Insufficient Christianity: 26.1
I'm trying out using Word 2007 to create blog posts. I have no idea how well this is going to work out, but we shall see!
In chapter 25 of Mere Christianity, Lewis writes about "Good Infection", which is his explanation of the Holy Spirit.
Lewis says that the point of seeing god as an eternal causeless trinity is that "god is love" is meaningless unless you have at least two entities:
Love is a thing that occurs between two or more people.
God is love
Therefore god is at least two people
Therefore we have support for the trinity being necessary
Of course, if we accept his argument (which I don't) then we only have support for a trinity and the necessity of dualism.
Lewis goes on to say that this is a really important difference between Christianity and other religions – god is a "dynamic, pulsating activity, a life, almost a kind of drama. Almost, if you will not think me irreverent, a kind of dance." Once again, Lewis is displaying his ignorance of other religions, as if other religions are mere dead shadows of his religion. He basically spends the rest of the chapter waxing poetically about how stupendous his religion is. He explains that the union of god and Jesus is so concrete that the union itself is a person, and that this person is the Holy Spirit. He says that the Holy Spirit is akin to the "spirit" felt at a community gathering or in a family except that it is much more real and awesome. He says that we all have to enter the Holy Spirit (or have it enter us) in order to have any happiness at all or live forever. Once we enter into the Holy Spirit we become "sons of god" and thus we are "begat" by god instead of just "made". This is what Lewis considers the "good infection" and the whole purpose of becoming a Christian. This is what he means when he says that nonChristians are like mere shadows compared to Christians.
I actually like Lewis' little description of the Holy Spirit, because I can honestly say that before I read it, I really didn't know what on earth Christians were talking about when they spoke of "having the Holy Spirit in me". I actually learned something from Lewis about Christianity! I still think his description of the difference between the two is rather bigoted, but at least I'll know what people are talking about when they praise the Holy Spirit.
Mere Christianity Online
In chapter 25 of Mere Christianity, Lewis writes about "Good Infection", which is his explanation of the Holy Spirit.
"I begin this chapter by asking you to get a certain picture clear in your minds. Imagine two books lying on a table one on top of the other. Obviously the bottom book is keeping the other one up-supporting it. It is because of the underneath book that the top one is resting, say, two inches from the surface of the table instead of touching the table. Let us call the underneath book A and the top one B. The position of A is causing the position of B. That is clear? Now let us imagine - it could not really happen, of course, but it will do for an illustration -let us imagine that both books have been in that position for ever and ever. In that case B's position would always have been resulting from A's position. But all the same, A's position would not have existed before B's position. In other words the result does not come after the cause. Of course, results usually do: you eat the cucumber first and have the indigestion afterwards. But it is not so with all causes and results. You will see in a moment why I think this important.Apparently Lewis thinks that "eternal" things (which he has failed to establish the existence of) are immune from a cause occurring before an effect. He does this to explain how none of the elements of the trinity came "first". I really don't have a problem with the causality some elements of some nonexistent god, just as I have no problem with the causality of the big bang – cause and effect break down in a singularity, as there is no such thing as time. Which came first: the id, the ego or the superego? Who knows. I don't think this is particularly important or relevant. If one can accept that god exists causelessly, it is not a far cry to accept that god is a causeless trinity either.
Lewis says that the point of seeing god as an eternal causeless trinity is that "god is love" is meaningless unless you have at least two entities:
"Notice the practical importance of this. All sorts of people are fond of repeating the Christian statement that 'God is love.' But they seem not to notice that the words 'God is love' have no real meaning unless God contains at least two Persons. Love is something that one person has for another person. If God was a single person, then before the world was made, He was not love. Of course, what these people mean when they say that God is love is often something quite different: they really mean 'Love is God.' They really mean that our feelings of love, however and wherever they arise, and whatever results they produce, are to be treated with great respect. Perhaps they are: but that is something quite different from what Christians mean by the statement 'God is love.' They believe that the living, dynamic activity of love has been going on in God forever and has created everything else.I am one person. I love myself. I think Lewis is actually trying to us this love thing as an argument:
Love is a thing that occurs between two or more people.
God is love
Therefore god is at least two people
Therefore we have support for the trinity being necessary
Of course, if we accept his argument (which I don't) then we only have support for a trinity and the necessity of dualism.
Lewis goes on to say that this is a really important difference between Christianity and other religions – god is a "dynamic, pulsating activity, a life, almost a kind of drama. Almost, if you will not think me irreverent, a kind of dance." Once again, Lewis is displaying his ignorance of other religions, as if other religions are mere dead shadows of his religion. He basically spends the rest of the chapter waxing poetically about how stupendous his religion is. He explains that the union of god and Jesus is so concrete that the union itself is a person, and that this person is the Holy Spirit. He says that the Holy Spirit is akin to the "spirit" felt at a community gathering or in a family except that it is much more real and awesome. He says that we all have to enter the Holy Spirit (or have it enter us) in order to have any happiness at all or live forever. Once we enter into the Holy Spirit we become "sons of god" and thus we are "begat" by god instead of just "made". This is what Lewis considers the "good infection" and the whole purpose of becoming a Christian. This is what he means when he says that nonChristians are like mere shadows compared to Christians.
I actually like Lewis' little description of the Holy Spirit, because I can honestly say that before I read it, I really didn't know what on earth Christians were talking about when they spoke of "having the Holy Spirit in me". I actually learned something from Lewis about Christianity! I still think his description of the difference between the two is rather bigoted, but at least I'll know what people are talking about when they praise the Holy Spirit.
Mere Christianity Online
Labels: atheism, biases, blasphemy, books, C.S. Lewis
posted by Ziztur
at
8:00 AM
2 Comments:
Augh! Word is doing terrible thing to the fonts and inconsistency strikes. Revert! Revert!
Well, I’m not sure that Lewis’s interpretation of the HG would really conform to what other Christians would say. My upbringing was in the Southern Baptist Church and, what I noticed was that there was a large disconnect between what was said about the HG and how the idea was actually used. The pastor was old-school and would say that the HG (he would actually use the word ‘Ghost’ for the most part but would occasionally use the word ‘Spirit’ - evidently, the word ‘Ghost’ had become passé and ‘Spirit’ was de rigueur) was co-equal with God and Jesus but in all the sermons and prayers the HG was seldom mentioned and was definitely given bottom billing. It was almost always tossed in as an after thought. The only time that the HG was given center stage was when the pastor was calling for a conversion experience but frankly, given the context of the speech, I never once thought that he was referring to a distinct person but only to the affect that God presence was suppose to have.
As I understand it, other traditions have different emphasis on the personage and importance of the HG. I’ve been told that the HG is vitally important to the Pentecostals and figures prominently in the Eastern Orthodox traditions.
I think that one could probably rank the different sects by their de facto ‘Trinity’ scale. I think that the Baptists would score about 2.2, whereas the Pentecostals might score, say, 2.9 – I seriously doubt that there are any sects where the HG would score at a complete 1.0. (Actually, when it comes to the Baptists, the only sect that I’m intimately familiar with, I would say that Jesus ranks a 1.0, God ranks about 0.9 and the HG ranks about 0.3 – for the Baptists, at least, Jesus is more significant and important than God.)
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