Friday, October 21, 2011

The Friday Clive



"More and more one sees how much of one's philosophy & religion is mere talk: the boldest hope is that concealed somewhere within it there is some seed however small of the real thing."

4 comments:

The Autumn Rain said...

And yet, "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.” (C.S.L.)

I'd never thought of these quotes together before. But there they are. What to make of it?

Di said...

What I hear in this week's words, Allison, is the humility of a man who is seeing his own hypocrisy, the limitations of his own thinking.

The other quote seems to speak of the kindness of God to give us such valuable, meaningful occupations.

I would love to hear more. What do you think?

Love,
Auntie Di

Di said...

P.S. If I have time, I would like to learn how old Lewis was when he said this week's words, and especially where this quote lands chronologically with other things he has said.

The Autumn Rain said...

I think you're right about Lewis' primary goal in the first quote. There are limits to thought, for sure. And we're not very good at realizing those limits, either.

Where I sense a tension is between the idea that our *boldest* hope is that any of our thinking is true and the idea that thinking is a valuable occupation given us by God. It seems to me that if the latter is true, our hope that some of what we think is true is *reasonable* rather than *bold*. God gave us the occupation, after all; why would he give us something that *didn't* have a kernel of truth in it?

The boldest hope, I think, would be the hope that all or even most of our thinking is true. (At that point, boldness verges on arrogance.) But the initial hope about the kernel of truth? That hope is perfectly justified--nothing rash, arrogant, or bold about it, given what we know about God.

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