Month: July 2007

Categories
Poetry Practical Notes Quotations

Two Parts of the Mind

C.S. Lewis, �Reason� (quoted in Owen Barfield on C.S. Lewis, �Barfield and/or Lewis�

Set on the soul’s acropolis the reason stands

A virgin, arm’d, commercing with celestial light,

And he who sins against her has defiled his own

Virginity; no cleansing makes his garment white;

So clear is reason. But how dark, imagining,

Warm, dark, obscure and infinite, daughter of Night:

Dark is her brow, the beauty of her eyes with sleep

Is loaded, and her pains are long and her delight.

Tempt not Athene. Wound not in her fertile pains

Demeter, not rebel against her mother-right.

Oh who will reconcile in me both maid and mother,

Who make in me a concord of the depth and height?

Who make imagination’s dim exploring touch

Ever report the same as intellectual sight?

Then could I truly say, and not deceive,

Then wholly say, that I BELIEVE.

Categories
Controversy Quotations

Holiness and Refined Sensibility

Here are two statements from C.S. Lewis (not a man who is easily accused of lacking in culture) which should certainly prevent all attempts to use him as an advocate of any point of view which would correlate good taste with a state of grace, or seek to establish any necessary connection between the two things.

Letter to �Mrs Arnold�, 7 December 1950

I naturally loathe nearly all hymns: the face and life of the charwoman in the next pew who revels in them teach me that good taste in poetry or music are not necessary to salvation.

Letter to Mrs R.E. Halverson [March 1956]

I think every natural thing which is not in itself sinful can become the servant of the spiritual life, but none is automatically so. When it is not, it becomes either just trivial (as music is to millions of people) or a dangerous idol. The emotional effect of music may be not only a distraction (to some people at some times) but a delusion: i.e. feeling certain emotions when they may be wholly natural. That means that even genuinely religious emotion is only a servant. No soul is saved by having it or damned by lacking it. The love we are commanded to have for God and our neighbour is a state of the will, not of the affections (though if they ever also play their part so much the better). So that the test of music or religion or even visions if one has them is always the same � do they make one more obedient, more God-centred, and neighbour-centred and less self-centred? �Though I speak with the tongues of Bach and Palestrina and have not charity etc.!�

Categories
Poetry Quotations Theological Reflections

Paltry Penitence

First, a famous lady giving a classic example of the problem of this post’s title.

�Dear Lord, if you spare this town from becoming a smoking hole in the ground, I’ll try to be a better Christian. I don’t know what I can do … umm … ooh! The next time there’s a canned food drive I’ll give the poor something they’d actually like instead of old lima beans and pumpkin mix.�

(Marge Simpson, The Simpsons, Vol 1. of The Complete Third Season, Collectors Edition, �Homer Defined� 07:51-8:10)

Second, John Dryden explaining that God will not be satisfied with your absurd offers to make up for sin.

From John Dryden’s Religio Laici

[Of the moral inadequacy of Deism in the light of man’s sin]

Dar’st thou, poor Worm, offend Infinity?

And must the Terms of Peace be given by Thee?

Then Thou art Justice in the last Appeal;

Thy easy God instructs thee to rebell:

And, like a King remote, and weak, must take

What Satisfaction Thou art pleas’d to make.

But if there be a Pow’r too Just, and strong

To wink at Crimes, and bear unpunish’d Wrong;

Look humbly upward, see his Will disclose

The Forfeit first, and then the Fine impose:

A Mulct thy Poverty could never pay

Had not Eternal Wisdom found the way:

And with C�lestial Wealth supply’d thy Store:

His Justice makes the Fine, his Mercy quits the Score.

See God descending in thy Humane Frame;

Th’ offended, suff’ring in th’ Offenders Name:

All thy Misdeed to him imputed see;

And all his Righteousness devolv’d on thee.

For granting we have Sin’d, and that th’ offence

Of Man, is made against Omnipotence,

Some Price, that bears proportion, must be paid;

And Infinite with Infinite be weigh’d.

See then the Deist lost: Remorse for Vice,

Not paid, or paid, inadequate in price:

What farther means can Reason now direct,

Or what Relief from human Wit expect?

That shews us sick; and sadly are we sure

Still to be Sick, till Heav’n reveal the Cure:

If then Heaven’s Will must needs be understood.

(Which must, if we want Cure, and Heaven, be Good)

Let all Records of Will reveal’d be shown;

With Scripture, all in equal balance thrown,

And our one Sacred Book will be That one.

Categories
Practical Notes Quotations

C�sar’s Wife and my uncle Toby

Narrating his father’s reactions to the news of his brother’s death, the redoubtable Tristram Shandy records some episodes remarkable revealing of human frailty.

Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy, v.5, Ch.III

When Tully was bereft of his dear daugher Tullia, at first he laid it to his heart,�he listened to the voice of nature, and modulated his own unto it.�O my Tullia!�my Tullia! Methinks I see my Tullia, I hear my Tullia, I talk with my Tullia.�But as soon as he began to look into the stores of philosophy, and consider how many excellent things might be said upon the occasion�no body upon earth can conceive, says the great orator, how happy, how joyful it made me.

[A little later, having been diverted from the steady course of his narrative]

Now let us go back to my brother’s death.

[And the moving and immortal close of the chapter, introduced in his father’s words:]

�Vespasian died in a jest upon his close stool�Galba with a sentence�Septimius Severus in a dispatch�Tiberius in dissimulation, and C�sar Augustus in a compliment.�I hope, ’twas a sincere one�quoth my uncle Toby.

�‘Twas to his wife,�said my father.

But really there is no substitute: the whole admirable chapter must be read.

Categories
Poetry Quotations Theological Reflections

Nice Heresies for Wealthy People

From John Dryden’s Religio Laici

[Of the moral inadequacy of paganism in the light of man’s sin]

If Sheep and Oxen cou’d attone for Men

Ah! at how cheap a rate the Rich might sin!

Categories
Quotations Theological Reflections

Don’t Feel Your Feet

From H.C.G. Moule’s article on justification by faith in volume 3 of “The Fundamentals”

We are here warned off from the temptation to erect Faith into a Saviour, to rest our reliance upon our Faith, if I may put it so. That is a real temptation to many. Hearing, and fully thinking, that to be justified we must have Faith, they, we, are soon occupied with an anxious analysis of our Faith. Do I trust enough? Is my reliance satisfactory in kind and quantity? But if saving Faith is, in its essence, simply a reliant attitude, then the question of its effect and virtue is at once shifted to the question of the adequacy of its Object. The man then is drawn to ask, not, Do I rely enough? but, Is Jesus Christ great enough, and gracious enough, for me to rely upon? The introspective microscope is laid down. The soul�s open eyes turn upward to the face of our Lord Jesus Christ; and Faith forgets itself in its own proper action. In other words, the man relies instinctively upon an Object seen to be so magnificently, so supremely, able to sustain him. His feet are on the Rock, and he knows it, not by feeling for his feet, but by feeling the Rock.

Categories
Controversy

Calling Salt Lake City and Inviting them to Eavesdrop on Personal Correspondence with a Dear Friend

Joseph Smith was insane: that’s forgivable, many people have been and have even done rather charming things as a result. He was self-important: there lies the root of all his problems. He took his nonsense (or his psychoses) seriously. If he had just had the perspective of Laurence Sterne he could have published a funny book: instead he founded a damnable religion.

Categories
Poetry Quotations Theological Reflections

Be Content With Ectypal Theology

From John Dryden’s The Hind & the Panther

But, gracious God, how well dost thou provide

For erring judgments an unerring guide!

Thy throne is darkness in the abyss of light,

A blaze of glory that forbids the sight.

O! teach me to believe thee thus conceal’d,

And search no further than thyself reveal’d;

But Her alone for my director take,

Whom thou hast promis’d never to forsake.

My thoughtless youth was wing’d with vain desires;

My manhood long misled by wan’dring fires,

Follow’d false lights; and when their glimpse was gone

My pride struck out new sparkles of her own.

Such was I, such by nature still I am;

Be thine the glory, and be mine the shame.

Good life be now my task: my doubts are done;

What more could shock my faith than Three in One?

Categories
Autobiographical

You’re It

Bugblaster has tagged me, in a rather cryptic way, and for motives unknown. I will take it that he is assisting me to achieve the coveted goal of winning virtual popularity. Of course, since he tagged me in the time of my least access to the Internet, I just found out about it yesterday, and am woefully late in responding.

Furthermore, as I have collected what I am supposed to do rather by induction than by explanation, and as we all know that induction is necessarily fallacious, the end results may diverge rather wildly from what Bugblaster intended.

From his title I gather that one is supposed to state 100 random things. Now apart from objecting to this on theological grounds, that everything should be done decently and in order, I object to this also on literary grounds. So there is one thing.

I am glad to notice that Bugblaster has limited this number to seven, and has also followed a pre-established pattern. Clearly, he shares my objections. However, I will not slavishly follow him: variations within a pattern produce the rhythm of the years. So that is a second thing.

I had liefer talk about my nieces than my siblings. That is a third thing.

I have hung by my fingertips from the parapet on both sides of the top of our three story house (at separate times, naturally), with air under my feet all the way to the ground. This establishes my athletic credentials, and is a fourth thing.

When it comes to farming my experience is not extensive. I once was entrusted with turning over a plot of ground in order for the laying of some grass. Being disinclined to this endeavour, I decided it would be easier if the ground were wet. But as so often happens, a tragic miscalculation prevented the completion of the project. I got the ground so wet that it was two days before anything could be done with it, and by that time my gardening privileges had been revoked. That is a fifth thing.

Numbers: they go on in infinite sequence, and have odd harmonies among themselves. Hugh Martin was quite a mathematician, in addition to being quite a good theologian. That is a sixth thing.

Two mormons who came to my door left clutching some CDs of Ian Paisley preaching. They never came back. I anticipate making an acerbic statement about mormons pretty soon on my blog. That is a seventh thing.

With regard to desks, it is one of my ambitions to get a desk where I can wheel my beautifully comfortable chair up with the arms under the desk, without compromising on the ideal elevation of my chair: so far, this has never happened. That is an eighth thing, and having exceeded Bugblaster in quantity of things, should balance out the fact that I am not going to tag anyone. The buck stops here, as my dad was fond of quoting Harry Truman saying (which constitutes a ninth thing).

Educationally my greatest achievement has been discovering that the homeschool program I was using would have me finishing 12th grade with far more than the required amount of credits to take an ACT: therefore I only acquired the necessary number of credits (which meant skipping most of 12th grade), and dropped the whole farce. Of course, it was actually my mother who discovered this, so it is misleading to list this among my achievements. This is a tenth thing.

Categories
Quotations Theological Reflections

The Odor of a Dead Body

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion I.17.5

By the same class of persons, past events are referred improperly and inconsiderately to simple providence. As all contingencies whatsoever depend on it, therefore, neither thefts nor adulteries, nor murders, are perpetrated without an interposition of the divine will. Why, then, they ask, should the thief be punished for robbing him whom the Lord chose to chastise with poverty? Why should the murderer be punished for slaying him whose life the Lord had terminated? If all such persons serve the will of God, why should they be punished? I deny that they serve the will of God. For we cannot say that he who is carried away by a wicked mind performs service on the order of God, when he is only following his own malignant desires. He obeys God, who, being instructed in his will, hastens in the direction in which God calls him. But how are we so instructed unless by his word? The will declared by his word is, therefore, that which we must keep in view in acting, God requires of us nothing but what he enjoins. If we design anything contrary to his precept, it is not obedience, but contumacy and transgression. But if he did not will it, we could not do it. I admit this. But do we act wickedly for the purpose of yielding obedience to him? This, assuredly, he does not command. Nay, rather we rush on, not thinking of what he wishes, but so inflamed by our own passionate lust, that, with destined purpose, we strive against him. And in this way, while acting wickedly, we serve his righteous ordination, since in his boundless wisdom he well knows how to use bad instruments for good purposes. And see how absurd this mode of arguing is. They will have it that crimes ought not to be punished in their authors, because they are not committed without the dispensation of God. I concede more � that thieves and murderers, and other evil-doers, are instruments of Divine Providence, being employed by the Lord himself to execute the judgments which he has resolved to inflict. But I deny that this forms any excuse for their misdeeds. For how? Will they implicate God in the same iniquity with themselves, or will they cloak their depravity by his righteousness? They cannot exculpate themselves, for their own conscience condemns them: they cannot charge God, since they perceive the whole wickedness in themselves, and nothing in Him save the legitimate use of their wickedness. But it is said he works by their means. And whence, I pray, the fetid odor of a dead body, which has been unconfined and putrefied by the sun�s heat? All see that it is excited by the rays of the sun, but no man therefore says that the fetid odor is in them. In the same way, while the matter and guilt of wickedness belongs to the wicked man, why should it be thought that God contracts any impurity in using it at pleasure as his instrument? Have done, then, with that dog-like petulance which may, indeed, bay from a distance at the justice of God, but cannot reach it!