There are few writers from the 20th century that come close to either the amount or the influence owned by Clive Staples Lewis. Although primarily known today for his religious writings, Lewis seemingly wrote something about nearly every topic under the sun during his 50-year writing career. And like G.K. Chesterton before him, Lewis shined most brightly as an essayist. Although he certainly wrote his share of long-form books and novels, his brilliance and eloquence were most readily on display when he limited his writing to fewer than ten pages. God in the Dock, an eclectic collection of some of his essays and articles, is a great introduction to his polemical and apologetic writings, in addition to being a magnificent example of how Christianity should be thought about and lived out in the world around us.
One of C.S. Lewis’s most famous and
heavily repeated quotations comes from a speech entitled “Is Theology
Poetry?” He closed his speech with these words: "I believe in
Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen not only because I
see it but because by it I see everything else." [1] Lewis realized that the Christian worldview was not some “on
again/off again” belief system that should be brought out only when
people want to begin swapping ideas about religion and metaphysics.
He understood that Christianity claims exclusivity and supremacy over
everything else. Christianity is, first and foremost, The Truth.
Lewis reminds us that far from being only a belief system about
certain propositions, Christianity is the filter that all other ideas
and thoughts need to be strained through. If you don’t think God’s
thoughts after Him, Lewis is saying, you will end up with wrong
conclusions about the way the world works.
The human agency, both in the histories out of which
the Scriptures sprang, and in their immediate composition and
inscription, is everywhere apparent, and gives substance and form to
the entire collection of writings. It is not merely in the matter of
verbal expression or literary composition that the personal
idiosyncrasies of each author are freely manifested by the untrammelled
play of all his faculties, but the very substance of what they write is
evidently for the most part the product of their own mental and
spiritual activities. This is true except in that comparatively small
element of the whole body of sacred writing, in which the human authors
simply report the word of God objectively communicated, or as in some
of the prophecies they wrote by Divine dictation.
Many think, with [17th century philosopher John] Locke, that the inquiry into the powers of the human mind should precede all other science, because one should know his instrument before he uses it. But what instrument of knowing is man to employ in the examination of his own mind? Only his own mind. Hence, it follows, that the mind's native laws of thinking must be, to some extent at least, taken upon trust, at the outset, no matter where we begin. This is the less to be regretted, because the correct use of the mind's powers depends on nature, and not on our success in analyzing them. Men syllogized before Aristotle, and generalized before [empiricist Francis] Bacon. I have therefore not felt obliged to begin with these inquiries into the sources of our thinking; but I have given you a short sketch of Natural Theology to familiarize your minds to your work.
I told the story of saving Dale a couple of weeks ago, and remarked on the joy of evangelism, and how it ought not be an occasion for fear, but for holy boldness and trusting in God for the result. But there is a sense when it can sometimes be a fearful thing, for whenever we speak the gospel to someone we must start by showing them their sin and their need of a Savior.
Christianity is based on revelation. If God in all His sovereign majesty did not choose to reveal Himself to mankind, there would be no true knowledge of Him or the possibility of a true relationship with Him. We are bound to Him by what He has chosen to reveal to us about Himself. All human efforts to get to know God by man-created means lead invariably to false religions or mysticisms.
The Bible contains some instructive indications as to the nature of physical death. It speaks of this in various ways. In Matt. 10:28; Luke 12:4, it is spoken of as the death of the body, as distinguished from that of the soul. Here the body is considered as a living organism, and the soul is evidently the pneuma of man, the spiritual element which is the principle of his natural life. This view of natural death also underlies the language of Peter in I Pet. 3:14-18. In other passages it is described as the termination of the soul, that is, of animal life or living, or as the loss of this... Finally, it is also represented as a separation of body and soul...
For more than 200 years, men have been disguising their disdain for the Bible in the language of science. Claiming to be materialists, they have embraced atheism, and now want you to do the same. No longer content to co-exist peacefully with Christianity, the “new atheists” insist that the world needs to be cleansed of the "poison" of religion.
Many Christians balk at the mention of critical thinking. They
associate the phrase with skepticism and “criticism” of the Bible and
of religion in general; thus, they want nothing to do with it.
“Critical thinking” gets taught at colleges and places where they use
reason and logic to lure children away from the faith their parents
taught them. While university professors have often stolen away
children in the name of “critical thinking,” the unbelieving skepticism
promoted by these types does not deserve the label: it is not
“critical” in the least bit, at least not in the biblical sense of the term.
by Benjamin B. Warfield (Professor of Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, 1887-1921)
A recent writer has remarked that our assured
conviction of the deity of Christ rests, not upon "proof-texts or passages,
nor upon old arguments drawn from these, but upon the general fact of the whole
manifestation of Jesus Christ, and of the whole impression left by Him upon the
world." The antithesis is too absolute, and possibly betrays an unwarranted
distrust of the evidence of Scripture. To make it just, we should read the
statement rather thus: Our conviction of the deity of Christ rests not alone on
the Scriptural passages which assert it, but also on His entire impression on
the world; or perhaps thus: Our conviction rests no more on the scriptural
assertions than upon His entire manifestation. Both lines of evidence are valid;
and when twisted together form an unbreakable cord.
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