The perspective from which we view a situation obviously affects the way we react to the situation. This basic idea, while seemingly simple leads to so many other questions, some of which are addressed in “Meditation in a Toolshed”. Lewis seems to advocate for a sort of middle ground which errs on the side of looking along. Today’s society tends to err on the side of looking at, although there is another contingent of people in the religious world that is, perhaps, more dangerous than the “look at” group. Many people in religious settings today advocate for an all accepting, lacking in consequences type of religion. It does not matter what god one believes in or even if someone believes in a god at all. All that really matters is the goodness of the person. What may be true for them may not be true for me, but that is alright because everything is relative. As such, there are many houses of worship that do not advocate a subscription to a set of beliefs. This philosophy takes Lewis’s idea in “Meditation in a Toolshed” to an extreme. While it is important to recognize that we, as Christians, need to be accepting of others, we also must not forget that the only way to be saved is by belief in Jesus Christ.
While Lewis acknowledges that the way one views things sometimes changes based on the situation, he would not agree that one way can never be better than the other. Lewis states at the end of the essay that “We do not know in advance whether the lover or the psychologist is giving the more correct account of love, or whether both accounts are equally correct in different ways, or whether bother are equally wrong (3).” The best way for us to determine which way to look at a situation is to use the tools we have been given. Religious and intellectual leaders, parents, teachers, and peers can all help us look at situations in different ways, but the only infallible authority will be the Bible. Unfortunately, the Bible does not explicitly state the answers to many of these deep questions, so we must do our best to assess situations and pick the correct perspective.
So true. This brings up the really good point that we must work together when we ask the deep questions about life and theology. Without each other, our own viewpoints can become distorted and watered down from the original image. Faith and Christianity is a community action, and we must work together with each other, along with God's word, to get the best understanding of a situation.
ReplyDeleteWell summarized! I thought it was interesting, though, that you brought up the "contingent of people in the religious world" as the ones who use Lewis' "looking along" to the extreme. I definitely agree that this group is prevalent, proven by the sheer number of different religious practices in the world today, but I don't think they are necessarily the only ones who use it most prevalently in society. I think that our post-modern (or post-post-modern, whichever) culture expands the idea that "whatever you feel is right must be right for you" to all areas of life, including but not restricted to religious practice. For example, taking drugs may be unhealthy, looking at it, but our culture would tend to say that if you feel that you express your individuality through using, you should pursue it nonetheless. Arguments like these seem to abolish all absolute truths by adhering only to our in-the-moment experiences. This was just another aspect to what you wrote that I took away from class, and that made me thankful for a God who is above all shifts in thought and our petty "truths" we seem to change every 50 years.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't thought at all about the bible as a frame, interesting insight. Now I see that biblical knowledge would certainly be a way to look at any situation.
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