“Susan was not killed in that last railway accident, and we should not speculate about her final destiny unless we want Aslan to growl at us for impudent guesswork about somebody else’s story. And besides, if anybody wants to argue that the ultimate Cair Paravel in the center of the ultimate Narnia only had three …
The Logic Will Out
“He who says A may not have said B, but give him time” (From The Romantic Rationalist, p. 73)
Floral Theology
“Let me take a moment to conduct a very brief tour of the Narnian tulip garden — a place of fond memories for me because this is where I first learned my foundational lessons in the meaning of grace. Now I admit that these are Narnian tulips, so they don’t look quite the same as …
A Protestant Axiom
“Some staunch Protestants may be distressed by the fact that, at the beginning of Mere Christianity, Lewis grants the Roman Catholics ‘a room’ in the great house of our faith, wondering why the Catholics get a room. But we shouldn’t forget that this conception of the house is a Protestant conception” (From The Romantic Rationalist, …
Semi-Pelagian Resurrections Are Rare
“Is salvation a cooperative affair, or does God simply intervene to bless us by taking the initiative? Was Lazarus raised from the dead in a semi-Pelagian fashion, with Lazarus pushing and Jesus pulling, or not?” (From The Romantic Rationalist, p. 68).
But Only If This Kind of Thing Reassures You
“Am I Reformed? Am I a Calvinist? This is a point upon which I understand there has been some discussion. Well, in brief, I wish there were seven points so I could hold to the Calvinistic extras. You may count me a devotee of crawl-over-broken-glass Calvinism, jet-fuel Calvinism, black-coffee Calvinism. Or, as my friend Peter …
In Each Season
“Preschool children are shaped, elementary school children are taught, teenage children are directed, and grown children are advised” (From To You and Your Children, p. 205),
Five Yards of Truth
“The rationalism that we inherited from the Enlightenment has trained us all to think that everything that we really ‘know’ is that which can be objectively measured and doled out in credit hours. We have created a great illusory mechanism for making ourselves think that we know how people actually know things. And we identify …
Because There Will Be Lots of Them
“You don’t know whether any of your ancestors prayed for you, but wouldn’t it have been glorious if they had? So apply the golden rule, and pray for your descendants” (From To You and Your Children, p. 200).
Not Curious Enough
“How would our loving father not answer such a prayer? But too often the reason we don’t ask is that we don’t really want to know. We belong to that shortsighted school of car maintenance and repair — don’t lift the hood if you don’t want to know” (From To You and Your Children, p. …