I believe in Christianity

[soso]

Reflections: Christianity Makes Sense Of The World
By C.S. Lewis Institute on December 1, 2013 Reflections, Reflections 2013, C.S. Lewis Institute

https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/resources/reflections-december-2013/

"I believe in Christianity /as I believe that the Sun has risen

/not only because I see it /but because by it I see everything else.”

This famous quote by C.S. Lewis comes /from a paper given to The Oxford Socratic Club /entitled, Is Theology Poetry?

Lewis sets out /to answer the question,

Is [the imagination of followers of Jesus] so aroused and satisfied /by the poetry of the Gospel message

/that they have mistaken [intellectual assent] /for mere aesthetic enjoyment?

In other words, has [the romantic attraction of the story of Jesus] trumped [the place of reason] /in coming to faith?

Lewis writes,

I was taught /at school, when I had done a sum, to “prove my answer”.

[The proof or verification of my Christian answer to the cosmic sum] is this.

When I accept Theology I may find difficulties, at this point or that, in harmonizing it with some particular truths

//which are imbedded /in the mythical cosmology /derived from science.

But I can get in, or allow for, science as a whole.

Granted that Reason is prior to matter and that [the light of the primal Reason] illuminates finite minds,

I can understand [how men should come /by observation and inference, to know a lot about the universe () they live in.

If, on the other hand, I swallow the scientific cosmology as a whole, then not only can I not fit /in Christianity,

but I cannot even fit /in science.

If minds are wholly dependent on brains, and brains on bio-chemistry,

and bio-chemistry (in the long run) on the meaningless flux of the atoms,

I cannot understand [how the thought of those minds should have any more significance

than the sound of the wind /in the trees].

And this is to me the final test.

This is how I distinguish [dreaming and waking].

When I am awake I can, in some degree, account for and study my dream. 

[The dragon that pursued me last night] can be fitted into my waking world.

I know that there are such things as dreams:

I know that I had eaten an indigestible dinner:

I know that a man of my reading might be expected to dream of dragons.

* reading /noun (UNDERSTANDING) ; the way in which you understand something:

But while in the night mare I could not have fitted /in my waking experience.

The waking world is judged more real /because it can thus contain the dreaming world:

the dreaming world is judged less real /because it cannot contain the waking one.

For the same reason I am certain that in passing from the scientific point of view to the theological,

I have passed from dream to waking.

Christian theology can fit in science, art, morality, and the sub-Christian religions.

[The scientific point of view] cannot fit in any of these things, not even science itself.

I believe in Christianity /as I believe that the Sun has risen

/not only because I see it /but because by it I see everything else.

This Christmas season, know that /while the Nativity story of the birth of Christ is poetic, beautiful and powerful,

that it is also true and took place in the midst of real time and history.

Once we come to know Jesus /as the actual Lord and Savior of this world,

then everything else begins to make more sense.

“Then they asked him, “What must we do /to do the works () God requires?”
Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one () he has sent.” (JOHN 6:28-29 NIV)