Schakel - Is Your Lord Large Enough? (2008)

8/13/2019 Schakel - Is Your Lord Large Enough? (2008)

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Summary of Key Points

SCHAKEL, PETER.Is Your Lord Large Enough?. Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2008.

11-49 How C.S. Lewis Enlarges Our View of God

When I was a child, I talked like a child,I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see a poor reflection asin a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully,

even as I am fully known (I Co 13:11-12)

In thePrince Caspian, there follows this dialogue between Lucy and Aslan:

Aslan, you are bigger

That is because you are older, little oneanswered he.

Not because you are?I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger

In Mere Christianity, commenting on Christs words that only those who receive thekingdom of God like a little child will enter that kingdom, Lewis says:Christ never meant that we were to remain children in intelligence: on the contrary

he wants a childsheart, but a grown ups head. He wants us to[use] every bit of

intelligence we have[you must not] be content with the same babyish ideas [of God]which you had when you were a five-year-old.

Practices that may enlarge our vision of God:

Studying and meditating on the Bible. The Bible is the most radical book in theworld, its words can cause a radical transformation on peoples lives.

Using written prayer and liturgies. Meditating and memorizing the beautifultraditional prayers of the church.

Singing traditional hymns as well as praise songs. The best of the old hymnshave a depth of wisdom and theology worth studying and meditating

In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader at the end of the voyage, Aslan tells Edmund and

Lucy that they will not be able to go to Narnia again:

Oh, Aslan! said Edmund and Lucy both together in despairing voices.

You are too old, children said Aslan, and you must begin to come close to your ownworld now

It isnt Narnia, you know, sobbed Lucy. Its you. We shant meet you there. And

how can we live, never meeting you?But you shall meet me, dear one. Said Aslan

Are are you there too Sir? Said Edmund.

I am, said Aslan. But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that

name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me

here for a little, you may know me better there


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Gods Time and Our Time

Teach us to number our days aright,

That we may gain a heart of wisdom (Psalms 90:12)

Christians must move beyond ordinary concepts of time as absolute in order to have agrowing understanding of God and spiritual realities.

Although we exist within time, God does not.

God has no past or future, but exists in the perpetual present.

For us, it is difficult to grasp such concept, because we imagine events taking place one

after another. But to God, all physical happenings and human actions are present in aneternal Now God did not create the universe long ago but creates it at this minute - at

every minute

As Lewis puts it, God has all the eternity to hear the prayer a pilot breathes in the split

second before his plane crashes into the earth.

God is not in Time and therefore does not foresee your actions but sees them. He isalready in tomorrow and still in yesterday CS Lewis (p.23)

From our perspective, within time, we have free will and are responsible for thechoices we make; from Gods perspective, outside of time, predestination holds sway

but because it is outside of time, we should not attempt to comprehend it fully or to

guide our actions by it.

Every faculty you have is given you by God You [cannot] give Him anything

that [is] not in a sense His own already. Importance of Prayer

The benefit of using prayers written by others:

They keep us in touch with sound doctrine, preventing us from sliding off intomy religion

They remind us of the whole range of things we ought pray about, instead offocusing only on our immediate needs and concerns

They keep prayer from hardening into a formula They keep our thoughts from straying They remind us of the communion of saints in all things, the church

triumphant

Prayer in the sense of petition, asking for things, is a small part of it; confession andpenitence are its threshold, adoration its sanctuary, the presence and vision and

enjoyment of God its bread and wine. In it God shows Himself to us. That He answers

prayers is a corollary- not necessarily the most important one from that revelation.What He does is learned from what He is CS Lewis The Efficacy of Prayer (p.37)

It is preferable to kneel in prayer: the body ought to pray as well as the soul


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Sometimes prayer can be irksome, a duty more than a pleasure. Thus we need to

develop the discipline of prayer and not only pray when we want to or feel like it (itshould be a daily practice)

Lewis always included this in his prayer: May it be the real I who speaks. May it be

the real Thou that I speak to

We must ask that we may receive: but that we should receive what we ask in respectof our lower needs is not Gods end in making us pray, for He could give us everythingwithout that: to bring His child to his knees, God withholds that man may ask No

gift unrecognized as coming from God is at its own best: therefore many things that

God would gladly give us, things even that we need because we are, must wait until weask for them, that we may know whence they come: when in all gifts we find Him, then

in Him we shall find all thingsGeorge Macdonald, Unspoken Sermons(p.42)

Petitionary Prayer

We are apparently told two contradictions in the NT: (a) that we should pray Your

will be done (Matthew 6:10); (b) elsewhere this limitation is removed and Jesuspromises that whatever we ask for in faith will be given us: the very thing, not

something else or something better. At the end of his life, Lewis concluded that the

absolute promises of B are made to persons of very advanced relationship with God.Such promises apply to prayers of prophets, apostles, missionaries or healers and occur

only when the one who prays, does so as Gods fellow-worker. (p.43)

The rest of us are to pray with faith, but make our requests conditional, without anyassurance that we shall receive what we ask. For some people the real struggle is to

reach and retain a lower level of faith: faith that we will be heard, faith that we will notbe ignored, faith that God will listen to our prayers, will take them into account, and

faith to go on believing that there is a Listener at all

Prayer is Request. The essence of request, as distinct from compulsion, is that it may

or may not be granted. And if an infinitely wise Being listens to the requests of finiteand foolish creatures, of course He will sometimes grant and sometimes refuse them

CS Lewis, The Efficacy of Prayer(p.43)

Intercessory Prayer

Lewis believed that intercessory prayer was obligatory for the Christian, especially the

prayer for our enemies. Lewis found it very difficult to pray for Hitler and Stalin,however he had to constantly remind himself that they too were people for whom

Christ died and therefore he ought to wish for their salvation. The second aspect that

helped him in praying for his enemies was to reflect on his own acts of cruelty and torecall that under different conditions, he might have turned into someone like Hitler or

Stalin.


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50-92

Intercessory prayer, he believed, should not consist of supplying information to God: I

have heard a man offer prayer for a sick person which really amounted to a diagnosisfollowed by advice as how God should treat the patient. He was able to include many

people on his prayer list because he did not spend so much time informing God what

God already knew.

People often pray for a certain event to occur, but then have the thought cross their

minds that actually the event has already been decided one way or another. Lewis saysthat such a thought is no reason to cease praying. In a sense, the outcome of that event

has already been decided before the creation of the world (in terms of linear time), but

in Gods eternal present, one of the factors contributing to that decision may be this

very prayer we are now offering.

Gods Grace and Our Goodness

But the truth is God has not told us what His arrangements about other people are. Wedo know that no man can be saved except through Christ; we do not know that only

those who know Him can be saved through Him. (p.56)

If any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oaths sake, it is by me that he has

truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if a man do acruelty in my name, then though he says the name of Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves

and by Tash his deed is accepted

Need-love says of a woman I cannot live without herGift-love longs to give her happiness, comfort, protectionif possible wealth

Appreciative love gazes and holds its breath and is silent, rejoices that such a wondershould exist even if it is not for him

Storge

Familial affection it is a gift-love, but can also be need-love. We do not choose the

storge relationship. They are not based on attractive personalities or shared interests. Itis the kind of love that develops over time between roommates who wouldnt care

about each other were they not assigned to the same room. It is the same love that can

develop over time for a dog or a cat.

Philia

Friendship. Philia is selective and voluntary. It is based on shared interests and

activities. It is not a need-love. It is not essential to existence. Friendship isunnecessary, like philosophy, like art It has no survival value; rather it is one of

those things which give value to survival. Friendship is not just companionship,

having lots of friends one enjoys spending time with. Rather, it is a deep and lastingconnection grounded in something the persons have in common. Friendship is about

something, not someoneit is shared interest or hobbies. You become a mans friend

without knowing or caring whether he is married or single or how he earns his living.


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93-138

The ancients considered it the greatest of human loves. Lewis calls it the greatest of

worldly virtues and the chief happiness of life.

Eros

Being in love - it is a delighted preoccupation with anothers person total being, a

soaring devotion, a seemingly permanent and total commitment, exalted andoverwhelming. It is an emotion and emotions fluctuate. Romantic love is full of desire,

not for sensory pleasure but for a person; the lover desires to be in the beloveds

presence, but also to contemplate the beloved. to go on thinking of her. The desirecan come to include a sexual dimension, but eros and sexuality are not identical:

sexual experience can occur without ErosandEros include other things besides

sexual activity.

These three are natural loves, and being natural they are subject to corruption.

Storge can degenerate into rudeness, insensitivity and the need to be needed. Here lies

one who lived for others;/ Now she has peace, and so have they. It can also turn intojealousy.

Philia can lead to a sense of pride, especially when you become to exclude those who

dont belong to the inner ring.

Eros can become a sort of religion where everything is compromised, chastity, justice

and charity, for the sake of love: It is for loves sake that I have neglected my parents

left my childrencheated on my partner

Agape

Unselfish love

The Church

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the

main. John Donne

Jesus is our friend, but not our pal (our equal).

The Church is a body, composed of different and complementary members,

cooperating with each other as interdependent part of the whole.It is not a club made up of merely units, interchangeable and expendable.

We need the church because it reminds us of what we believe and guards against

erroneous teaching.

Making Sense out of Suffering

God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains:

it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world


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Gods knowledge of what ultimate good consists, goes far beyond our comprehension.We do not have enough information to build a case that God could or should have

saved an individual or a community from pain or grief. We must trust what we know

about Gods character, though in the midst of suffering, that pain may be difficult. We

cannot see all ends because we are limited, therefore we cannot see how earthquakes,tsunamis and the human suffering caused by it, may serve any purpose at all. But

Gods designs are beyond our understanding.

The conflict is not between faith and reason but between faith and sight. It is often the

emotion, not the intellect, that gets in the way of faith or that cerates doubt about faith.

The practice of Faith means deciding to hold on to what we have assented tointellectually, despite changes in our emotions or situations.

Death

Many people are squeamish about death; they avoid thinking or talking about it if at all

possible, or hide it behind pleasant language (passed away).

CS Lewis said: There areonly three things we can do about death: to desire it, tofear it, or to ignore it

A beautiful death is an act which consummates the earthly life, not as so often an eventthat merely stops it (p.195)

A world is not meant to last forever, much less a race, that is not Maleldils way

Out of the Silent Planet

Do you not know that all worlds will die? ...All worlds draw to an end; except Aslansown country Jewel the Unicorn, The Last Battle

Regarding the end of the world: There will be wars and rumors of wars and all kinds

of catastrophes, as there always are. Things will be, in that sense, normal precisely

because we cannot predict the moment, we must be ready at all moments.

Christianity is both a world-denying religion, trusting our treasure to another world,

and a world-affirming religion, deeply involving in healing the sick, caring for thepoor, developing the arts, improving agriculture. The world, and societies within it,

cannot be made perfect; but we are obliged to make them as near perfect as possible

and continue to do so until the end of our individual lives or the end of the world.

Regarding death in Narnia: all their life in this world and all their adventures in

Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at least they were beginning

Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes onforever: in which every chapter is better than the one before. (p.125)

Regarding the resurrection of the body: the resurrected Jesus provides an insight of


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what resurrected humans will be like. His body could be seen, touched, could consume

food, and yet it could pass through walls or suddenly vanish from sight. It was notrecognizable in the same way it was before. By going to prepare a place for us,

Lewis thinks Jesus meant that he would create that whole new Nature which will

provide the environment or conditions for His glorified humanity and, in Him, for

ous.

Reason is the organ of truth; imagination is the organ of meaning.

Book Suggestions:

Planets in Peril: A Critical Study of CS Lewiss Ransom Trilogy by David Downing

The Scientifiction Novels of CS Lewis Jared Lobdell

Finding the Landlord: A Guidebook to CS Lewis Pilgrims Regress by Kathryn

Lindskoog

Bareface: A Guide to CS Lewis Last Novel Doris Myers

Reason and Imagination in CS Lewis: A Study of Till We Have Faces by Peter

Schakel

Schakel - Is Your Lord Large Enough? (2008)

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