More on C.S. Lewis
A couple more thoughts from "The Problem of Pain."
I appreciated the following quote: "with our friends, our lovers, our children, we are exacting and would rather see them suffer much than be happy in contemptible and estranging modes. If God is love, He is, by definition, something more than mere kindness."
The chapter "Divine Goodness" (possibly on page 37, where it speaks of our Lord's Sonship) sparked the following thoughts. We are to strive to be like God in our values, actions, etc. However, there is a difference in the actions God performed as man (Jesus) and as not a man. God desires for us to be a certain way - He wants us to pattern our lives the way he would live life on earth. If we were to strive to be like God in his non-human form, there would be things we would regard as okay that are not right for humans to do - ie killing other humans, vengeance (which is God's in the purest sense). So God sent his Son, who is part of Himself, as a man (maybe) partly so that we could see what it means to walk as God would walk.
Later in the chapter I came across the following (do not take the metaphor too far): "When God becomes a Man and lives as a creature among His own creatures in Palestine, then indeed His life is one of supreme self-sacrifice and leads to Calvary. A modern pantheistic philosopher has said, 'When the Absolute falls into the sea it becomes a fish'; in the same way, we Christians can point to the Incarnation and say that when God empties Himself of His glory and submits to those conditions under which alone egoism and altruism have a clear meaning, He is seen to be wholly altruistic. But God in His transcendence -- God as the unconditioned ground of all conditions -- cannot easily be thought of in the same way."*
* Lewis, C.S. The Problem of Pain. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1996. p. 42
I appreciated the following quote: "with our friends, our lovers, our children, we are exacting and would rather see them suffer much than be happy in contemptible and estranging modes. If God is love, He is, by definition, something more than mere kindness."
The chapter "Divine Goodness" (possibly on page 37, where it speaks of our Lord's Sonship) sparked the following thoughts. We are to strive to be like God in our values, actions, etc. However, there is a difference in the actions God performed as man (Jesus) and as not a man. God desires for us to be a certain way - He wants us to pattern our lives the way he would live life on earth. If we were to strive to be like God in his non-human form, there would be things we would regard as okay that are not right for humans to do - ie killing other humans, vengeance (which is God's in the purest sense). So God sent his Son, who is part of Himself, as a man (maybe) partly so that we could see what it means to walk as God would walk.
Later in the chapter I came across the following (do not take the metaphor too far): "When God becomes a Man and lives as a creature among His own creatures in Palestine, then indeed His life is one of supreme self-sacrifice and leads to Calvary. A modern pantheistic philosopher has said, 'When the Absolute falls into the sea it becomes a fish'; in the same way, we Christians can point to the Incarnation and say that when God empties Himself of His glory and submits to those conditions under which alone egoism and altruism have a clear meaning, He is seen to be wholly altruistic. But God in His transcendence -- God as the unconditioned ground of all conditions -- cannot easily be thought of in the same way."*
* Lewis, C.S. The Problem of Pain. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1996. p. 42
posted by Claire at 10:43
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