Learning in War-Time

When the world is at war, it feels as if our sits on the edge of a knife. any slip one way or the other and we seem doomed to fall. During these times, it seems imperative that we put all full effort into our preservation. Scholarly pursuits should be put to the side, taken up again after our safety is reclaimed, right? Not according to C.S. Lewis. "The war creates no absolutely new situation: it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice." It seems that war is not really that different from every day life, it just brings out the more vibrant extremes. "Life has never been normal. Even those periods which we consider most tranquil...turn out, on closer inspection, to be full of cries, alarms, difficulties, emergencies." There is never going to be a time that all conditions are perfect, that we can fully run after knowledge and beauty without a worry in the world. It just won't happen. This means that we must take advantage of what we have now. Education and higher learning is not a waste of time, or counterproductive, even in a time of war. Yes, we need brave soldiers to dedicate themselves to the cause to protect our nation. But as Lewis says, "a man may have to die for our country: but no must, in any exclusive sense, live for his country." There is a difference between defending our nations freedom and dedicating ones entire life to the service of his country. Patriotism is a great thing, but it cannot be the only thing. We need scholars, artists, businessmen, craftsman, inventors, and countless others. All aspects of life are important and need to be treated as such. 

The other interesting point to mention is, when these lives are passing, but have a lasting impact on our immortal souls, "How can you be so frivolous and selfish as to think of anything but the salvation of human souls?"As Lewis expands upon this idea, he talks about the idea of duty. It seems like all our Christian life should be full of duty. This does not mean that we must all become priests and missionaries. Rather, we should integrate our faith and duty into our everyday life, in whatever our calling may be.

As I read the end of Lewis' work when he discusses the three enemies of war I found something that didn't feel quite right. Lewis' three enemies are; excitement, frustration, and fear. I have no qualms with these ideas, in fact, I think Lewis is right in this regard. However, as he was talking about fear it seemed odd to me how he described it. I agree with much of what he said, but I thought he left out some important details. Yes, we will all die. It is a fact that we cannot refute or change. So no, war does not make the number of death percentages increase. But, I think this is a hasty assumption. It is not the fact that they die, it is when they die. A man who dies at 20 serving his country is robbed of the potential to live a long and prosperous life. His potential is taken from him. That is what is scary. And beyond this, it seems that if we kill thousands of people in war, we are cutting off the ability to bring more lives into existence. Yes, they will die one day as well. But they will be new life that, had their parents died at war, would never have been alive. War cuts off possibilities. The people fighting at war all have the potential to do great things in their lives, and just simply enjoy the things God has given them. I think that is why war is scary, and I was surprised that Lewis seemingly brushed over this without a second thought. This doesn't mean that Lewis' overarching points were wrong, even his discussion of fear for that matter. But I just felt like he didn't really cover all the ground that he should have.

The lamp to my feet and a light for my path

As I was reading "The Wonder of Learning" I was really struck by the analogy of the light. It explained the relationship between the Word and the world so well. When you are walking down a dark path you need a flashlight to provide some sort of light, otherwise you could not see in front of you and you would surely stumble and hurt yourself. But when you are walking on this path you do not stare directly at the light. If you did, everything else would be eclipsed and mobility would be even more blind then before. You must use the light, pointing it in front of you, illuminating your path. The light will make your path clear, giving you the ability to traverse the various cracks and stumbling points successfully. This can be compared to the Bible and how it gives us light on our paths of life. Life is a dark and dangerous path, we need light to help us get through, pointing out the dangers and providing sight. But we cannot only look to the Bible. We have to look at our path ahead of us. If all we do is focus on the Bible we become blind to our peripheries. This is an incredible insight in my opinion. We tend to look at this two polar ends, the world and the word. But it is our job to integrate the two, to look at the world through the lens of the word.
When Marshall first said that the Bible could not tell us everything we needed to know I was taken aback. It seemed counterintuitive to think that God had not provided us with everything we needed. But that is not what he means. God did not leave us empty handed. He gave us the outline for us to follow, but because we are all different we have our own path to follow. Even still I did not fully understand why we would not use God's word for all our problems. In all my Christian life it has been stressed to me over and over the importance of the Bible, God's revelation to us. But then Marshall makes his point clear when he explains the analogy with basketball. There are rules that define the objective and what you can and can't do in the game, but this does not define all the intricacies of how the game will be played. You can know all the technical rules, but that will not make you the greatest basketball player. You have to know how to play in those rules. The Bible is our rule book. It is our answers to how we should live life and what we can and can't do. But it does not tell us how live every moment out, that is for us and our free will to decide.
It is so important for us to integrate our faith with our life. We cannot see our every day experiences and God as two separate entities. God cannot be contained to Sunday morning! Or to youth group, or bible study, or a retreat. God should fill our lives. We need him to light our path, so that we make it through life without constantly stumbling and falling in futility.

The Poison of Subjectivism

When you consider the history of the world and how things of changed, you generally consider it progress. We have been advancing to some higher truth, a better understanding of the universe and ourselves. In this pursuit we have in recent years almost quickly eliminated all worth in judgment. The modern view, "does not believe that value judgements are really judgements at all. They are sentiments, or complexes, or attitudes, produces in a community by the pressure of its environment and its traditions, and differing from one community to another." But is this really true? C.S. Lewis maintains that we are more similar than we think and there is a danger in labeling everything as subjective because the very platform they stand on can be attacked in just the same way. Subjectivism holds no bounds and can drag any argument into the depths. Which is why Lewis says, "we have only two alternatives. Either the maxims of traditional morality must be accepted as axioms of practical reason which neither admit nor require argument to support them and not to "see" which is to have lost human status; or else there are no values at all, what we mistook for values being "projections" or irrational emotions."
Something I thought was very interesting in all of this was the idea that even though we think we have made great shifts in our thinking, we really are just the same. The first good example of this is Lewis describing the modern man who tries to reinterpret morality and how we should act. "We must abandon the irrational taboos and base our values on the good of the community - as if the maxim - thou shalt promote the good of the community were anything more than a polysyllabic variant of, do as you would be done by, which has itself no other basis than the old universal value judgement that he claims to be rejecting." It seems so obvious when Lewis states it-but isn't it exactly what gets said? We try to ignore the moral law and create this new idea, when it is a direct derivative of the moral law. Lewis takes this even farther and says that there are two propositions that we must know. "1) The human mind has no more power of inventing a new value than of planting a new sun in the sky or a new primary colour in the spectrum. 2) Every attempt to do so consists in arbitrarily selecting some one maxim of traditional morality, isolating it from the rest, and erecting it into an unum necessarium."
We like to think of ourselves as incredibly different, but we really aren't. There are many different words, terms and traditions between cultures. But if you look at the root of it all, the base structures upon which most things are built, there is a resounding resemblance. "If a man will go into a library and spend a few days with the encyclopedia of religion and ethics he will soon discover the massive unanimity of the practical reason in man." There are cultures which vary greatly from ourselves, but the morals are not that different. Consider the ancient Mayans to ourselves. They had human sacrifices, something we would consider abominable. But why did they have them? They were for the good of the people, to help everyone else prosper and flourish. It was a sacrifice to benefit the whole. Something that we would consider noble. Now we know that human sacrifices will not bring us good crops or peace, so we do not practice it. But we certainly call for sacrifice. Taxes are a sacrifice to help our country stay strong. Or we sacrifice soldiers in war to protect the nation. They are different situations in different settings definitely. But aren't the very core concepts behind them still the same? We have not come as far as we think. We are subjective creatures and always will be. By doubting everything we know through subjectivism, we are only closing all knowledge off from ourselves.

The Fall

There is no doubt that we are living in a broken world. Just look around. I really don't have to go too far to prove that there is something seriously wrong. Violence between nations, religious groups, neighbors, even in families. Lying, corruption, and deceit are common place in the workplace. Even the natural world is full of pain and darkness, from natural disasters to the food chain that treats many animals as nothing more than food. And I think that almost all of us look at this and see that this isn't right. That somehow we have gone astray. Evil has corrupted us and mired us in sin. Plantinga does a great job of talking about God's world and how it has fallen into this through sin, yet seeing God's work still at hand and the hope that is lies therein. "The glory of God's good creation has not been obliterated by the tragedy of the fall, but it has been deeply shadowed by it."
As I read this chapter, I could not help but question where this evil comes from. It seems to make sense that evil is not something that can stand on it's own. It is a manipulation and corruption of good. But this brings up the question, where did that come from? It seems to be a "chicken-egg" situation, where there is an endless cycle. But why is there evil at all? In my philosophy class we read a piece by an atheist philosopher, Mackie, who tried to disprove the existence of God because evil existed in the world. It was a really interesting piece of work that asked good questions and brought up many good answers that I think really relates to what Plantinga talks about in this chapter.
Mackie starts with three basic premises that an theist would agree to. 1) God is omnipotent. (all powerful) 2) God is wholly good. (Good in this sense is the opposition to evil, where good tries to eliminate evil as much as it possibly can) 3) Evil exists. These would be a given to any Christian who believes in God. But when you look at it, there is a contradiction. If God is completely good and all powerful, He would eliminate evil to the best of His ability-which is to say, completely. It seems like in order to maintain this idea you are forced to drop one of the three premises as true. Evil cannot be eliminated since it is beyond argument that our world is covered in it. Mackie says then, that we must either abandon that God is all powerful, or that He is wholly good. Of course, no true Christian would abandon these two core fundamentals.
This leads to the arguments in response to Mackie that He addresses in his paper. The first few are easily eliminated as weak arguments so I will skip them. The best argument from all this is called "The free will argument." Consider if you could live on an island away from all sorts of trials and tribulations. This is called a First Order Good. You are always content. Sure, it sounds like paradise and I am sure that for a time it would be very enjoyable. But after a while wouldn't you get bored? After a while doesn't it start to get old? Yeah, you are relaxed, but does it feel as good if you don't work for it? This is where First Order Evil comes into play. This is any sort of suffering or pain. Now, when you have First Order Evil it neutralizes First Order Good, but it allows for many noble attributes known as Second Order Goods. Loyalty, courage, bravery, trust, honesty-all these traits need some sort of challenge against them to be tested, and when they succeed the victory feels that much better. But, there is a problem. With Second Order Goods come Second Order Evils. Cruelty, unfaithfulness, lying, cheating, cowardice, etc are all just as common as any noble attribute of good. It would seem that the field is level again. However, this is where the free will argument takes its hold. God could make us so that we only did good, so that we only followed his ways, but there wouldn't be much satisfaction in that. We would be robots, programmed with only one decision. God gives us free will to choose what we do, which is the Third Order Good, this trumps all evil-first and second.
I thought of this when reading because Plantinga asks the question, "where does evil come from?" It is impossible that evil originates from God, and the Devil is powerful but nowhere near as powerful as Jesus. I am no theologist, and I would hardly say I have the answers to the worlds most sought after questions. But from the reading and the philosophy work that came up, I thought it was fascinating to see some of the ideas behind it. That God is all powerful, so He has the full potential to use evil. But He is wholly good and it is against His nature to use this power. But evil exists in our world. But it is because God gives us the choice to follow Him, to have the same decisions of doing good or doing evil, to love Him, because we love Him. Not because He told us to. We have fallen short of that in every possible scale and we are surrounded by sin and evil. But God is working to redeem us and this world, to bring us to unity with Him, but it is our choice whether or not we will follow.

The Moral Law---Mere Christianity

Why do we feel that pang of guilt when we take something we know isn't ours? Why do we get offended when someone cheats on a test, or in sports, and gets away with it? Time and time again we say, "it isn't fair!" What defines if something is fair or not? It seems that to a large degree there is a universal code that we all adhere to. It is true that we often choose to ignore this code if it is inconvenient to us. But consider any time you have been wronged, you immediately jump back to the assumption that the other person broke an unspoken rule. It seems peculiar that we have this aspect in us. Even odder still that we have the power to overrule it. When we talk about the law of nature in reference to that of a rock or tree it seems silly to suggest that they ever perform uncharacteristically. A rock will always serve the purpose that a rock does. Trees will always grow as trees. Their environment can change certain aspects, but not in a way that one would not expect. They are always consistent in their behavior. So why then, do humans feel a code inside them that we also have the power to overrule?
Lewis believes that this code comes from a transcendent moral rule, known as the Law of Nature. "The idea was, that just as all bodies are governed by the law of gravitation, and organisms by biological laws, so the creature called man also had his law--with this great difference, that a body could not choose whether it obeyed the law of gravitation or not, but a man could choose either to obey the Law of Human Nature or to disobey it." It is called the Law of Nature because it seems to be a universal trait. To be clear, there are some people in the world who do not follow this law-just as there are people in the world who are colorblind. Not to mention the variations across cultures and time. However the differences are not as great as they first seem. There are definitely significant shifts depending on the culture and time, but the core concepts are generally the same, just altered in one way or another. You would be hard pressed to find a society that values cowardice, or has no sense of justice (though it may come in a different form) There can be many altercations to the basic ideas, but the core concepts can be found.
There are many objections to Lewis argument, and he takes his time in answering each. The one that I found most interesting was the concept of instinct. There are two basic desires that contribute in our decision to help people. The first is our herd instinct-trying to preserve the group. The second is our self-preservation instinct-trying to maintain our own safety. When a situation occurs that a person needs help both of these instincts kick in and battle for control of the decision.  "In addition to these two impulses, a third thing which tells you that you ought to follow the impulse to help, and suppress the impulse to run away."  Since this thing judges the two instincts, and decides which should be encouraged, it cannot be either one of these two instincts. "The Moral Law tells us the tune we have to play: our instincts are merely the keys."
I really loved Lewis' analogy of the piano when he discussed instincts-particularly that there are no right and wrong instincts, just as there are no right or wrong notes. There is just an appropriate time, and an inappropriate time for each. This seems like an obvious statement because of the beauty of it's analogy but think of many of the instincts we look at as reproachful, or as healthy. All can be used for good and for evil. The instinct for sex is a great thing, in the right setting. The instinct to seek justice can be led astray into cruelty if not properly tempered. All things in moderation (except praising God.) We need the Moral Law to guide us and to tell us when to use each instinct, if not we are walking blind.

The Safest Road to Hell

"Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one-the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts."I remember the first time that I read this letter. The chills that ran down my spine then are just as vivid now as they were then. This is one of the most haunting lines in any literary piece I have ever read. The truth in this statement is what gives it, it's blood chilling effect. Indeed, the entire Screwtape collection is full of very insightful ideas and comments on human behavior. But this chapter in particular, Letter 12, is one of his most prolific in my opinion.
I think the reason I have such a strong connection to this chapter is because I have seen it happen in my own life. It is so easy to become complacent with our situation. At least for me, I often tell myself that I am fine where I am. But it is in this sense of  satisfaction that we are most vulnerable. Our journey towards God never ends, and there is no way to stay at a flat level. Our faith either grows or it dwindles. The shifts do not have to be dramatic, in fact in the letters Screwtape suggests that the best method of bringing humans to Hell is through the slow path with few disturbances.
One of the biggest parts of this danger is what we surround ourselves with. This involves people, activities, and what we expose ourselves to. There are clear examples of this with people and activities. Community is one of the most important aspects of our faith-we need other people if we are to grow closer to God. But this means that we need people who want the same things that we want. The image my mother always told me, was imagine yourself on a rowing team. If you are rowing towards God but the other members of the crew are rowing towards other things then you will have a difficult if not impossible time making it to your goal.
 Activities are also pretty self explanatory. Actions speak louder than words. To be a Christian you have to live like a Christian. You cannot be considered a basketball player if you do not play basketball. To take the sports analogy further, imagine you are on the basketball team. If you are training for the state finals, are you going to practice drills or are you going to go eat junk food? Our actions and practices will be obvious in the final result, therefore we must diligently look to watch over our actions.
The final aspect, what we expose ourselves to is perhaps one of the trickiest to discern. Consider the things we are exposed to, music, movies, television, posters, the internet, books, magazines, newspapers, and many more. What are the messages that these things send us? And how do we respond to hearing, seeing, or reading them? And how do we decipher which are bad and which are good? Just because some TV shows are not morally sound does not mean that all TV is inherently bad. But how do we stay conscious of what is leading us down a dark path? There are only two answers I can think of. The first, is prayer. Ask for God's guidance. We cannot let the dim uneasiness draw us away from Him, we must stand before Him and let him pour light into our world to see just where we are. The second thing we can do relates to one of the other aspects. If we have surrounded ourselves with a strong fellowship of friends to support us, we can talk to them for their judgment. God can speak through them to us and together we can hold each other to accountability.

One caution I would give in all of this though, is not to remove ourselves from society completely. Rather, let us use our discernment to help bring renewal to the world. Just because I know my friend isn't a Christian does not mean I abandon my friendship. No! Instead, we show them God's love in our actions and if they are ever willing to hear we help try to bring them into the crew team with us. But you do not make them your source of reliance and dependency when it comes to your faith. Similarly, we should not pretend that our media is rampant with sex as well as other problems. We cannot close our eyes to it and make it go away. However we can work to change the current state of things. We must be in the world but not of the world. God's love and redemption is for everyone, so let us share it with them. While always staying alert that we do not slip down the path without milestones or signposts.

Creation

"The agent of redemption is also the agent of creation." Often times I struggle with the idea of the Trinity. One God of three equal pieces working in communion together. Regardless of my inability to envision the infinite since I am a finite being, I think Plantinga makes a great point. I tend to encapsulate each figure in the Trinity to a specific area. However, this is clearly not the case. It is a central idea to know that Jesus Christ always was and always will be. He was not "made" by God to redeem the world. He was there in the beginning of time, bringing the world into existence--not a part of God that was made to forgive us of our sins. I do not mean to say that Jesus did not work as an agent of renewal, he is the reason for our salvation. I just mean to say that he is also more than that.

Another concept that I have often struggled with is why God created the world. Certainly he made it out of his infinite love, but he is an all powerful lord of the universe, creatures such as ourselves seem superfluous to Him. And in reality, we really are superfluous. As Plantinga said, "nothing internal or external to God compelled him to create." We were not a necessity. On the other hand we are not a random accident. We are not the product of an act of carelessness. We seem to be caught in two worlds, not necessary for God but not an unintentional accident. Plantinga goes on to say that "creation is an act that was fitting for God."This is an interesting idea to me. It seems difficult for me to say that we can label God and say what is fitting for Him. But certainly we do know some things about Him. God has revealed himself to us in general and special revelations. God has given us a basic understanding of Himself through these revelations. What I do know about God in my limited understanding is that he is a God of immense love. The creation process is one of "imaginative love." I love the quote from G.K. Chesterton, "the whole difference between construction and creation is...that a ting constructed can only be loved after is is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists." At first I did not understand this quote, and then I thought of an example: you construct a house. You draw up blueprints and you build the house, but during this process you don't truly love the house. You can love the idea of the house but only once it is created and it becomes a home can you feel any real affection towards it. On the other hand, you create a child. Being a man and never experiencing childbirth I am no expert, but I have to speculate from the moment that you know you have that piece of life in you, you love your child. It is a created part of you that you are intrinsically attached to in a way that I struggle to find words for. This is the image that I get when I think of God creating us. We often think of ourselves as God's children, and it is an apt analogy since He is the one who created us.

In creation we were made in Gods image. This is a mind blowing concept in my opinion. To know that the creator of the universe found you and me important enough to make in His own image, is incomprehensible to me at times. Plantinga suggests that there are three things that put us in God's image. First, we are given stewardship over the earth. An incredible responsibility. We are given a huge sum of power, and it is our duty to take this power and empower those around us, humans, animals, and the planet. The second aspect is that we are made to be in "loving communion with each other." As I mentioned earlier there is the concept of the Trinity living in unity together, and we are made to replicate that as best we can with our relationships with one another and with God. Finally, "we image God by conforming to Jesus Christ in suffering and death."
With our special role in God's creation we are all made with a calling to bring renewal to God's world. This can be done in a multitude of ways, all that matters is that we get started.