Me ([info]amusedmaze) wrote,
@ 2006-11-24 15:21:00
Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Woah.
To decide what the best use of it is, you must ask what use the Enemy wants to make of it, and then do the opposite. Now it may surprise you to learn that in His efforts to get permanent possesion of a soul, He relies on the troughs more than the peaks; some of His special favourites have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else. The reason is this. To us a human is primarily food; our aim is the absorbtion of its will into ours, the increase of our own area of selfhood at its expense. But the obedience which the Enemy demands of men is quite a different thing. One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, is not (as one would gladly believe) mere propoganda, but an appalling truth. He really DOES want to fill the universe with a lot of little loathesome replicas of Himself - creatures whose life, on its miniature scale, will be qualitively like His own, not because He has absorbed them but because their wills freely conform to His. We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally beocme sons. We want to suck in; He wants to give out. We are empty and would be filled; He is full and flows over. Our war aim is a world in which Our Father Below has drawn all other beings into himself: the Enemy wants a world full of beings united to Him but still distinct.

The last sentence separates perfectly (in my mind) the difference between the liberal agenda and the conservative purpose.


(Post a new comment)


[info]sir_dave
2006-11-24 10:41 pm UTC (link)
Hmm, I see your point.

However it remains to me first and foremost a startling exposition of everyday truths I have observed fighting in the front line. As someone saved in a revival, it never ceases to amaze me how C S Lewis saw these things for what they were, coming from an age in which such matters were considered purely theoretical at most, and nonsense in the eyes of almost everyone.

Everything he writes is remarkable, though perhaps most moving of all, is 'Till we have faces'. Please put as many extracts as you want on your journal, I shall be very glad to be reminded; I don't have a copy of this book now, and even after twenty years in the business, I couldn't begin to put better what C S Lewis almost certainly never saw with his eyes.

His description of the purposes of God and the Devil is absolutely spot on. Whenever we find something God calls sin, we should be looking for this; that no matter how it appears to be a desirable and fun thing, it consumes and controls us. As it says elsewhere in the book, from a devil's point of view, why give the deceived what they want? Why not extract the price, and yet give them nothing? And after a few short 'hits' of what is offered, very often the rest is deceptive, or merely enables us to carry on no happier than before, yet enslaved for our pains.

(Reply to this)(Thread)


[info]amusedmaze
2006-11-27 06:35 pm UTC (link)
I am indeed loving this book - something about the way Lewis uses sentences and language though throws my brain off a bit, he tends to lose me and I have to guess and turn some corners, usually finding him again around a block or two - that's probably due to my lack of brain cells. It's quite annoying to be such a bright dumb person, I have to say.
Same thing tends to happen with you too actually.

Anyhow, I will certainly be posting excerpts. Is that a word?

(Reply to this)(Parent)


Create an Account
Forgot your login?
Login w/ OpenID
English • Español • Deutsch • Русский…