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It is always shocking to meet life where we thought we were alone. 'Look out!' we cry, 'it's alive'. And therefore this is the very point atwhich so many draw back -- I would have done so myself if I could -- and proceed no further with Christianity. An 'impersonal God' -- welland good. A subjective God of beauty, truth and goodness, inside ourown heads -- better still. A formless life-force surging through us, avast power which we can tap -- best of all. But God Himself, alive,pulling at the other end of the cord, perhaps approaching at an infinitespeed, the hunter, king, husband -- that is quite another matter. Therecomes a moment when the children who have been playing at burglarshush suddenly: was that a real footstep in the hall? There comes amoment when people who have been dabbling in religion ('Man's search for God!') suddenly draw back. Supposing we really foundHim? We never meant it to come to that! Worse still, supposing Hehad found us?
-- from Miracles
Why are many people prepared in advance to maintain that, whateverelse God may be, He is not the concrete, living, willing, and acting Godof Christian theology? I think the reason is as follows. Let us supposea mystical limpet, a sage among limpets, who (rapt in vision) catches aglimpse of what Man is like. In reporting it to his disciples, who havesome vision themselves (though less than he) he will have to usemany negatives. He will have to tell them that Man has no shell, is notattached to a rock, is not surrounded by water. And his disciples, havinga little vision of their own to help them, do get some idea of Man.But then there come erudite limpets, limpets who write histories ofphilosophy and give lectures on comparative religion, and who havenever had any vision of their own. What they get out of the propheticlimpet's words is simply and solely the negatives. From these, uncorrectedby any positive insight, they build up a picture of Man as a sortof amorphous jelly (he has no shell) existing nowhere in particular (heis not attached to a rock) and never taking nourishment (there is nowater to drift it towards him). And having a traditional reverence forMan they conclude that to be a famished jelly in a dimensionless voidis the supreme mode of existence, and reject as crude, materialisticsuperstition any doctrine which would attribute to Man a definiteshape, a structure, and organs.
-- from MiraclesJanuary 1914 Lewis and childhood Belfast friend Arthur Greeves begin what would be a lifelong correspondence.
Our own situation is much like that of the erudite limpets. Greatprophets and saints have an intuition of God which is positive and concretein the highest degree. Because, just touching the fringes of Hisbeing, they have seen that He is plenitude of life and energy and joy,therefore (and for no other reason) they have to pronounce that Hetranscends those limitations which we call personality, passion, change,materiality, and the like. The positive quality in Him which repels theselimitations is their only ground for all the negatives. But when we comelimping after and try to construct an intellectual or 'enlightened' religion,we take over these negatives (infinite, immaterial, impassible,immutable, etc.) and use them unchecked by any positive intuition. Ateach step we have to strip off from our idea of God some human attribute.But the only real reason for stripping off the human attribute is tomake room for putting in some positive divine attribute. In St Paul'slanguage, the purpose of all this unclothing is not that our idea of Godshould reach nakedness but that it should be reclothed. But unhappilywe have no means of doing the reclothing. When we have removedfrom our idea of God some puny human characteristic, we (as merelyerudite or intelligent enquirers) have no resources from which to supplythat blindingly real and concrete attribute of Deity which ought toreplace it. Thus at each step in the process of refinement our idea ofGod contains less, and the fatal pictures come in (an endless, silent sea,an empty sky beyond all stars, a dome of white radiance) and we reachat last mere zero and worship a nonentity.
Excerpted from A Year with C. S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works by C. S. Lewis All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
