"There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him. And the higher and mightier it is in the natural order, the more demonic it will be if it rebels" (Lewis 106).
This part of the paragraph caught my attention because this passage is a point Lewis has been making all along through this book and even in The Lion, The Witch and The Waredrobe. Our ambitions, goals, activities and what have you are good when our eyes are focused on God. These things become evil or bad when our eyes turn away from God and look toward ourselves. The same point was made in LWW with the character (I forget his name) who worshiped Tash but in the end, was really doing good for Aslan.
What I have been puzzled with lately goes back to our dicussions about inclusivism and exclusivism. In the case of LWW, Lewis seems to be an advocate for inclusivism, saying that this character that did not know Aslan can still be "saved" because he still did good. But with the above passage, I feel like Lewis is supporting exclusivism. With exclusivism, we have to believe and belong to the only good, God. In the above passage, it says good is only done or reached when you see God. With inclusivism, you don't need to belong to the only good, God. You just have to do good.
Correct me if I am wrong. As I am sure I have said before, this stuff confusses me. But where does Lewis stand? Or is that really important? I think it is. What do you think?
Sunday, November 30, 2008
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