Thursday, November 10, 2016

From the archives: C.S. Lewis on Peacemaking and Pain

First posted November, 2009
"To ask that God's love should be content with us as we are is to ask that God should cease to be God: because He is what He is, His love must, in the nature of things, be impeded and repelled, by certain stains in our present character, and because He already loves us He must labour to make us lovable....We are not merely imperfect creatures who must be improved: we are, as Newman said, rebels who must lay down our arms."--C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
 "Lest we should think this a hardship, this kind of good begins on a level far above the creatures, for God Himself, as Son, from all eternity renders back to God as Father by filial obedience the being which the Father by paternal love eternally generates in the Son."--The Problem of Pain
 "Indignation at others' sufferings, though a generous passion, needs to be well managed lest it steal away patience and humanity from those who suffer and plant anger and cynicism in their stead."--The Problem of Pain
 "I think the best results are obtained by people who work quietly away at limited objectives, such as the abolition of the slave trade, or prison reform, or factory acts, or tuberculosis, not by those who think they can achieve universal justice, or health, or peace. I think the art of life consists in tackling each immediate evil as well as we can....the dentist who can stop one toothache has deserved better of humanity than all the men who think they have some scheme for producing a perfectly healthy race."--from "Why I Am Not a Pacifist" (C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory)

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