripture) requires work to get to God. It's relying on hundreds of people's experience with God, mapping out a way to get to God on a deeper level.

God is always in the Now

God does not experience time like man does. There is no yesterday or tomorrow for God. For God, everything happens Now. This removes the problem of God's foreknowledge and man's free will. We are free to act without God knowing what we are doing tomorrow because God is seeing our actions of tomorrow as we do them. But God sees our actions of today, yesterday and tomorrow Now. "He is already in tomorrow and can simply watch you. In a sense, He does not know your action till you have done it: but then the moment at which you have done it is already 'Now' for Him" (C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity)

On a separate and infuriating note, I tried to explain this to Erin to no avail. She simply disagreed with me over and over again.