The Ever-Quotable Lewis

I've been reading C.S. Lewis' Miracles lately in my devotional reading. As those things go, it's pretty heady stuff (for me). It's philosophical yet with his unique touch of using such things as flamingos and German generals, for example, to prove a theorem if called upon. While I don't pretend to follow his argument line by line (the book is properly considered apologetic), I manage to hang on through some rough patches and generally get the gist of things. His argument is plain and simple: one either by disposition (not by logic) rules out the supernatural (what he would refer to as being a "Naturalist") or must accept that there exists something outside of nature which from time to time interrupts or interferes with the normal course of events. There is no logical middle ground on the matter.

This morning in chapter 11 entitled "Christianity and 'Religion'", I was trying to keep up with him as he demonstrated with his usual deftness the shallowness of those who consider themselves "Pantheists"; i.e., those who affirm that there is a god but he is not personal but a "force" permeating all that there is. About mid-way through the chapter my mind was becoming muddled with the deluge of words I was having to run through when suddenly I came in out of the rain and read this:

"Men are reluctant to pass over the notion of an abstract and negative deity to the living God. I do not wonder. Here lies the deepest tap-root of Pantheism and of the objection of traditional imagery. It was hated not, at bottom, because it pictured Him as man but because it pictured Him as king, or even as warrior. The Pantheist's God does nothing, demands nothing. He is there if you wish for Him, like a book on a shelf. He will not pursue you. There is no danger that at any time heaven and earth should flee away at His glance. If He were the truth, then we could really say that all the Christian images of kingship were a historical accident of which our religion ought to be cleansed. It is with a shock that we discover them to be indispensable. You have had a shock like that before, in connection with smaller matters - when the line pulls at your hand, when something breathes beside you in the darkness. So here; the shock comes at the precise moment when the thrill of life is communicated to us along the clue we have been following. It is always shocking to meet life where we thought we were alone. 'Look out!' we cry, 'it's alive.' And therefore this is the very point at which so many draw back - I would have done so myself if I could - and proceed no further with Christianity. An 'impersonal God' well and good. A subjective God of beauty, truth and goodness, inside our own heads - better still. A formless life-force surging through us, a vast power which we can tap - best of all. But God Himself, alive, pulling at the other end of the cord, perhaps approaching at an infinite speed, the hunter, king, husband - that is quite another matter. There comes a moment when the children who have been playing at burglars hush suddenly: was that a real footstep in the hall? There comes a moment when people who have been dabbling in religion ('Man's search for God'!) suddenly draw back. Supposing we really found Him? We never meant it to come to that! Worse still, supposing He had found us?"

"So it is a sort of Rubicon [an expression meaning, the point of no return]. One goes across; or not. But if one does, there is no manner of security against miracles. One may be in for anything."


Wow. His adeptness of putting the argument in proper perspective always amazes me. I can be one thing - a person who believes in a benevolent being of an indeterminate nature - or another - a Christian commited to the revelation of God as presented in the Bible - but I can't be one while pretending to hide behind the other.