C.S. Lewis: from theism to Christianity

C.S. Lewis: It must be understood that my conversion at that point was only to theism pure and simple. I knew nothing yet about the incarnation. The God to whom I surrendered was sheerly non-human.

C.S. Lewis: [Reading from Chesterton] A great man knows he is not God and the greater he is, the better he knows it. The gospels declare that this mysterious maker of the world has visited his world in person. The most that any religious prophet has said was that he was the true servant of such a being. But if the creator was present in the daily life of the Roman empire, that is something unlike anything else in nature. It is the one great startling statement that man has made since he spoke his first articulate word. It makes dust and nonsense of comparative religion.

C.S. Lewis: As I drew near to Christianity, I felt a resistance almost as strong as my previous resistance to theism. As strong but shorter lived for I understood it better. But each step, one had less chance to call one's soul one's own.

C.S. Lewis: What Tolkien showed me was this — that if I met the idea of sacrifice in a pagan story I didn't mind it at all — I was mysteriously moved by it. The reason was that in pagan stories I was prepared to feel the myth as profound. Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth.

C.S. Lewis: I know very well when but hardly how the final step was taken. I went with my brother to have a picnic at Whipsnade Zoo. We started in fog, but by the end of our journey the sun was shining. When we set out I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and when we reached the zoo I did. I had not exactly spent the journey in thought. Nor in great emotion. It was more like when a man, after a long sleep, becomes aware that he is now awake.

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[british123able]

the best minds that ever lived believed in god, and i do too

[JN5B11]

@ironkatia yeah only idiots go to Oxford

[krautinator]

@omgshift111

If god is incomprehensible, then there is no use for religion. Also, worshiping such a being would be pointless as it would neither require our praise nor defense.

[omgshift111]

@krautinator ah sorry youtube emails to the wrong account. Good point... but kinda along a different line of thinking - that stuff is within creation/God's choice, rather than who God is*... To limit God is to be quite... childish? If God exists, He would be all powerful and incomprehensible to us. *Ignoring context of those passages

[StareHamry]

God

[kilroy055]

@noblefreecloud I will pm you, not enough room in these comments to address the issue =)

[noblefreecloud]

@noblefreecloud The question now becomes, where does that "moral law" come from? It's clearly not an instinct. On the contrary it's something which makes a kind of tune (the tune we call goodness or right conduct) by directing the instincts.

[noblefreecloud]

@noblefreecloud the "herd instinct" that instinct which tells you to help, and the "self preservation extinct" which tells you to run away. However, an overriding impulse comes into play here, the one that tells you that you OUGHT to obey the instinct to rescue the child and suppresses the instinct to save yourself. That feeling that you "ought" to follow one or the other of the two instincts cannot itself be one of them. (continued)

[noblefreecloud]

@noblefreecloud The question now becomes, where did it come from? The way your phrase it makes it out to be something that just evolved in humans and their societies. Here's where I disagree. Instincts "evolve". Morality does not. An example: You are driving down a highway when you come across a horrific accident where there is a child trapped in a burning vehicle. You have two immediate "instincts" (continued)

[noblefreecloud]

@noblefreecloud Science cannot on it's own prove that God DOES exist. So it seems we're at a crossroads. Theists and Atheists. We as Christians can't prove God exists through your science no more than you can prove He doesn't. Luckily, we have a little more to go on, that being ourselves. That moral law that began this conversation turns out to be one of the revealing truths of our existence. You agree that at least it exists, so that's a good start (continued)