C.S. Lewis ( 10 of 145 )
Feast of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr, 1170 A Christian and an unbelieving poet may both be equally read more
Feast of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr, 1170 A Christian and an unbelieving poet may both be equally original and draw on resources peculiar to themselves, but with this difference. The unbeliever may take his own temperament and experience, just as they happen to stand, and consider them worth communicating simply because they are his. To the Christian his own temperament and experience, as mere fact, and as merely his, are of no value or importance whatsoever: he will deal with them, if at all, only because they are the medium through which, or the position from which, something universally profitable appeared to him.
Those who talk of reading the Bible "as literature" sometimes mean, I think, reading it without attending to the main read more
Those who talk of reading the Bible "as literature" sometimes mean, I think, reading it without attending to the main thing it is about; like reading Burke with no interest in politics, or reading the Aeneid with no interest in Rome... But there is a saner sense in which the Bible -- since it is, after all, literature -- cannot properly be read except as literature, and the different parts of it as the different sorts of literature they are. Most emphatically, the Psalms must be read as poems -- as lyrics, with all the licenses and all the formalities, the hyperboles, the emotional rather than logical connections, which are proper to lyric poetry... Otherwise we shall miss what is in them and think we see what is not.
I have learned now that while those who speak about one’s miseries usually hurt, those who keep silence hurt more.
I have learned now that while those who speak about one’s miseries usually hurt, those who keep silence hurt more.
Feast of Irenæus, Bishop of Lyons, Teacher, Martyr, c.200 We must never speak to simple, excitable people about "the read more
Feast of Irenæus, Bishop of Lyons, Teacher, Martyr, c.200 We must never speak to simple, excitable people about "the Day" without emphasizing again and again the utter impossibility of prediction. We must try to show them that that impossibility is an essential part of the doctrine. If you do not believe our Lord's words, why do you believe in His return at all? And if you do believe them, must you not put away from you, utterly and forever, any hope of dating that return?
Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead than read more
Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.
Aim at heaven and you get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.
Aim at heaven and you get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.
Christianity is the story of how the rightful King has landed, you might say in disguise, and is calling us read more
Christianity is the story of how the rightful King has landed, you might say in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in His great campaign of sabotage
The rejection as unhistorical of all passages which narrate miracles is sensible if we start by knowing that the miraculous... read more
The rejection as unhistorical of all passages which narrate miracles is sensible if we start by knowing that the miraculous... never occurs. Now, I do not want here to discuss whether the miraculous is possible: I only want to point out that this is a purely philosophical question. Scholars, as scholars, speak on it with no more authority than anyone else. The canon, "If miraculous, unhistorical", is one they bring to their study of the texts, not one they have learned from it. If one is speaking of authority, the united authority of all the Biblical critics in the world counts for nothing. On this they speak simply as men -- men obviously influenced by, and perhaps insufficiently critical of, the spirit of the age they grew up in.
God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is read more
God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world
Which of the religions of the world gives to its followers the greatest happiness? While it lasts, the religion of read more
Which of the religions of the world gives to its followers the greatest happiness? While it lasts, the religion of worshiping oneself is best
