Re: [asa] Greetings from a new member

I don't think he's saying it would still be of value if it's all a
delusion. I think he's saying that its surpassing value demonstrates to us
that it ultimately is *not* a delusion, even though there are times when it
can seem delusional to outsiders. For those who know God, if *this* is a
delusion, then *nothing *is real and true at all, not even the reasons that
supposedly make it seem "delusional." At the end of the day, those
"reasons" pale against the reality of the relationship we've entered into --
even if the relationship is always in some ways a mystery. That's what I
take from the essay anyway.

On 4/14/07, Merv <mrb22667@kansas.net> wrote:
>
> I love that essay (and the snippet you give -- the Spirit it is written
> in), but as big a Lewis fan as I am, I would dispute with one of the
> directions some people would take this (unintended by Lewis, I'm sure).
> I.e. that /even if/ it were a delusion, it would still be of surpassing
> value. This may be an affluent cultural deviation of a
> post-Constantinian Christianity gone comfortable and culturally
> dominant, but it doesn't square with the Christianity of persecution and
> enmity with the world. It doesn't square with the Apostle Paul's
> conclusion that we would be the "most pitiable" of men if Christ is not
> really risen. We/they would merely (tragically) found to be false
> witnesses. And Lewis would agree, I am sure. He has echoes of this in
> "The Silver Chair" when the witch is strumming her enchanting melodies
> and convincing her audience that the sun and world above do not really
> exist. Then Eustace (or was it Puddleglum?) finally blurts out that
> even if that world didn't exist but in their imagination, it still beats
> her version of reality. And of course, in the context of that story,
> the sun & world above really do exist, and so finally merit their
> belief. While I am sure that Lewis, if he were still around, would
> easily put me in my place, I will still have the cheek (in his absence)
> of disagreeing on that point, and insisting that if it were a delusion,
> it would not be of surpassing value, but just a delusion -- and in fact,
> much worse. But his differentiating between original assent and the
> later adherence of faith is right on.
>
> --Merv
>
> David Opderbeck wrote:
> > I just wanted to add one more very brief but lovely essay to this
> > list, which I just happened to read this evening: "On Obstinacy in
> > Belief" by C.S. Lewis (I found it in a collection of Lewis' essays
> > which includes "The World's Last Night." In about fifteen pages,
> > Lewis answers the same questions Dawkins keeps asking today about
> > Christian belief. What people like Dawkins miss is that faith is
> > relational, not merely rational. A snippet from the conclusion:
> >
> >
> > Our opponents, then, have a perfect right to dispute with us about
> > the grounds of our original assent [to the Christian faith]. But
> > they must not accuse us of sheer insanity if, after the assent has
> > been given, our adherence to it is no longer proportioned to every
> > fluctuation of the apparent evidence. They cannot of course be
> > expected to know on what our assurance feeds, and how it revives
> > and is always rising from its ashes. They cannot be expected to
> > see how the /quality/ of the object which we think we are
> > beginning to know by acquaintance drives us to the view that if
> > this were a delusion then we should have to say that the universe
> > had produced no real thing of comparable value and that all
> > explanations of the delusion seemed somehow less important than
> > the thing explained. That is knowledge we cannot comunicate. But
> > they can see how the assent, of necessity, moves us from the logic
> > of speculative thought into what might perhaps be called the logic
> > of personal relations. What would, up till then, have been
> > variations simple of opinion become variations of conduct by a
> > person to a Person. Credere Deum esse turns into Credre in Deum.
> > And Deum here is this God, the increasingly knowable Lord.
> >
>
>

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Received on Sat Apr 14 10:51:25 2007