C.S. Lewis: His Theology and Philosophy - Lesson 25

Dr. Michael Peterson
C.S. Lewis: His Theology and Philosophy
ap530-25
Problem of Pain (Part 5)
Lesson Transcript

I'm kind of searching for a halfway decent answer here, but I think you have to affirm God's mode of existence is not our mode of existence, and that his assurances of future outcomes. There will be an eschatological resolution of all things. That's an affirmation we have to make. And these providentially working in everyone's life prevent grace as is mysterious. But it's always working and applied to every individual. Those are affirmations. I have a robust sense of commitment to those affirmations, but I don't know. I know congregations could get pretty insistent on on more granular detail than even the Creed is wanting. I mean, oh, really? What happens to somebody when they die? Oh, boy. Oh, boy. You know, who knows that? And or wonder what is God's relationship to time? Exactly. And I would find a level of altitude of cruising that gives plenty clear affirmation of what's essential and and spiritually nourishing. And I, I tell myself to kind of avoid getting down into much detail. Like, people will say, well, if you're an emerging dualist, which I tend to favor as a as a metaphysic of mind, emergent dualism, not a substance dualism. Well, then what happens to you when you die so that there's anything to resurrect? I don't. I don't have any idea. I don't know. My faith is in the resurrected power of God. I don't know. You don't either. I think, you know, maybe less to do with the specific issue of timelessness, but more like the more fundamental figure. Does he know? Yeah. I jive with all of the things that are. Yeah, with this model. But then there's also other things on the other side, specifically like particular prophecy. It's like when you talk. Yep. This is just kind of just in general.

The other attributes are specific. Yep. What you're talking about? Yep. Can you run a broad across a passage, like the judgment narrative where Jesus is being. Right. And you said before that he says he will the 93 times. Yeah. He does not really do that. Yeah. So my idea is to say, Listen, my wife is right, but what about the time where, you know, Jesus said he was more than three times? It seems very particular. It was general. And he knew that I was. Yep. Yep. If you knew it was going to happen, could you tell it otherwise? Yep. I think I would back up a step. First of all, he'll make a procedural point, and my procedural point would go something like this because there'll be a lot of those examples that either play into one point of view or play into the other point of view. You know, my my point of view is if we think that a deep and essential. Theme is coming through that God is relational and his created world is relational. If we think that is so central that it cannot be jeopardized, we need to say that. I actually think that. Okay. Well, what would jeopardize it? Saying other things about his power, knowledge, structure, metaphysical structuring of the creation? Who knows anything that would unwittingly have implications that would that would undercut that. This could be a relational universe and unwittingly meaning under analysis. If somebody paid attention and really worked on this concept of timelessness or this concept of this and show that probably weren't aware of it when we said it. But once we say that it has, it has a series of dominoes, logical dominoes that begin to fall, that that wipe out the possibility of genuine, robust relational possibilities.

Okay. If if that and I think that's right. I don't know what those things might be, but they're all fair game to investigate. So I think the timelessness of the the the openness, people are well within their rights theologically and so on to say, you know, when timelessness is used in Christian explanations of things as as the the the mechanism by which God knows what's future with respect to us when that's used, it has implications that might go unnoticed except for our analysis. And we we think we can show that his anti relational possibilities. I'd like to know that. I don't really know that I agree with them, but it's a very fair and legitimate. Exercise. It seems to me. And would you pick other examples, too? So I for me, if you come to this kind of a weighing if what I have to say to make sense of the prophecy about Peter's denials, if what I have to say about those to protect, that sets in motion a logical set of dominoes that hurts or eliminates. Relational universe. I probably would be motivated to go back and say I need to look for an alternative way of explaining the Peter denial thing. Pardon me? Betcha. Yeah. So I'm sure you can think of lots of other examples. I know if you read Sanders book, John Sanders, the God who Risks he has at least like a chapter or a major section where he tries to take the question of prophecy, and I can't really remember much about it. I think he talks mostly about general prophecy, like there are things that God has determined will happen, but there's a sense in which the the openness of His knowledge allows for different avenues to accomplish.

So yeah, engage in particular like that one you mentioned. Yeah, that's probably right, because his idea is that God is pursuing general policies with alternative routes to their fulfillment. But it's been so long since I've read that I can't remember how you say that. Like one particular problem is still relevant for me. And you say that God could in some way be somewhat. All those things that whether it means like a few things around that girl that has been kind of pressing Peter in these. Yeah, exactly. Like it's a probably, you know, there could have been 30 people that asked that. You responded yes to some of them. I didn't do this, but three times we have recorded, you know, a lot of like still general thrust. And it is true still that the like Lewis says God sets for himself the challenge of expressing his goodness to us through the total drama of a world containing free agents. And in that drama, it's fair to say there's interplay of finite agency and divine purposes and divine providence. You can overstate the providence and you can overshadow free will or you can overstate the free will. And that is a bit of a mystery, as you say, the relationship. Is there room for talking about how some of this might be in some way subverted in the process and the particularity of the incarnation for the purpose of God revealing himself in Jesus Christ? Like, can we even have that conversation a little bit that maybe this sort of general reality is in some way altered in a specific instance in the incarnation for the purpose of Jesus display his divinity? Is that the purposes of God like this being a crucial moment? Yeah. Like, should we have to defend the incarnation? Defend against what? Logical inconsistency or I guess a little bit just I mean, that is a charge.

Yeah, it just seems like there's a lot of stuff about where you talk about particular boxes with lots of people, but this is something that we need in some way. Oh yeah, Yeah. Okay. I that's what I was thinking. I was actually going along another track triggering on what you'd said. Maybe so. Maybe so. Boy, take this takes us far. You could do a whole sermon. I'm sorry. That's okay. You know, it's good to recognize. Wow. That's right. And if we're motivated, we can research it and study it more. I think it's kind of my purview to kind of say, Where can I steer the class conversation? I pray we get sidetracked. We go much further. I thought you were going to say in the C and Rick one in the God man, whatever we call God's mode of existence. How do we characterize it with respect to time is united with something temporal. And so, again, the divine is taking up into itself. What is not divine. But it's it's this amazing invitation of the human creature into the life of God. And it's permanent. It's forever. It's already happened in this unique person so that all these temporal, eternal, timeless or temporal, all those questions we've been knocking around in general ways will really kind of focus in the person of Jesus Christ and what we think the metaphysics of that whole situation is so that the issues just get piled on. Oh, man, there's so much there's so much here. I am trying to think of the most efficient way to go here. You saw my little chart in this in the discussion of this chapter in the notes. First order, second order, third order of goods and evils makes the point again and makes the point about the race to the ninth, where I had the risk reward gradations that actually some evils are necessary for some goods.

And he makes this point so that what if what if I Maybe I should make the chart. We put it up here so we can point to the chart. So again, we're working we're working at this whole idea of the problem of evil, problem of pain, how Lewis is addressing it. He's keeping he's working at the problem. But take take the idea of good and evils. I think we're going to need more. Mark? Mark. When I was in work, for crying out loud. Okay, give me another one. First order. Second order. And. And third order. Goods and evils. Now, the idea is that the second order, the higher order goods or evils require the lower order ones, or they can't exist. Same with third order requires the second order. So part of Lewis's point that he works through the book, it's beginning to come up here. It's going to work through the book and works through some of these other writings as well, is depends on what we call good and evil at these different levels. But what about hardship, pain? I won't write my whole list, but I'll just put pain because that's the title of the book. Hardship, pain, suffering like loss, defect, negative things that could sort of be call first order evils, negatives of this world. What would be on their level? Well, maybe simple pleasures, but just simple pleasures that might be the counterbalance to the pain. Okay. Conveniences, that kind of thing. Simple satisfactions, almost at an animal level. Now, his point, if there's no such thing, is pain and the possibility of suffering as a first order negative. I mean, it's a concern. Maybe it's not always evil. There cannot be such things as courage. This is going along with our vertical chart, right, that we had a little while ago about risk and reward.

So do I think for there to be a universe in which there could be such thing as courage shown in the face of danger and the possibility of maybe great pain, you know, or whatever. There's going to have to be a world in which pain is possible or there cannot be a world in which courage possible or perseverance or whatever. Now, in a world where pain is possible, there might not just be courage, cow or. Courage and cowardice are both possibilities in this. So I like courage. I admire it, but there couldn't be such a thing unless there's could also be cowardice. Oh, I can't believe I spilled. I can't believe I did that. Edit that out. Me, I just backed up. Did I do that? Jamie? Oh, okay. See what I'm saying? So the more refined in a way, the more complex you envision the great goods, the higher order, the great goods. They almost inevitably play off lower levels that contain both sides of the ledger at the low end, at the next lower level. So I might say in a world where courage and cowardice are irrelevant, in a world where they're not possible, then I can't have the third or good of of good character. Or excellence of character, which we might say the opposite of that would be a kind of a deformity. A deformity of character. A warping of mica all occur because of how you respond to things at the lower levels. If I don't build courage, honesty, or kindness, a whole bunch of things into as character traits like, you know, virtues, as we say, virtues and vices for a builder, I can't ever assemble maybe a more holistic character because characters have just one good trait.

It's an assemblage of all the kinds of potentialities that are built into human nature. And so what I what I begin to develop those and encourage them in the right direction. I can become a more kind person. That's a virtue, more honest person, a more courageous person in response to so a person having sort of operative in his or her life, a whole collection of these distinctively human virtue possibilities we call an excellent character, actually human being, being all the human beings meant to be. But interestingly, you can't just create that ex nihilo. Character is obtained over time in response. So it's a lot. And that's where you build your build the structure on which it's even possible. I think this is logically an airtight point. It's classical points to Austrian point, as actually it's Plato wouldn't disagree either. That being true, that means even omnipotence could not create excellence of character instantaneously. It can only be acquired by the response over time of building up habits and dispositions in in cooperation with divine guidance. You can you can create maybe an innocent being. Then call me, I'll go, I'll give you that. But you can't create excellence that we assign to a mature moral being because moral maturity logically entails having a long enough period of time that you built up your responses in the proper way. Temptations to be dishonest. You've been honest, you build it up. Responding one time doesn't make you an honest person. It means you did the right thing. At a point you obey the rule. Good for you. Obeying rules. Probably pretty, pretty decent thing to do. But what kind of person are you? Not the action, but the character, the virtue trait. So if we have a world in which we are really concerned, when we see the value of this kind of possible outcome, then the only way logically to embrace it is to embrace what makes it possible.

And without these things down here, particularly on this side of the ledger, the higher things are impossible. So like he says. How are we doing for time? Not wonderful. I think this is a really interesting point. And it's a it's a way of kind of processing a lot of what Lewis is saying, kind of picturing it to ourselves maybe in a little different language than what Lewis is saying. But and this is a classical point, and Lewis, being a classicist, a broad, broad, broadly classically educated person, knows this kind of thing. Yeah. With perhaps the pain of the writing is somehow fitting into this year or. Yeah. Yeah. Homer said something a minute ago when I. When I kind of got that out there was given just the classical background here, which is both platonic and Aristotelian, and they have their differences and all that. But one thing is for sure particular about the Aristotelian picture, which is much more detailed and like this Aristotle was not thinking of divine assistance or divine purpose, but in terms of a naturalist worldview, how can a human being live into its unique nature as a rational, moral being? And this would be all part of Aristotle's conversation in response to these lower things you build and you have to you have to say, that's so I think it's logically airtight. And if it's true, it's true. So it's part of God's truth. Aristotle didn't get that. He was seeing it purely as the fulfillment of our natural human nature. The human tell us that doesn't involve any reference to divine connection. But if you bring it into a Christian context, then you have to say there's more here than human self-help. Then under my own power, you know, striving to be the sort of thing sin would not have occurred to Aristotle.

But he did have a lot of talk that he did about accuracy, the weak willed person, even even that great mind of aristocracy, that a lot of people have weak wills. They can't do what they know they should do. So the aquatic person, the weak willed person, big discussion in Aristotle, but still is not sufficiently overlaid with any kind of Christian interpretation that we not only have a natural destiny and natural tell we ought to be the best we could be, but we also have a higher destiny. But it's not dichotomous. Our natural destiny should sort of reflect and be on the trajectory toward our eternal destiny. And so the Dragon of Eustace is showing. There are times when you can't help yourself sinners and trapped us. Our will could be so weak and so entrapped that we could be undone. And yet there's there's divine assistance and there's redemptive activity on the part of God. But Aristotle could never and the great classical mind of ourself could just never envision. But that doesn't mean that we're not meant in the image of God to develop courage, honesty, kind, and that they logically are linked to the exactly the kinds of things that they are. But there's more and that's part of the Christian story is to tell what's more. And there are virtues then that Aristotle would not envision that are more the spiritual virtues, the theological virtues as the media evils call them faith, hope and love, which are really not on the Aristotelian radar. Well, I think we've probably blown a hole in this afternoon and all that we can do now. Mm hmm. Trying to see where we are on the syllabus real quick. Is this in terms of the instructional week? Is this, like, week number seven? I thought so.

Oh, thank you. Thank. And so, really? Now we're supposed to get past chapter seven, I think. But in terms of instructional week's What an instructional week is. Oh, okay. Okay. I think it could be like a week. Is this week ten? Okay, then really? Technically, next time we go to grief observed and the time after that, I want to show Shadowlands which will cause a problem for the videotaping. Because I'm sure we won't. We can't do that. What I'm saying? So everybody out there who's going to be with us through a grief observed can go Randy copy Shadowlands from Netflix or something. Get it mailed to them. Pardon me. Where are they going to go get this. Really? I say go to Amazon, buy one probably items on run. Could you could you read it? I know the Netflix not on Netflix. That's what I'm saying. All these places are they don't hold it but Netflix has a a large selection you can rent have shipped to your door right and you have to return it. Yeah I don't do that because I get in memory I don't need that And I'm praying that off the record. I don't know. I don't. So there that's kind of where we're headed is next time. On grief observed. And honestly, we might want to clean up a little bit more of what we were into today and finish up from a pain a little bit. Maybe I'll try to move faster, finish that up. We'll have plenty of time. On grief observed all that next week and then the film the following week. We're good. I think we're in good shape.