Integrative Essay

At the beginning of this Interim course I did not think that there was any way that C.S. Lewis and Cornelius Plantinga Jr. would relate to each other, other than the fact that they are both Christians. I found most of the writings by Lewis to be appealing, new, and very applicable to my life, whereas I found Plantinga’s book, Engaging God’s World, to be quite boring and uninteresting because I have grown up learning all of these concepts already, and none of it was new to me. Despite the fact that I was not excited to read Plantinga’s book, there were some similarities between the two authors and they actually complimented each other quite nicely.

I think one of the most influential essays, for me at least, by Lewis that we looked at is called “Meditation in a Toolshed.” In this essay Lewis talks about the differences between looking “along” something and looking “at” something. He says, “You get one experience of a thing when you look along it and another when you look at it” (2). He says that looking along something is like when you actually experience something, whereas looking at something is when you just observe something from a distance and do not actually experience it. He then goes on to say, “One must look both along and at everything…we must start with no prejudice for or against either kind of looking” (2). I found this essay to be very relevant to my life because I sometimes make decisions or judge things just based on one of these ways of looking at something. Lewis tells us that that is not a wise thing to do though; we must look at everything from two different perspectives.

In his sermon entitled “The Weight of Glory”, C.S. Lewis says many profound things that tie in nicely with some of the concepts that Plantinga talks about in this book. Lewis scared me a bit in this sermon when he talks being “noticed” by God, and he mentions a passage in the New Testament that deals with people that never really “knew” God. He says, “There we are warned that it may happen to any one of us to appear at last before the face of God and hear only the appalling words: ‘I never knew you. Depart from me’” (4). I like this quote from Lewis a lot and I think it ties in with some things that Plantinga talks about, but it also frightens me quite a bit as well. Plantinga says that God wants us to have relationships with Him, He always has wanted that, but it has become much more difficult since evil has crept into our world and infected all of us. He defines evil as “any spoiling of shalom” (1). This “spoiling of shalom” that Plantinga talks about is important because this means that shalom, the way things were always supposed to be, has been ruined now. There is nothing we can do now but to ask for forgiveness from God and try to move on.

I also appreciate what Lewis says towards the end of “The Weight of Glory” sermon when he says, “There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal” (4). This is a great quote, not only because it is simple and thought provoking, but also because it is insightful. I have never thought of other people in this way before. I believe that here Lewis is indirectly hinting at the fact that we are all created in the “image of God”, and I think that Plantinga would appreciate that as well. Plantinga states that all of humanity is created in the “image of God” and, even though we have sinned, we have the opportunity to be redeemed (1). I have always been taught that we are all human and we have all been created in the image of God, but what Lewis mentions in his sermon made me think and reflect more on this idea. If we are all made in God’s image, then when we disrespect someone else, we are really disrespecting God and His creation. This is an interesting concept because we are all humans, and most of the time we think we are nothing more than mortals. This quote by Lewis connects to another thing that Plantinga says, and that is that God is “King of kings” (1), which also implies that we are kings and queens and we rule over our own little kingdoms. Plantinga says that we are not mere mortals, indirectly of course. If we truly believe that we are all kings and queens and we are created in God’s image, then I think we would not only have a different outlook on each other, but on God’s creation as well.

One of the most applicable pieces of Lewis’s writings that can be used today by many college students is entitled “Our English Syllabus.” In this essay Lewis explains the importance of education and the difference between education and vocational training. He says, “You see at once that education is essentially for freemen and vocational training for slaves” (3). Here Lewis weighs in on the importance of education because through education an individual can learn so many different things that can be useful for the rest of one’s life, but vocational training limits an individual because here a person is only learning about one certain subject, they are not learning a good foundation of information that can spill over into other areas of learning.

Plantinga also mentions vocation in his book. Plantinga says that our vocation is our calling, and a Christian’s main vocation is to be a “prime citizen” of the kingdom, which means we are to passionately yearn for the kingdom (1). I think that these two glances at vocation are related in an important way. God calls us to “passionately yearn for the kingdom”, and I think that if we learn as much as we can we are at least trying to become prime citizens. If we do not learn very much from a broad range of topics I think that we are not taking advantage of all of the gifts that God has given us, and we are not fulfilling our calls to be prime citizens.

One of my favorite quotes from this essay is when Lewis talks about students needing to figure things out for themselves. He says, “Do not tell me that you would sooner have a nice composite menu of dishes from half the world drawn up for you. You are too old for that. It is time you learned to wrestle with nature yourself” (3). I like this quote a lot because this is where Lewis tells us that we, as college students, should begin to learn on our own. We do not need a professor to be holding our hands and feeding us spoonfuls of information, we need to “wrestle with nature.” I think that this not only happens in our school work, but the opposite happens in our faith. God has made us right with Him by justification, so now all we have to do is ask for His help. It seems that too many times we think we can do things on our own without God’s help, just like Lewis mentions in the essay when he was talking of a professor’s help, but that only leads to us making an even greater mess of things. We need God to walk next to us and hold our hand, which is what Jesus is for. If we “wrestle with nature” without God’s help, we are going to be completely lost.

Also in the essay “Our English Syllabus” Lewis talks about the importance of a liberal arts education and he stresses the need to learn a bit about many different subjects. He says that a liberal arts education is necessary because, as impossible as it may seem, we need to have knowledge of everything (3). We must apply several subjects together to be well-rounded (3). It may be difficult to know a little of everything, it may even be impossible, but we must attempt this important feat. Plantinga also talks of the importance of a liberal arts education in his book, and he specifically talks about how Calvin College began and the troubles that it faced early on when the college was forming. Plantinga would agree with Lewis that a liberal arts education is extremely important so that you may have“knowledge of everything.” I think that Plantinga would not disagree with Lewis when Lewis says that we should not limit our learning to college (3), instead we should learn new things every day even when we are not in school anymore.

I used to have a soccer coach in high school that would ask me how my day was going every single day. When I replied, “It was okay, nothing special,” he would ask me if I had learned anything that day. I would say, “Of course I did.” Then he would just nod his head and tell me that it was a good day. I never thought much of his odd question until I read this essay by Lewis, and I now understand that it is important to take advantage of all of the knowledge around us and we must try to soak in everything we can because it may be beneficial later in life.

I knew going into this course that I would learn quite a bit of new information, what I did not realize was all of the ways that this new knowledge will hopefully benefit me in the future. I knew C.S. Lewis was a great writer even though I had not read many of his books or writings before I took this class. This class has taught me that knowledge is extremely important and that I must try to learn as many things as possible while I have the opportunities. My professors were great as well, and the discussions were very helpful in helping me learn different views and perspectives on these interesting and provocative writings.

Works Cited

1) Jr., Cornelius Plantinga. ENGAGING GOD'S WORLD A REFORMED VISION OF FAITH, LEARNING, AND LIVING. Boston: William B. Eerdmans Company, 2002. Print.

2) Lewis, C. S. God in the Dock Essays on Theology and Ethics. Boston: Wm. B. Eerdmans Company, 1994. Print.

3) "Our English Syllabus," in Rehabilitations and Other Essays. London: OxfordUniversity Press, 1939.

4) "The Weight of Glory." Google. Web. 23 Jan. 2010. .

Human Pain

In this work by C.S. Lewis he talks mainly about pain, which should come as no surprise to anyone because it is mentioned in the title of the essay. Lewis says that there are two different kinds of pain, and only one that he wants to really talk about. His second definition of pain is "any experience, whether physical or mental, which the patient dislikes." He goes on to say that pain in this sense "is synonymous with 'suffering', anguish', 'tribulation', 'adversity', or 'trouble, and it is about it that the problem of pain arises." I found these couple of quotes to be interesting because most of the time when I think of pain I think of physical pain, not really the mental or emotional aspect of it. Lewis goes on to say that when we are dealing with our greatest pain, that is what brings us closer to God. I always find it amazing to see people in 3rd world countries that have almost nothing but they still sing and praise God with all their hearts. It's so difficult to find people like that here in America because we are never satisfied and we just want more and more. We don't have anything to really worry about here, so we don't "need" to talk to God as much, at least that's what many people think. Because the people in 3rd world countries are so poor they depend on God for everything, so they must constantly talk to Him. They have so much pain in their lives, and I think that is one reason for why they are so close to God.

A lot of this essay is dedicated to instances when people are doing well and they don't think that they really need God; this is when they forget about Him. Lewis says that when everything is going well with us it is hard to turn to God and thank him for what He has given us. Lewis says, "We 'have all we want' is a terrible saying when 'all' does not include God. We find God as an interuption." I found this quote to be extremely powerful because we all do this at one time or another. I know I do this sometimes and I'm not even aware of it when I do it. I think Lewis's friend said it best when he said that "We regard God as an airman regards his parachute; it's there for emergencies but he hopes he'll never have to use it." This analogy seems perfect because I can easily relate it to my life. It seems that when I have a lot to be thankful for and everything is going well for me, then I don't have as much to say to God in prayer, but when things aren't going well for me then I seem to spend a lot more time in prayer. Unfortunately, I don't think I'm the only one that falls into this problem either.

Man or Rabbit

I thought this was an intersting little essay that Lewis wrote because he starts off acting like he is going to answer the question that asks if it's possible to lead a good life without believing in Christianity. He doesn't just answer the question though, he goes into reasons why he thinks the question is a bad question and who would ask it. Lewis doesn't answer the question right away though, he goes about it indirectly and he answers a series of other questions along the way. He says that Christianity must either be fake or true, and a person should decide which of these two choices they believe is true after thinking about the question for a while. They shouldn't decide that Christianity is, in fact, true just because they can benefit from being a Christian, it's something that an individual must struggle with. When Lewis talks about this I am reminded of Pascal's Wager. Pascal came up with a simple suggestion, based on probability, which shows the possible outcomes for a Christian and non-Christian related to whether God exists or not. If God exists and someone lives as a Christian then when they die they can look forward to eternity in heaven and they gain everything. If a person lives as a Christian and God doesn't exist then they lose nothing. If a person lives as a non-Christian and God doesn't exist then they lose nothing, but if someone lives as a non-Christian and God does exist, they they lose everything.

I first heard of Pascal's Wager in high school and I thout it was interesting because it simplifies a choice we have here on earth of whether to believe that God exists or not, and what "happens" to us if God does or does not actually exist. I thought that what Lewis argues in this essay related to this Wager because Lewis talks about not becoming a Christian just for the benefits of Christianity. I too agree that someone should not become a Christian just so that in the end if God does exist then they have eternity with Him and enjoy the benefits of Christianity, but I think that is a bonus that comes with Christianity. I think someone needs to struggle with their faith and talk to God to see how He can speak to them in their lives.

Getting back to Lewis's essay, he talks about people that weren't Christians but have lived as good people. He says, "We all know there have been good men who are not Christians; men like Socrates and Confucius who had never heard of it..." Lewis says these men were in a state of honest error and he hopes that they have a chance to get into heaven. I have often wondered that too. Why are there so many people that have never even heard of Jesus Christ and what happens to them when they die? Do they have a chance to go to heaven as well? This is a tough question and we won't know the answer until we get to heaven ourselves. Until then I think we should continue to be missionaries for Christ and try to spread God's Word to as many people as possible.

The Inner Ring

The concept of an inner ring is pretty simple. I think that a clique of friends in high school can fit into what is called an inner ring. There is nothing wrong with having a close group of friends and there is nothing wrong with an inner ring, as Lewis points out. Lewis says that "the existence of an inner ring in (not) Evil. It is certainly avoidable." I found this quote to be interesting because Lewis says many things about these so called inner rings, and it seems like most of what he says about them are negative. It was good when he pointed out that not all inner rings are evil, and I agree with that. I think that a clique of friends is not evil at all, in fact I think that it is good to have a good group of friends that you can trust and enjoy hanging out with. I do believe that a clique can become evil though when the group, or certain members, won't allow others to join the group. When a clique discriminates against someone or other people I think then that clique is acting evil.

I think we are all member of inner rings, whether we know it or not. The more I think about it, the more I figure out that I am in many different inner rings. I am in the inner ring for my floor, and because I am on the baseball team I am in the baseball inner ring group. There are many more examples, and many more that I don't even really know about.

Another quote by Lewis that struck me was when he used the analogy of peeling an onion to get into an inner ring. He says, "You are trying to peel an onion: if you succeed there will be nothing left. Until you conquer your fear of being an outsider, an outsider you will remian." I found this quote to be true for the most part. In my experiences I have found that when you try really hard to get into a group and you are afraid that you won't make it into the group, then if you actually do make it in it isn't as great as you thought it would be and you feel like you don't belong there. If this is the case then you still feel like an outsider because you feel out of place.

One final part of this essay that I liked was when Lewis said, "You yourself, once you are in, want to make it hard for the next entrant, just as those who are already in made it hard for you." When we discussed this essay in class one of my group members used the example of freshmen in high school. When we were freshmen we all, generally speaking, got mocked by the upperclassmen just because we were freshmen. When we became upperclassmen, generally speaking again, wegave the freshmen hard times just because we got the same treatment when we were their age. I think this is a very good example of what Lewis was talking about, and I think that it is unfortunate that this is the case in many high schools.

Plantinga Chapter 5

Every time I go to my church we recite the Lord's Prayer, but the words in that prayer never really hit me and I don't think about them too often. In chapter 5 Plantinga explains to us what Christians actually mean when the say "Your kingdom come." He says that they "are not asking for the kingdom to come into existence," because God's kingdom has been in existense forever. He says that the actual meaning of "Your kingdom come" means "Your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven" which should come as no surprise to us because these two phrases are back to back in the Lord's Prayer. Plantinga doesn't stop here though, he goes on to describe how this is to happen. He says "hearts will have to be regenerated, and much more besides." I like this quote by Plantinga because he not only tells us that God's Kingdom needs to come to earth, he gives us an example for how we can try to accomplish that. When Plantinga refers to God's Kingdom here he means the whole world, or the sphere of everything. God wants all of His creation to be redeemed and it must start with us.

Another part of this chapter that I found interesting was Plantinga's take on "Vocation in the Kingdom of God." He says that any vocation that serves the Glory of God as a prime citizen is a great job, no matter what that job may be. He says that it is more important how you do a certain job instead of what that job may be. God doesn't call all of us to be pastors, and I am thankful for that. As long as we pick a job that we do with all of our hearts, then God is happy with us and we are attempting to bring God's Kingdom closer to earth.

I was a little surprise when Plantinga talked about something that John Calvin believed that were the two pitfalls of changing the world without doing God's will. He says, "John Calvin believed that an unredeemed life keeps oscillating back and forth between pride and despair." I found this quote a little shocking because I am guilty of both of these feelings many times, not just once in my life have I been guilty of these. As Christians we need to find that middle ground where we must learn to live in a state between both pride and despair, and that can be difficult at times. We can't "oscillate back and forth," we need to find a place in between these two where we are comfortable.

The Four Loves: Eros

C.S. Lewis defines Eros as "love between the sexes." He says that this is the love between a couple and it deals a lot with sexual desires and feelings towards one another, although Lewis didn't seem to address this as much as I thought he would, which I liked. Even though this book was written many years ago it still can apply to our lives today, especially because our culture is so fixated with sexuality. I think that Lewis's life, after he converted to Christianity, is a great example of how we as Christians should live. He remained celibate for many years after he converted, then he married Joy and remained faithful to her. After Joy passed away then Lewis became celibate again. I find this aspect of his life to be so fascinating because it seems like our culture today shoves sexuality down our throats and makes it seem like it is okay to have sexual relationships outside/before marriage. I completely dissagree with this aspect of our culture because God calls us to remain sexually pure, it's even included in the commandment that says not to commit adultery. Even though Lewis lived many years ago, the culture back then was still aimed towards that more aggresive sexuality, maybe not as aggresive as our culture now, but it was still evident back then.

One quote I really liked from this book was when Lewis said that "falling in love happens to us, being in love is something we have to do." I completely agree with this statement. He goes on to say that falling in love is "easy", while being in love is "hard" and you need to work on it. He compares the idea of being in love with a garden. A garden can be beautiful, but it must be worked on constanty, it cannot simply just be planted and left unnattended, it needs attention or else the weeds will overrun it. This is just like a good marriage. Too many people go into marriage thinking that it will be easy and that they won't have to work very hard to keep it, and I think that is one of the reasons for why the divorce rate in America is so high. The couples that get divorces don't want to take the time to work on their marriage, so it's easier for them to just quit it and start over with the easy part of love, and that is the part where you fall in love.

I have heard of the word Eros before, so I had an idea about what this chapter of the book would be about, but Lewis surprised me...again. I'm glad that he didn't just focus on sex in this chapter, even though that is a big part of Eros, he explored the idea of marriage and falling and being in love, which I found interesting. In my experiences I have found that falling in love is mush easier than actually being in love, but I have also learned that being in love is one of the most rewarding and best things that one can ever be a part of. Lewis forced me to rethink my own ideas of falling in love, and I agree with his ideas for the most part. This was a tough chapter to read at times, but I know I will come back to this many times in the future.

"An Inconvenient Truth"

The other day I watched the movie "An Inconvenient Truth." I had never seen this movie before, but I was well aware of what the main idea that this movie was based on. Former Vice President Al Gore is the spokesman for this documentary, and he tries to show all of us that global warming is an issue that needs our attention now, if not it will get drastically out of hand. I thought this movie was pretty decent, Gore said some things I agree with and some other things that I am skeptical of, but I admire his courage to call this issue to our world's attention.

There were a few parts of the movie when he tried to play off the emotional appeal when he talked about his son dying and him growing up on a farm. While some of these stories were interesting at some points, I didn't understand the direct connection that these events had to global warming. I thought that some of his quips towards the Bush Administration were humorous at times, including his opening line, "I am Al Gore; I used to be the next President of the United States." I can understand his frustration after the year 2000 elections, but again I couldn't find any connections here with global warming. One graph that confused me a little bit and that Gore didn't really explain was one that he showed at the beginning of the film that was just a jagged red line with a positive slope that was on the rise with no end in sight. The part about that graph that I didn't understand was the fact that he didn't really explain what the Y-axis was, it was just an increasing graph that seemed like there was no data to support it with.

Despite the fact that there were some parts of the film I disagreed with or didn't fully understand, there were parts of the film that were interesting in bringing this issue of global warming to our attention. Some of the animations that he used were frightening because they showed what will happen to our world if we keep treating it the way we are treating it today. I also liked some of the videos and photos he had, such as when some of the polar ice caps were falling into the ocean, or when he compared glaciers in our world today to how much bigger and more incredible they were many years ago. The similulation that grabbed my attention was when he showed what would happen if the polar ice caps melted. The simulation should the Netherlands under water and Manhatten flooded along with many other coastal areas being devestated by such an extreme disaster.

I thought this film did a good job of calling our attention to this growing issue in our world, and I think we should treat it seriously and with caution. We need to trust our scientists that are studying our world to figure out if this is truely an issue, and we must all do our share to help stop global warming.

Learning in War-Time

After reading many works by C.S. Lewis I have gotten used to being blown away by how subtle some of his ideas and perspectives are on certain issues, and this essay was no exception. The background for this essay is World War II, so, not surprisingly, Lewis talks about war and what the citizens of a country not involved in the war should be doing back home. He says that war doesn't create a new situation for us, "it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it... Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself." He then goes on to say something that is very simple, but it is also very profound, he says that "Life has never been normal." All of what he says can easily apply to the situation of the war at that time, but it's true for our lives now as well. Lewis says that even though the war is a distraction, we can't make it, or any other distraction, an excuse for not learning. Lewis stronly believes that even though a war was going on, the people back home should be educating themselves and learning, not just paying attention to the war and not thinking about how they can learn while it is going on.

I also really liked the analogy that Lewis used when he compared a person that had a duty to save a drowning man to a man that has made it his whole life to save people. He says that it's a good idea to learn life-saving techniques to save a potential drowning person, especially if you live on the coast or close to somewhere where the risk is even greater. He then says, "But if anyone devoted himself to life-saving in the sence of giving it his total attention -- so that he thought and spoke of nothing else and demanded the cessation of all other human activities until everyone had learned to swim --he would be a monomaniac. The rescue of drowning men is, then a duty worth dying for, but not worth living for... A man may have to die for our country: but no man must, in any exclusive sense, live for his country." I found these quotes to be really interesting here because this relates to what God wants us to do with worship very nicely. Here Lewis is telling us that God calls us worship Him and to put everything we have into it, but that doesn't mean that we can't do anything else. God still wants us to enjoy our lives here and have relationships with people and have fun, He doesn't want us to just be "monmaniacs." Lewis then goes on to say that even though there are non-Christian writers out there, we should still read there material and we should not just ignore someone's work because they are not a believer as well. He says that it is important to have and learn from different perspectives, whether that be fellow believers or non-believers.

Plantinga Chapter 4

I found chapter 4 of Plantinga's book Engaging God's World to be more uplifting and less depressing than his third chapter because that chapter was entitled "the Fall" while this one is called "Redemption." There were a couple of important points that stuck out to me in this chapter, many of which I already know but still find interesting. When we think of Jesus now we think of "Savior of the World" and "God's Son", but Plantinga reminds us in this chapter that to the Jews of His time Jesus was not at all what they expected. Plantinga tells us that the Jews of that time wanted a political leader to fight the Romans, and they thought Jesus would deliver them from the Romans, that was not the case though at that time.

Plantinga then puts his reformed lenses on again and he talks about redemption and what it means to be redeemed. He says that the whole world is God's and it belongs to Him, but the whole world is fallen and all of it must be redeemed. God doesn't just redeem the Christians or the ones who need it the most, He redeems everyone and everything that He has created. This simple fact should make us happy because it is much more comforting to hear that God is redeeming us now for our mistakes instead of just hearing about what we did like the chapter "the Fall" was all about.

Another part of this chapter that I really like is when Plantinga talks about the Ten Commandments and what they mean to us today. Plantinga explains that the Ten Commandmenst were given to us to promote truer freedom and to restrain the evil that is evident in all of our lives. Another important thing that these commands give us is that they bring us closer to Shalom, the way God intend everything to be, and they help to make us flourish. I think that too many times we think that the Ten Commandments just gave the people in that time rules to live by, and they still apply to us, but they are broken many times. I found it interesting to see what Plantinga said about these commands and that they not only are good rules to strive for, but they are so much more than that. It was refreshing to hear that they restrain freedom from our lives and help us to grow stronger in Christ.

The Poison of Subjectivism

Towards the beginning of this essay, Lewis talks about something that I found interesting and that I have never really thought of before. He says, "Out of this apparently innocent idea comes the disease that will certainly end our species (and, in my view, damn our souls) if it is not crushed; the fatal superstition that men can create values, taht a community can choose its "ideology" as men choose clothes." I found this quote interesting because here he talks about the fact that we, as humans, can't make up our own morals, they have always been there and they will remain in place. Still in that same paragraph he goes on to say, "Unless the measuring rod is independant of the things measured, we can do no measuring. For some reason it is useless to compare the moral ideas of one age with those of another: progress and decadence are alike meaningless words." I think that this set of quotes is interesting because here he talks about how we shouldn't, and can't, compare the morals we have today with the morals from long ago. It doesn't matter anymore.

Another section of this essay that I found particularly interesting was when he talked about looking into the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics. He says that people of all different cultures, ethnicities, and religions, from the Babylonians to the Australian aborigines and Redskins, are similar in many ways, despite their backgrounds. He says, "...he will collect the same triumphantly monotonous denunciations of opression, murder, treachery, and falsehood, the same injunctions of kindness to the aged, the young and the weak, of almsgiving and impartiality and honesty." I never really thought that so many different kinds of people could be so similar to each other in so many ways. After he talks about the similarities of these people, he then goes on to say one of my favorite quotes from this essay. He says, "He may be surprised (I certainly was) to find that precepts of mercy are more frequent than precepts of justice; but he will no longer doubt that there is such a thing as the Law of Nature." This quote hit me because it just made me realize that he was talking about all of the similarities between these different cultures to show that morality must be present because most people have the same core set of moral beliefs. I had never thought of it this way before. Because these people are so similar, this shows that there must be some sort of a moral law or moral code, I had never thought of it this way before, but it makes a lot of sense to me.

Plantinga Chapter 3

In this chapter 3 of Plantinga's book, cleverly named "Th Fall", he talks about how sin has crept into our world and what the difference between evil and sin is. He says that evil is a pollution of goodness, or a corruption of goodness. He also says sin is anything not according to God's plan and that it was introduced into the world through evil. A quote that I found especially interesting was when Plantinga said that "All sin is evil, but not all evil is sin." When he talks about this statement Plantinga uses the example of a two-year-old picking up a gun and killing someone. It is definately an evil, but it isn't a sin because the child had no idea what he was doing. He then goes on to use a similar, yet different, example of a drug dealer killing someone. He says, "But a premeditatedkilling by a drug dealer of a drug enforcement officeris both evil and sinful." I agree with these two examples and what they are trying to prove. I don't believe that a two-year-old child knows enough about what is going on in the world around him to be able to pick up a gun and fully comprehend what killing someone means, but that doesn't mean he can't pick up a gun, it just means that he didn't commit a sin here, it was an accident, most likely.

Thankfully, for all of us, we have common grace. Common grace is defined by Plantinga as "The goodness of God shown to all, regardless of faith, consisting of natural blessings, restraint of corruption, seeds of religion and political order, and a host of civilizing and humanizing impulses, patterns, and traditions." This common grace is not only given to Christians, it is given to all people, both believers and non-believers.Plantinga states that we have sinned and ruined creation but the holy spirit regenerates the grace in people and preserves the original goodness in creation. God still loves us and shows his love for us in two ways. First is by being merciful, and the second way is through God's Spirit giving us conscienceness.

BBC Program

I liked listening to the BBC program because I thought it was interesting to get the perspectives of Lewis's close friends and peers, and some of what they talked about was not what I expected them to talk about at all. I thought it was funny when someone said that Lewis didn't like children, and then the next person said that Lewis loved children. I found those two interviews to be contradictory and ironic, for obvious reasons, after all he did write the Chronicles of Narnia.

It was reassuring and comforting to me knowing that Lewis had many struggles and issues that he had to deal with in his life. I think the fact that he is such a good writer and that he was such a profound thinker made it seem like there was never anything wrong with him. I always assumed that he just had a nice, easy life because he was so smart. I have learned now that that was an incorrect assumption. It was especially hard for Lewis when his wife Joy died, and that is tough for anyone to lose a spouse like that. It wasn't a good time in Lewis's life, but it was a good way for us to realize that Lewis is an actual person, he is not immortal.

I think that there is a good comparison between Jesus Christ and Lewis. Because of Lewis and some of the problems he faced in his life, I feel like I can understand more about what Jesus had to deal with when He came to earth. It wasn't easy for Him, and He was God's Son, but He had to struggle through life just like the rest of us. I don't know what it's like to get beaten and put on a cross like Jesus was, but I now know that even though Jesus is God's Son, He had a tough time here on earth.

Mere Christianity

I had always heard that Lewis was known for his book entitled Mere Christianiy, and when I knew I was going to take this class I was most excited to finally have the opportunity to read part of this book, I had the opportunity before I guess but I never got around to it. Just the title of the book, Mere Christianity, is intriguing in itself. In the Preface Lewis tells us that he writes this to believers as well as non-believers, and he doesn't write it to get people to change their denomination or persuade them to join in his denomination, it is simple a book merely about Christianity.

Keeping that same theme about bringing non-believers into the realms of Christianity, Lewis made a profound analogy which I really like. He says that Christianity itself is the hall of a giant house. He says that he wants to bring people into the hall, but that isn't where their journey should stop. When they reach the hall they "must begin trying to obey the rules which are common to the whole house." He then goes on to say that there are many different doors that may be entered from the hall, but it may take some people a long time to decide which door to enter while some people may know which door they should proceed through almost right away. Here the different doors represent different denominations of the Christian faith and this is where Lewis says, "But it is in the rooms, not in the hall, where there are fires and chairs and meals." I thought this whole analogy was interesting because it shows the Lewis just wanted to get people excited about Christianity and he wanted to bring them into the "hall", from there it is up to them what door and room they want to enter.

Another analogy that Lewis brought up that I really like is when he relates the notes of a piano to the Moral Law. He says, "Strictly speaking, there are no such things as good and bad impulses. Think once again of a piano. It has not got two kinds of notes on it, the 'right' notes and the 'wrong' ones. Every single note is right at one time and wrong at another. The Moral Law is not any one instinct or any set of instincts: it is something which makes a kind of tune by directing the instincts." I like this quote alot because Lewis explains so beautifully how there are certain circumstances and situations where we must distinguish how to react to them/the Moral Law, and if some of these situations didn't occur like they did, then our actions might be out of place according to the Moral Law, just like some notes can be played out of place in a song on the piano.

The Screwtape Letters- Letter XII

The first time I came into contact with The Screwtape Letters was when I was a senior in high school and I read them for my English class. I had to read all of the letters, and they are all very good and thought provoking, but I remember this one the most. I think the reason this one stuck out at me the most was because of how frightening it is the first time you read it, especially at the very end of the letter when Screwtape tells Wormwood that "the safest road to Hell is the gradual one--the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts." We talked about this in class a bit, but that is not the reason why I brought this quote to your attention. The reason is because I find it so surprising. I had always thought that one "big" sin would start leading you down the path to Hell, but you could always ask for forgiveness and you could be forgiven for those "big" sins. I never realized that the smaller sins accumulate and eventually when you forget about them and forget to ask forgiveness for those they stack up. Just the fact that Lewis, through Screwtape of course, mentions the "gradual path" as the best way to Hell is the wake up call that I need to ask for forgiveness for all of my sins, not just the ones that I deem to be "big" ones.

Another part of this letter that really caught my attention is the part where Screwtape mentions the "inattention in his prayers." Screwtape tells Wormwood that this human is practically begging Wormwood to distract him from prayer, and Wormwood must take advantage of the opportunity. This part of the letter hit me pretty hard because I know I am bad at this sometimes. I try to pray at specific times during the day, including right before I go to sleep. If I'm really tired I can tell that my prayers aren't as focused and I don't get into them as much, I just feel like I ran through the motions. Lewis points out that this is what the devil wants, he wants us to just run through the motions and not develop a very healthy relationship with God, and the devil understands that prayer is one of the main ways for us to build a good relationship with God.

"The Weight of Glory"

I found this sermon by C.S. Lewis to be one of my favorite works by Lewis. There are so many good quotes in this essay that it was hard in class today to go through all of them with my group and only choose 3! I really liked the part of the serman when Lewis talks about the fact that you must first learn Greek before you can begin to enjoy Greek poetry. He said that a schoolboy learning Greek can't look forward to reading Greek works, such as Sophocles, when he is older. This analogy relates to our Christian Faith very nicely. We cannot just expect to jump right into Christianity and begin with a good relationship with Christ, we need to work at it. If we work at it hard enough, then one day we will be able to enjoy the benefits of having a good relationship with Christ, one of those benefits being eternal life in Heaven.

I also like how Lewis went on to talk about entering Heaven as a child, and that, like children, we have a "great and undisguised pleasure in being praised." Lewis then goes on to talk about pleasing God, and he calls it "a real ingredient in the divine happiness." He also says, "to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son--it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is." I am neither and artist nor a father so I can only imagine those two analogies, nevertheless they pack a powerful punch. We, as Christians, should strive to please God, even though we are fallen creatures we must do our best to please Him. Humility is an important word that comes to mind when I think of this. We need to please God by first being humble, and then asking what we as followers of Christ can do.

There is one part of this sermon that I keep going back to, and it becomes scarier everytime I go back to it. It's when Lewis talks about what the New Testament says to us about being at the Throne of God and He tells us, "I never knew you. Depart from me." I can't even imagine going to a place where God is not present, and whenever I hear something like this it scares me a bit. This is why we need to do our best to please God and have a good relationship with Him, so He can't say to us that He never knew us, but instead that He is happy with us!

Plantinga Chapter 2- Creation

This chapter in Plantinga's book Engaging God's World was packed with a lot of information that is necessary to understand creation and what God had in mind when He set out to create everything. I especially liked the quote by Richard Mouw on page 32 when he talks about "cultural mandate". Mouw says that "Cultural Mandate" is God's charge to our first parents to "transform untamed nature into a social enviroment" by cultural formation that fits God's design. I then also like how Plantinga took that idea and ran with it. He said that this cultural mandate does not limit us to the "biophysical sphere", rather it extends into human nature. God tells us to be "fruitful and multiply" and that is one good example of a way we are satisfying God's call for cultural mandate. Another example that Plantinga pointed out was all of the cultural gifts that can be used to satisfy this cultural mandate as way. By using such gifts as marriage, family, language, and many others, we are "transforming untamed nature into a social enviroment." Think about language for a minute. Without language we would not be able to communicate very well with other people, but by creating and using languages we are able to talk to and understand other people. We take something that is untamed and we change it so we create a "social enviroment".

I also liked the section in this chapter when Plantinga talked about humans being made in the "image of God", and not only that, but we are also created so that each one of us is "a unique bearer and reflector of the glory of God." I like the fact that we are all able to reflect the glory of God, but at the same time it can be a tough task because it isn't always an easy thing to do. It can be hard to show love to someone that you never really got along with before, but God wants us to show His glory to even the people we don't like. It fits in beautifully with what Paul said in I Corinthians when Paul talks about the Christian Church and he says that we are all different, but we all need each other because we all fit together to form one body. Our differences are necessary because we can all work together to benefit the body, or the entire community.

Our English Syllabus

In this essay by C.S. Lewis he ties in beautifully his views on learning and education with the Universities that were around him at the time. Throughout the essay he talks about the difference between education and vocational training. One of the quotes I really like is when Lewis says, "You see at once that education is essentially for freemen and vocational training for slaves." I found this quote to be interesting because I have never really thought about the difference between these two before. Here Lewis stresses the draw of education and why he thinks it is important to have a great understanding of different subjects instead of just specializing in one field of education. I agree with this and this is why I think Calvin is a great place to not only get a great Christian Education, but also just an education in general. We have so many more core classes that we need to take here than at other schools, and while we may grumble about some of them if we aren't interested in a certain required subject, we should be thankful that we have the opportunity to learn a little bit from a very wide range of fields. Lewis believed that in order to understand one subject, then you must have a good understanding of the subjects around and related to that one. Because it is such a difficult task to understand the different fields that are related to the one we are trying to learn, we may never have a good grasp of the field we are interested in, or atleast that's what Lewis tried to explain.

Even satisfying these core classes here at Calvin isn't that great of a chore because we still have a variety of classes we can choose from to fulfill a certain area of required courses, and I think that this is also good because then we still feel as if we have a choice in what we want to be educated on and we don't feel stuck in a certain unwanted class.

I also like Lewis's quote at the end of the essay when he says, "Do not tell me that you would sooner have a nice composite menu of dishes from half the world drawn up for you. You are too old for that. It is time you learned to wrestle with nature for yourself." I like this quote because Lewis tells us, students in particular, that we should start to figure things out for ourselves, things are no longer handed to us. "We are too old for that", we are in college now and we no longer need a teacher to hold our hand and show us exactly how to learn or what to learn, we need to figure that out for ourselves.

This essay was great because I was able to put in in perspective as a student in college trying to focus on my major while I have to deal with a variety of core that I must complete. I now realize that I should be glad that I have the opportunity to learn things that otherwise wouldn't matter to me. Here at Calvin I can broaden my scope of learning, and while I do have to focus on my major, I also can learn a bit more about other subjects to be a well rounded individual.

We Have No 'Right to Happiness'

With every passing article written by C.S. Lewis I gain more and more respect for him. He is able to capture ideas and express them on paper in ways that seem unfathomable to me. In this essay about the "right to happiness" Lewis writes of examples and other ideas and relates them so beautifully together that I am pleased to learn from them.

As Americans we are used to the phrase "the pursuit of happiness", and we think of happiness as a legal right and something that should always be evident in our lives. Lewis shows us that we are wrong in assuming this is the case. He uses the example of the seperation of Mr. and Mrs. A and then the fact that Mr. A and Mrs. B were in love so they got together to be happy. Lewis shows us that happiness cannot justify an action and that it is incorrect to think that happiness can be a legitimate reason for doing something. There are many people that think that we do have a right to happiness, while on the other hand there are many people that think just the opposite. We had a good long discussion dealing with this in class yesterday, and to be honest I don't really know which is the correct answer. I do believe that legally we do have a right to happiness, but morally I think it is almost ignorant to say that we do, in fact, have a right to happiness.

Towards the end of the Essay I like when Lewis tries to prove a point by explaining why some people can achieve lasting happiness. He says, "When two people achieve lasting happiness, this is not solely because they are great lovers but because they are also - I must put it crudely - good people; controlled, loyal, fair-minded, mutually adaptable people." Here I think that Lewis is subliminally trying to show us that if we are to have any chance of achieving this happiness that so few people are actually blessed enough to achieve, then we must be good, trustworthy people, and I agree with him.

Engaging God's World Chapter 1

I'm not going to lie, I was not a big fan of this chapter from Plantinga's book called "Engaging God's World," and if this chapter is an indication of what the rest of the book will be like, then I think this will turn out to be a boring read. Despite the fact that a lot of this chapter was boring and not very new to me because I have learned many of these themes in high school and Sunday School lessons, there were a few interesting points that were raised in this chapter.

At the beginning I liked how Plantinga incorporated a quote by C.S. Lewis, and because our class is based on C.S. Lewis and many of his writings, I thought it was very applicable. The part of Lewis's quote that hit me the hardest was when he said, "We are half-hearted creatures... like an ignorant child that wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday atthe sea. We are far too easily pleased." I like this quote a lot because it shows how we would rather be satisfied in our comfort zone and not take chances and see what potential our lives can amount to instead of exploring what else God has for us, even when those things that God has planned for us are so much better than what we are used to at the time. I also liked how Plantinga tied in the of longing here and how we can have a family and good career but still not be happy. It makes me wonder why God made us this way, with a longing for something that many of us will never be able to grasp.

I also liked when Plantinga talked about hope and he stated what Lewis B. Smedes said about it. He said, "...genuine hope always combines imagination, faith, and desire." I then also liked how Plantinga related that defintion of genuine hope to the speech delivered by Martin Luther King Jr. before the Lincoln Memorial. He said that MLK "incorporated all the ingredients of hope," and I believe that is true. MLK was able to provide hope for many African Americans by making them have faith in him and his movement, and I admire him for his courage and his ingenious use of hope.

Bulverism

Bulverism. I had never even heard of the term before I took a look at C.S. Lewis's writing titled "Bulverism". I found this piece of work by Lewis interesting, and, unfortunately, I have also found it aplicable to my life. Lewis defines bulverism as "to assume without discussion that that (someone) is wrong and then distract his attention from this (the only real issue) by busily explaining how he became to be so silly". This definition makes sense and I think we can all relate to this one way or another, but I also liked the discussion that we had on it in class today because it helped to flush out any confusion that some of us may have been experiencing.

I interpret the definition of bulverism that Lewis gave us as having a bias towards someone before you know what they are even going to talk about, in a sense it can be thought of as prejudging someone. So many of us judge others on appearances or other things before we even get a chance to talk to them or understand where they are coming from. A good example of bulverism can be seen in politics. Many congressmen vote on bills without fully understanding what a certain bill entails, sometimes they just vote with their parties and do what the majority of their party is doing. Someone in class used the example of not only politicians, but voters as well. Many voters go to the polls just assuming that they are going to vote for their own parties that they belong to, they may not even know some of their candidate's views or stances on certain issues, but they don't care because they just want to see their party have the power. I think this type of voting is wrong and it hurts our political system when many people vote this way because it shows that they don't care about any issues at the time, these people just want to be in control. Because I think this bulveristic type of voting is wrong, I also think that bulverism is wrong, and Lewis would agree with me here since his whole essay was dedicated to making people aware of bulverism and showing that it is erroneos.

Reflection on "Meditation in a Toolshed"

I have read a few books by C.S. Lewis back in high school, including the Screwtape Letters and a few books from the Narnia Series, but I have never read any of his shorter stories or essays. I had no idea what to expect when I first looked at "Meditation in a Toolshed", and even now a couple of points were raised in this essay that I am still struggling with.

I like how C.S. Lewis uses something so simple as a beam of light, and then he is able to build on it and prove an extremely important point that many of us have ignored in the past. Growing up, I have always been told to look at things from other perspectives, the common phrase that is used when talking of something related to this is to "put yourself in another person's shoes", but I have never thought about what it actually seriously means. It should come as no surprise to us when Lewis says, "You get one experience of a thing when you look along it and another when you look at it", but whatLewis explores after he tells us this is the important thing. He asks us which is the truer experience, and truthfully I don't really know how to respond to that question. We discussed this in class, and most of us came to the consensus that we need both, which I agree with, but I believe that in order to have both we need to start with a clean slate. If we truly are to understand something by either looking at it or along it, or even both, then we cannot have any biases towards any possible outcomes. We need clear minds, only then are we able to explore these two different perspectives and discern which one, even if both, fits the best. We do not know ahead of time which perspective is more correct, if one is more correct than another that is, what matters is that we must find this out ourselves and learn from these experiences.