Letters to Malcom: Letter 6 (Part 2)

Lewis continues his critique of Newman saying that he has substituted religion for God. Religion, asserts Lewis, is a means to an end. The end, the destination, is God, religion is the way to get there.  

Lewis' point is well taken but requires some, not quite caveats, but at least some commentary. For example, one might ask, are there other ways to God? Can one reach God via studying the natural world, or history, or just have an epiphany that there is a God? Well, that raises the question what does it mean that God is the end, or the destination? If the destination is to know there is a God, so, sure, people arrive at the conclusion that God exists in many different ways, and I think it's hard to say any of them are illegitimate. After all, Maimonides explicitly suggests the natural world as a means of coming to love and fear God!

So, there has to be something else. Maybe the end is not simply learning to believe that God exists but getting to know God. If we know God, we will immediately believe in Him and love and fear Him. Now, for finite man getting to know the Infinite Being is not a reachable end. Hence, one can get only so far via other means, and only religion, belief in God and following God's ways, can provide a constant, never-ending path to knowing God. Of course, God wants us to succeed. He loves us and helps us along the way. 

One might ask, how does, for example, loving my neighbor help me learn about God? The answer is that knowing God means understanding His ways and one cannot truly understand the ways of another unless he adopts those ways for himself. God loves your neighbor. So, if want to know God, you must love your neighbor as well. 

And this brings us to a different formulation. The destination may not be to know God, or to love Him, or even to fear Him, but to be godly. Even being godly can be learned from outside of "religion." Our Sages teach us that one can learn godly traits even from the animals: modesty from the can, not to steal from the ant, and forbidden sexual relations from the dove. Nonetheless, the complete directions of how to be godly comes from His word. Hence, when we love our neighbors we are acting in a godly fashion. And even when we're performing the most esoteric of rituals we are acting in a godly fashion because the ritual is from God, and only He knows what it's like to be godly.

Letters to Malcolm: Letter 6 (Part 1)

Lewis starts Letter 6, dealing with the accusation of being, "one of Vidler's young men." For the moment, I'm not particularly interested here about Vidler's philosophy outside of what it means for this Letter, so I'll just point you to the interesting article here. However, Lewis does appear to appreciate Vidler's dislike of the word religion. Let me note that in the greater Jewish context, this question animates Leora Batnitzky work, "How Judaism Became a Religion". Lewis and Vidler's approach is very much in contrast to the assertion by Newman that Heaven is like church in that, "one single sovereign subject - religion - is brought before us." 

Lewis first appears to reject Newman's hypothesis by quoting Revelation (21:22) that there is no temple in the new Jerusalem. This is an interesting statement, and one can imagine several approaches to address why this should be so. Lewis presumably would say that the temple is a manifestation of a religious sanctuary amidst an irreligious (not non-religious) environment. This is not necessary in a world enlightened by knowledge of God.  

However, this does raise the question, according to Lewis, are there churches in the new Jerusalem? Are there places where people gather to worship God? 

Judaism completely rejects this Christian bible approach. We (more than once) face Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, to pray for the restoration of the Temple in Jerusalem. The Temple was not and will not be simply a sanctuary or escape, as was Noah's ark, but a place of spiritual nurturing and growth. Even if the whole world is filled with God's glory, the Temple is God's dwelling place and the holiest site on earth. Thus, it is also the place where humanity will gather as one to worship Him and learn His ways. There is a Chosen Place on earth - the place where the Temple will stand. 

Cover Art: The Last Battle

Today, my wife and some kids went to a used bookstore and found "The Last Battle" (and some of the other Chronicles) with the cover on the left. The true excitement was, of course, that the books they found were in the correct, publication order, as opposed to the horrid "chronological" order of my current set. But I also noticed the difference in the cover art. And I wondered whether the changing of the cover was almost as bad (nothing could ever be as bad) as the changing of the numbering. 

Note above some of the examples of how that art changed over the years (though there are many that are not in the above array). Contrast, for example, the cover on the left and the third from the left. The latter clearly implies that the battle being referenced in the title is a physical one. The unicorn's blood-soaked horn suggests that there is a unicorn at the center of the story and his looking back tells us that the unicorn must look backwards out of concern of enemies approaching him from behind. There is a unicorn in "The Last Battle," and he does, at least once, stab someone with his horn. In addition, we know that the little band of good guys which the unicorn is part of, is effectively in enemy territory and must constantly look backwards. So, the cover is true, but does it get to the main theme of the story?

"The stars from their constellations fought against Sisera,"
sang the great prophetess (Judges 5:20).

The left-most cover suggests a very different theme. No physical battle is pictured. Rather we see through the door the darkness of night punctuated by falling stars. Inside the door it is bright and warm. If a battle is occurring, as the title states, it must be the stars fighting and the words of Deborah ring in our ears. The battle is not a physical one, it is a spiritual one, and the presence of Aslan (who at this point we certainly know) and a cohort of people suggests that Aslan has protected his chosen from the great battles raging outside.  

Why change the picture so starkly?

Well, it could be that people no longer recognize Deborah's song, and so the message would be lost. Or, unfortunately, it could be that the publisher does not believe that spiritual battles will sell. Physical battles are where the action is and the cover is meant to say, don't worry, this is a book about real, bloody, battles, not some spiritually boring theology. 

We see some of this already in the second cover. The picture is very much like the first, except with much more and sharper detail both inside and out of the door. The presence of (so far unknown) Father Time may be in line with the theme of the end of time (he may be blowing the great horn that accompanies the eschaton), but it detracts from the shower of stars. Worse, however, is that inside of the door is very much a continuation of outside. There is no contrast of light versus darkness or warmth versus cold. There is no implication of Aslan as the protector.

The final artwork revives the door and the contrast between inside and out. But now the unicorn is coming out of the door! This implies that the battle must be joined outside and that to win forces must be brought from there. I don't like it. The forces for spiritual battle are within all of us. Of course, we pray to God for His help and His deliverance, but we also cannot count on miraculous beings coming to help. 

 

A Hebraic Inkling: A Rose by Any Other Name

This is an extremely important introductory section for it is here that Brazier sets Jesus into a Jewish context as the Jewish Messiah. Brazier starts this by noting that Jesus had a Hebrew name, Yeshua, as did all Jews of the time, and that Christ means the messiah which is Hebrew for the anointed one. Brazier properly notes that Hebrew Bible kings and even High Priests were anointed and called messiah, and that being a messiah does not imply that the person is God (or, as Christians would say, part of the trinity). 

The care Brazier uses in defining his terms is commendable. He notes that "the son of God" does not a priori mean the Son in a trinitarian fashion, and that the salvation promised by Jesus was that the one assumed by the Jews of the late Second Temple period. Brazier's claim is that in hindsight in can be seen that despite those expectations, Jesus is the messiah promised in the Hebrew Bible, and he is actually THE Messiah as the Son in the trinity. Not surprisingly, Brazier will spend significant time on Lewis attempts to infer Jesus from the Hebrew Bible.

By laying out this argument step-by-step Brazier clarifies two important points. The first, which is not of course the focus of his work, is that it is very easy to see at what points Judaism would disagree with the assertions of Christianity. From the Jewish perspective, Jesus did not fulfill the clear political promises of the messiah and therefore was not the messiah. Furthermore, Jews reject the asserted trinitarium of the early Church and the need or possibility that God took human form and thus reject Jesus as part of the godhead. 

The second point is that, with this, Brazier sets the foundation of what it means to be a Hebraic Christian. A Hebraic Christian must see Jesus in the context of Jewish culture of his time. A Hebraic Christian understands that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah spoken of eschatologically in the Hebrew Bible, and a Hebraic Christian recognizes that the name Jesus Christ is simply a translation of the original Hebrew Yeshua hamashiach. 

Brazier continues his introduction by defining several more phrases which will look at next time. But a main goal of his work is to demonstrate Lewis' agreement with the foundations of Hebraic Christianity introduced in this section.