In 2006, Reformation Trust published Steven Lawson’s Foundations of Grace, the first volume in a promising series titled “A Long Line of Godly Men.” Though the original publication schedule called for a new book every year or two, the second volume, Pillars of Grace has been repeatedly pushed back and is now listed as a November 2009 release. However, while we’ve been awaiting that title, we’ve been treated to two volumes in a companion series called “A Long Line of Godly Men Profiles.” The first of these told of The Expository Genius of John Calvin while future releases promise to focus a spotlight on an aspect of the ministries of Martin Luther, George Whitefield, Charles Spurgeon, and other notable pastors and theologians.

Today we come to our sixth (and second-to-last) reading in C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity. This means as well that we have come to the fourth and final book that makes up Mere Christianity. And I think we are beginning to see why Lewis is known more as an apologist than a theologian.

Discussion

Book Three, “Christian Behaviour” was, I think, Lewis at his best. I enjoyed each of the twelve chapters and thought Lewis was brilliant throughout. Through the first six chapters of Book Four, “Beyond Personality,” I’ve been mostly disappointed.

Lewis opens with a chapter on “Making and Begetting.” His opening words are useful as he shows the value of theology. “I think any man who wants to think about God at all would like to have the clearest and most accurate ideas about Him which are available. You are not children: why should you be treated like children?” I guess people in the 1940’s must have been much like people today, feeling that theology was for theologians, not for those who really wanted to follow God. They wanted to feel God without necessarily knowing God. Lewis counters this well. While he teaches rightly that doctrine is not the same as God, but merely something that points to God, he does not minimize the importance of knowing who God is by knowing God as he is. Theology has real and practical value and he is sure to point this out.

In this chapter he grapples with the difference between making and begetting. “A man begets a child, but he only makes a statue. God begets Christ but He only makes men.” Thus God begets God, something of the same kind of himself. He is careful to show that Christ is not a created being and yet somehow is still begotten of the Father.

In “The Three-Personal God” he tries to offer a reasonable explanation of the doctrine of the Trinity. His illustrations prove, as all illustrations must, just how difficult it is to explain the Trinity in human terms. Eventually Lewis concludes that we must trust that God’s explanation of himself as Father and Jesus as Son is the best illustration or metaphor we can have.

In “Time and Beyond Time” he shows how God exists outside of time, seeking to dispel the fears of those who believe that God could not possibly hear a million prayers offered to him at one time. Lewis shows that, though we cannot really understand such a thing, God exists outside of the bounds of time. However, he comes perilously close to open theism when he suggests that there is a sense in which God does not know our future actions until we have done them. I believe Lewis’ issue here is one that plagues every open theist—how God can know our future actions (thus showing that we cannot possibly do anything other than what God foresees) and how at the same time we can retain free will (defined as the ability to choose, of our own accord, the exact opposite of the action we took). Reformed theology offers an explanation to this, of course, saying that we are bound by our natures and are free to choose only as our natures dictate. But this seems to escape Lewis.

Lewis continues through “Good Infection” where he discusses a few topics that somehow did not become bound together in my mind, “The Obstinate Toy Soldiers” where he looks at how men can become sons of God and “Two Notes” where he pauses to offer further thoughts on two questions.

As I said at the outset, I found this week’s reading quite disappointing. It occurred to me as I thought about it, that while I had some familiarity with the content of the previous chapters simply by virtue of the vast numbers of times I’ve read them quoted in other works, I do not recall reading any quotes from these past six chapters. And there is, I think, pretty good reason for this. While I think Lewis was wrong on at least one or two points in these chapters, more often he is just a little bit muddled. His arguments lack the force and compulsion of the chapters that came before. Or that was my sense of it. I’d be interested in learning if you agree.

Next Week

For next Thursday, please finish up the book. We’ll read the last five chapters, post some final thoughts, and I guess we’ll then begin to think about the next book we can read together.

Your Turn

The purpose of this program is to read these classics together. So if there is something you’d like to share about what you read, please feel free to do so. You can leave a comment or a link to your blog and we’ll make this a collaborative effort.

(Continued from yesterday)

My friend and I had taken hours out of our weekend to clean Barb’s squalid, rundown house. But then, when she got home, she was angry—very angry. Now there was one thing I neglected to say about Barb. Beside her couch/bed was one of those Rubbermaid containers, the kind with several drawers. Each of these drawers contained an assortment of silk Hermes scarves. Each of these scarves, we later learned, had been bought for several hundred dollars and Barb had assembled them as a kind of savings account. She was convinced that each one was going to increase in value and eventually bring her great wealth. She considered them an investment. Little wonder that she slept right beside them and checked on them carefully every time she returned to her house. That was exactly what she did when she returned home this time. As soon as she saw that we had been touching her stuff, her precious stuff, she began to grumble and to mutter about how we were being careless and harsh (even though she had invited us to help her clean up). After running inside to count her Hermes scarves and ensure that we had not stolen any of them (she washed her hands before touching them), she began sorting through the garbage bags, looking to make sure we hadn’t thrown away anything of value. She also rummaged through the boxes of clothes we had marked as “sell,” remarking that she simply couldn’t get rid of those things, even though they were far too small for her. Barb was quite a big woman but wanted to lose weight. To motivate her weight loss program she had purchased an entire designer wardrobe in her desired size. A long time had elapsed since she had purchased her size six wardrobe and, though she had made no progress, she just knew that she would need these clothes before long. Eventually she agreed to allow us to sell a very few pairs of shoes and boots on her behalf (though upon later inspection we found that many of these, though they had never been worn, had been chewed upon or lived in by mice and were, thus, valueless).

At the end of the day we were tired and dirty but felt that we had done something to help Barb’s plight. The house was still a disgusting disaster, but we had brought some order to the chaos, at least in one of the rooms, and felt that the house was just a bit more livable than when we had arrived. I guess Barb disagreed because she never allowed us to return. In fact, she thanked our friends by beginning to throw trash over her fence and into their yard. Using eBay, we eventually sold the items she had allowed us to sell and brought her the money. She was livid and threatened to call the police, saying we had ripped her off. She was insistent that the clothes were worth more now than when she had purchased them—that clothes appreciated in value. She decided she was going to hold on to the rest of her things. Perhaps her money problems had eased by then.

It’s a sad story this one. It affected me deeply. It was a few years ago since it all happened but since then I’ve thought about it often. To me, Barb is a picture of slavery to sin. Sure there may be some mental illness involved, but what is this kind of mental illness if not captivity to one or more of the devil’s lies? She had slowly removed herself from the real world to live in a world of her stuff—a world that she perpetuated by collecting and accruing ever more stuff. She needed her stuff—her clothes, her books, her scarves. She loved them and coddled them, treasuring them like they were the children she never had. Her life was miserable and she sought solace in her growing mountain of possessions. The piles accumulated and became a mountain—a filthy, dusty, smelly mountain—but it was hers and she loved it. To the rest of us her house was unlivable. To her it was home. She seemed to know every pile of trash and regarded each piece of junk as treasure.

I thought of Barb the other day when considering the mountains of sin in my own heart. I had one of those days where I marveled at the reality of sin in my life, that after so many years of being a Christian, after so many years of following Christ, such sin could still live within me. And like Barb’s valueless junk, there is sin I love. I hold onto it, treasuring it, coddling it, babying it, clinging to it. I take refuge in this sin; I take comfort in it. Others surely see it for what it is; the Bible tells me exactly what it is. Yet it’s mine and I’ve grown quite fond of it over the years. These mountains of junk are my secret treasure.

There is a difference, though. Barb was enslaved by her sin. Mental illness; spiritual illness; I don’t know what it was. But I do know that she was entrapped and enslaved by it. In moments of lucidity she could see what she needed to do but so quickly she would come crawling back to her stuff like a dog returns to its vomit. But by the grace of God I’ve been set free from enslavement to my sin. There may be part of me that continues to love my sin, but there is a greater part of me that hates it and that fights it. Through Christ I’ve been given freedom, freedom to fight against that sin and, better still, to overcome it. Sin lives within me, but it no longer enslaves me. But only because of God’s amazing, immeasurable grace. Ephesians 2 describes me well, “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” Then comes the great conjunction of verse 4: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved…” By God’s mercy, I can overcome those mountains of garbage within.

I don’t know how Barb’s story ends. A year after we tried to help her out, her house went on the market and quickly sold. We knew that a developer must have bought the property for the land as the house was far beyond saving. But Barb reneged on the deal. A few months later it was on the market again and quickly sold. Our friends left the neighborhood shortly after when a developer bought all of the surrounding properties, planning to build a series of retirement condos. Barb must have left around the same time.

I’ve often wondered how Barb moved. Did she take all of her stuff with her? Or did she leave it all behind and just walk away? What did she do with all of the money from her property which must have fetched at least half a million dollars? Did moving from her house help her break free of what was clearly a serious addiction and a serious mental and spiritual problem? Or is she, even right now, sleeping on a couch with her Hermes scarves and other treasures piled all around her? Somehow I’m inclined to think she is. God help her.