My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such a violent reaction against it?.. Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if i did that, then my argument against God collapsed too--for the argument depended on saying the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies. Thus, in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist - in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless - I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality - namely my idea of justice - was full of sense. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never have known it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.' ~C.S. Lewis
C.S. Lewis
It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
ambition christianity joy strong desires imagine sex child creatures sea drink offer infinite lord ignorant weak
The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.
education modern
Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.
literature original man truth art caring originality times books
The more often he feels without acting, the less he will be able ever to act, and, in the long run, the less he will be able to feel.
deeds action heart feeling feel acting act run
And a charge of lying against someone whom you have always found truthful is a very serious thing; a very serious thing indeed.
action lying judgement truthful found thing
The first demand any work of art makes upon us is to surrender. Look. Listen. Receive. Get yourself out of the way. -An Experiment in Criticism
work art surrender listen criticism experiment demand
That is one of the functions of art: to present what the narrow and desperately practical perspectives of real life exclude.
life art real present practical perspectives
The world does not need more Christian literature. What it needs is more Christians writing good literature.
literature writing art christianity world good writers integrity christians christian
Why, if you are interested in the country only for the sake of painting it, you'll never learn to see the country.
art learn country painting
I have no duty to be anyone's Friend and no man in the world has a duty to be mine. No claims, no shadow of necessity. Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need to create). It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.
friendship necessity philosophy duty survival man beauty art world universe shadow friend things create god give
A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading.
reading sound wishes man religion atheist young atheism
idea man light christianity sense self-awareness meaning reality morality world justice universe dark words bad reaction eyes creatures find speak exist act found call argument part cruel god fancies atheism
That is why I often find myself at such cross-purposes with the modern world: I have been a converted Pagan living among apostate Puritans.
christianity world living find morals modern pagan atheism
You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. The Prodigal Son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape? The words compelle intrare, compel them to come in, have been so abused be wicked men that we shudder at them; but, properly understood, they plumb the depth of the Divine mercy. The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.
chance skepticism work mind men faith home christianity feeling direction words humility divine night son mercy eyes depth picture open escape wicked liberation england compulsion trinity accept god love atheism thing
And she never could remember; and ever since that day what Lucy means by a good story is a story which reminds her of the forgotten story in the Magician's Book.
magic good story book remember day forgotten books
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