Goodreads Review: The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis

Occasionally, I read a book. Less frequently, I write a review about the book because it was polarizing. Nobody needs a reason to give Harry Potter books five stars. It is obvious why.

On the other hand, sometimes I feel the need to explain myself when I only partially advocate a book, especially one written by Charles Staples. I admit I'm not a huge C.S. Lewis fan, but reading his stuff is still a good look at someone else's opinion. That is to say, the YFR Calvinist in me would like to butt his head against all things he sees as theological error. Hence, my copy of the book is littered with underlined sentences and phrases and notes on the margins of certain pages with certain errors I found untenable. The fact that I kept on reading should indicate that in this case, mine and Lewis's disagreement was philosophical and not theological. Yes, his mind was wracked with inconsistency when he wrote this book, and I wrote a note about how he apparently hated Total Depravity yet upheld its distinctions. Thus Douglas Wilson may call him a Calvinist of sorts. I can rejoice in Lewis's inconsistency because it is that inconsistency that made the book more palatable. Let's not call it "total depravity" if you want to get stuck in the etymology and the details. He still asserts the doctrine, but refuses to name it and explains it in different terms.

A lot of good, and some sifting of the bad to make when you read this book.

Anyway, here's the review:

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Reading this book is frustrating. Lewis shows a great contempt for his caricaturized form of Total Depravity and has a fitting description of his objections to it: If it were true that we are totally depraved, we would have no reason to trust that we could ever be totally deprived. Maybe he would be correct if scripture taught "utter depravity", the distinction being that total depravity gives the possibility that all men are capable of more evil than they have expressed at any moment. Utter depravity would say that all men do all evil all the time, which we know not to be true. A tyrant can love his mother and at the same time be totally depraved because he doesn't not love his mother fully in the way God has intended. We could also say this is "no real love at all", because the sum of that love is so small compared to the commandment that requires it. Lewis sets up his straw men to burn them when he refutes total depravity. His disagreement is philosophical and not theological, so he misses the mark.

All that being said, Lewis has done some measure of justice to describing some of the effects of the human fall, suffering and pain included.

Interesting is his commitment to the idea of free will. But even libertarian free will is subjected to the effects of sin and is made a slave. Yes, we have wills. And we have free choices, but the freedom of those choices depend on that to which it is bound. Lewis presupposes a libertarian free will but that is inconsistent with scripture. A libertarian will is free to choices of its nature. Lewis appears to forget this when he talks all about free will, mistaking wills which proceed from essence to wills which proceed from existence. The essence of will is the nature which gives it rise. Hence, sin nature gives us sinful wills. We need to be new men because apart from being given a new nature which seeks to love God, we do choose to love the self. Lewis can't account for that with his view of free will.

Also problematic is his conception of hell. While clever, the idea that Hell is simply giving a man what he wants is not supported by scripture. Men are thrown into hell because they do not want to be there. They desire their sins, but not so the consequences.

His chapter on animals is a bit bewildering but holds some nuggets of truth within. All creation was created to glorify God, and all nature reflects some facet of God's nature, hence the prospect of Lionhood being maintained and glorified in a new heaven and earth seems applicable and likely.

All in all, a solid read for fans of Lewis. I do wish he had stuck to the accidental allegories of Narnia rather than delving into theological thought, as now his cognitive dissonance shows when he speaks of men being used by God to glorify him, even in their evils. But in Narnia, worship to Tash in the style of Aslan means their goods to Tash could not be received by Tash. Lewis breaks his own rules but I think this book shows that it is sometimes for the better.

Nick

Music Recommendation: And So I Watch You From Afar: Heirs

An adrenaline rush that wakes you up in a cold sweat at two in the morning.

You wake up on your starship staring at the asteroid fields and pockets of ice crystals floating about you in oblivion.

Your ideas about what constitutes tonal beauty are challenged when you're trying to keep your mouth above the tidal wave of bass and gain which is stifling the ability to breathe and think lucidly.

Voices? Are those real words? Your brain tries to comprehend the vocalizations until you realize that ignoring your preconceptions of language is the only road to comprehension.

Your watering eyes blink and you wipe the salt off your forehead trying to see into the mist. The burning comes from the sadness or maybe the trauma of joy crashing against your stone tower of musical presuppositions.

Is this the future? Or is this the decade on repeat? Holding hands with strangers you know better than the hands you’re hold theirs with.

That’s a bit of the tumult that Heirs offers its listeners. It’s comfortable but it isn’t familiar. It’s your average raucous post/math rock album but it also has dignity. The band is clearly comfortable with displaying their emotions and they are also at home using their mouths to speak musical notes rather than words if that’s what it takes to get the point across. You’ll want to sing along, but there aren’t words. It’s your favorite song that prompts you to mouth the non-sense words, but you’re underwater, fighting to hold your breath.

At once, ASIWYFA channels post-hardcore’s destructive bass tones, Tera-Melos’ atonality (7/4 vocal-earthquake These Secret Kings I Know), Animals As Leaders’ progressive proclivities (People Not Sleeping, second half), and Adebesi Shank’s floor pounding stomp-riff-ic madness (F*cking Lifer). Somehow they trimmed the fat off of their experience with All Hail Bright Futures, which by all means is a great album but had a lot of weird hiccups. Those songs weren’t forgettable but there were some uncomfortable filler songs. And the effort was made a bit worse by the lack of meaning in real words. Heirs is the antithesis: fullness of meaning within the lack of words.

Heirs is less dauntingly weird, and takes some undue challenge out of listening to it by blending the incoherence of math-rock with the atmospheric beauty of post-rock and the space-exploration of progressive rock. It’s the guilty pleasure of accessibility without all the alienation of a sell-out.

Highly recommended.

The vanity within long flights

The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises. The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns. All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again. All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new”? It has been already in the ages before us. There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after. (Ecclesiastes 1:1-11 ESV)

And thus begins the overwhelming feeling of vanity come 36,000 feet above the earth. I'm listening to music with earbuds to forget the crying baby and young child in the seats behind me. I'm trying to ignore the slight turbulence when it came at the beginning of the flight. I'm sitting in cramped space. The week was too short but the days were too long. Dorena (another no-name post rock band from Europe) is serenading my ears and my nerves.

Megan is doing the crossword puzzle and forgetting that nothing else exists in the space of the three hour flight. My neck is stiff. I wish I had the patience to crossword puzzles. Another small window into her world.

And I want to sleep and take advantage of the two hours I've gained back with the vain time zone adjustments.

Vanity vanity vanity. And only in Christ can I really enjoy it.

Nick. 

Lent and Facebook: the aftermath.

Things I don't miss about Facebook.

Being told about the latest food industry travesty.
Being told what I shouldn't eat.
Being told what I should eat.
Feeling like blogging about Facebook. Or some current event issue on Facebook. Promoting my blog on Facebook knowing it probably won't get read anyways.
Logical fallacies and one-sided blaring of opinions in fruitless online arguments.
The need to check it every fifteen minutes.
Non-stories about how one feels about other people.
Stupid opinions.
Strongly worded stupid opinions.
My need to share my opinions.
My need to share my strongly worded stupid opinions.
Bands asking to follow other bands.
Bands asking to follow record labels.
The rumbling feeling that my distant relatives are watching my every status update.
Getting a message from my grandparents about posting something on Facebook.
Deleting posts and comments from Facebook.
The blatant blaring of bad theology.
The time it takes away from intellectual capacity to hear my wife's voice.
Stories about the latest awesome thing Pope Francis did and how much we should love him for it.
Stories about the latest terrible thing Barack Obama did and how much we should hate him for it.
Finding excuses to dislike people more than I ought to love them.
Establishing my opinion about people based on what they do and share on Facebook.
The awkward and superficial connections that I try to legitimize with people I should really let go of.
The awkward and superficial connections that I refuse to progress with people in real life because of time spent otherwise on Facebook.
The social abandonment felt when leaving Facebook. For no good reason.
My idea that Facebook is the only way to keep connected with the people who really matter.
My need to feel clever and validated by the amount of likes I receive on status updates and comments.
Militant slacktivist feminism.
Militant slacktivist conservativism.
Militant slacktivist liberalism.
Militant and crappy theology.
The shadow of myself in the social sphere.
Feeling known by people who certainly do not know me.
Friend requests from people who certainly do not know me anymore.
Superficial friendships and the illusion of being known.

Things I miss about Facebook

The reformed pub.
Pictures of my wife when we are not in the same place.
Album releases
Tour announcements.
Seeing what's up with my relatives and people that I really ought to know.

Nick

Music Recommendation: Pacific Gold

Here's another band I rarely have time to listen to lately but wish I could forever. Here's their first EP, "The River". Everything else is good but this one might be my favorite folked-up hymnal EP.

Alas and did my Saviour bleed, and did my Sovereign die?
Would He devote that sacred head for sinners such as I?
Was it for sins that I have done He suffered on the tree?
Amazing pity, Grace unknown, and Love beyond degree!

Well might the sun in darkness hide and shut His glory in
When Christ the great Redeemer died for man, the creature's, sin.
Thus might I hide my blushing face while His dear cross appears,
Dissolve my heart in thankfulness, and melt my eyes to tears!

Music Recommendation: Lent

Here's a good album that I listen to all the time, but since Lent began have not listened to 'til just now. Ironical. I have lent brain and have neglected social media for the last month. And it turns out that I love people a lot more than being clever when I no longer am given the ammunition to attempt clever responses and snark. I may ditch Facebook forever. But I do miss hanging out in the Reformed Pub, the only place on Facebook that I have found that has time and time again encouraged me even through the debates. And the reformed folk are indeed a debatey bunch.

Anyways, enjoy this music I enjoy. Or else.

More on Reading Chesterton

I'm not a Roman Catholic (nor do I ever imagine becoming one). Regardless, I think this quote holds much savor and hope for Protestants if only we replace the words "the Mass" with "The Church", and I do mean that in the universal congregation of all believers in Christ Jesus everywhere, perhaps to the chagrin of Our Darling Papist Chesterton.

After all, it is perhaps no matter of surprise that Bishop Barnes of Birmingham should see a link between the Magician and the Mass. There is a sort of logical link between them; the logical link that connects Yes and No. In other words, they are exact contraries; like light and darkness, which are often classed together because they are often mentioned at once. They cross each other with the complete collision and contradiction that belongs to "The Two Magics." The Magician is the Man when he seeks to become a God, and, being a usurper, can hardly fail to be a tyrant. Not being the maker, but only the distorter, he twists all things out of their intended shape, and imprisons natural things in unnatural forms. But the Mass is exactly the opposite of a Man seeking to be a God. It is a God seeking to be a Man; it is God giving His creative life to mankind as such, and restoring the original pattern of their manhood; making not gods, nor beasts, nor angels, but, by the original blast and miracle that makes all things new, turning men into men.

SDG

Nick