31 August 2020

Luther and Lewis

Just as God in the beginning of creation made the world out of nothing, whence He is called the Creator and the Almighty, so His manner of working continues unchanged. Even now and to the end of the world, all His works are such that out of that which is nothing, worthless, despised, wretched, and dead, He makes that which is something, precious, honorable, blessed, and living.—Martin Luther, Magnificat, AE 21:299

The difficulty of converting an uneducated man nowadays lies in his complacency. Popularized science, the conventions or ‘unconventions’ of his immediate circle, party programmes, etc., enclose him in a tiny windowless universe which he mistakes for the only possible universe. There are no distant horizons, no mysteries. He thinks everything has been settled. A cultured person, on the other hand, is almost comopelled to be aware that reality is very odd and that the ultimate truth, whatever is may be, must have the characteristics of strangeness—must be something that would seem remote and fantastic to the uncultured.—C. S. Lewis, Business of Heaven, p. 222.

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