The difference between Catholics and Protestants according to CS Lewis

[Resha Caner]

I dunno. This may be one of those rare occasions when I disagree with Lewis. Maybe it's because as I read that (long) paragraph, I see Lutherans walking the middle road between the two states he's describing. Like his characterization of the Catholics, we believe Christianity involves a physical interaction with God - not the "spiritual" or symbolic stuff that seems just empty words. But also like his characterization of Protestants, we don't believe a human institution can take control of that interaction to make it "bricks and mortar" - not the pretending that one man sitting in a specific chair has divine powers yet somehow isn't divine.

 

[afishamongmany]

So I'm wondering - when CSL says, referring to the allegoric/symbolic paradigms, “Indeed, this difference is the root out of which all other differences between the two religions grow.”, is he overstretching? I find it interesting that he speaks of “two religions”. I'm wondering if rather the preferences for two different modes of expression itself indicates two different roots? One way of exploring this, I suppose, would be to study the presence and use of these paradigms in both the OT and NT.

It's also interesting that CSL in saying, “The proper corruptions of each Church tell the same tale. When Catholicism goes bad it becomes the world-old, world-wide religio of amulets and holy places and priestcraft; Protestantism, in its corresponding decay, becomes a vague mist of ethical platitudes.” is recognizing the fallibility of both 'religions' and distancing himself from those extremes.
Resha Caner you nominate Lutheranism for the middle ground -
"I see Lutherans walking the middle road between the two states he's describing.",
but wasn't CSL the archetypal, middle of the road Anglican and isn't Anglicanism the middle of the road between Catholicism and Protestantism?

Or am I allegorically overstretching?
><>

 

[Not David]

*sighs*
Nobody cares about the Orthodox.

 

[Vicomte13]

That's what I said. It looks like a wafer, but it is in fact Jesus, to the Catholic. Bow down and worship the wafer, your savior.

That's what we do when we place communion host in a monstrance, place the monstrance on the altar in a silent and incensed church, and kneel before it and pray to it, Jesus present, visible to the eye, looking like a wafer. God is exposed in the sanctuary, on the altar.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

So I'm wondering - when CSL says, referring to the allegoric/symbolic paradigms, “Indeed, this difference is the root out of which all other differences between the two religions grow.”, is he overstretching? I find it interesting that he speaks of “two religions”. I'm wondering if rather the preferences for two different modes of expression itself indicates two different roots? One way of exploring this, I suppose, would be to study the presence and use of these paradigms in both the OT and NT.

It's also interesting that CSL in saying, “The proper corruptions of each Church tell the same tale. When Catholicism goes bad it becomes the world-old, world-wide religio of amulets and holy places and priestcraft; Protestantism, in its corresponding decay, becomes a vague mist of ethical platitudes.” is recognizing the fallibility of both 'religions' and distancing himself from those extremes.
Resha Carnea you nominate Lutheranism for the middle ground -
"I see Lutherans walking the middle road between the two states he's describing.",
but wasn't CSL the archetypal, middle of the road Anglican and isn't Anglicanism the middle of the road between Catholicism and Protestantism?

Or am I allegorically overstretching?
><>

One of the common modes of reading the Bible in the mediaeval period was an allegorical reading. There used to be literal, tropological, anagogical and moral readings of most verses - a practice which we have mostly came to discard. Moral readings often treated biblical stories as allegories, while the anagogical and tropological interpretations uses more symbolism. Allegorically for instance, you could read Holofernes as the sin of Pride say, overthrown by Judith being the Church - widowed when with Holofernes as her Bridegroom is Christ, which Pride had supplanted here. Or Cain as Hypocrisy or Wrath, or such. You found the 'significacio' in a story, the moral point to be made, and then merely back-personify characters. They did the exact same thing with the Aeniad of Virgil, too. Much pagan mythology survived the mediaeval period merely as a vehicle of allegory, else it would have been cut root and branch. So you can't really say one form or another predominates biblically, for by doing so, you are already assuming a post-Reformation paradigm of biblical exegesis - if not assuming Scripture above Holy Tradition, which is already heading in the direction of Protestant mistrust of the Institutional.

Lewis said he was not particularly High Church or particularly Low Church, which is why he has become beloved by both evangelicals and catholics. Each can find their own side there (and on occasion not). But in this, while Lutherans and the Anglo-Catholic Anglicanism claims a 'middle path', they clearly fall on the Protestant divide on this issue to my mind. It is after all, a tendency, so while a milder form perhaps, it is still the Protestant one. The very fact of Sola Scriptura speaks against embodying religion, Sola Fide towards symbolic presentation. The outward is deemed less than what it signifies, the sacraments are fewer and aren't allegorical of Christ, Real Presence or not. For such interpretations still supposes symbolism, not the integrated spiritual and physical reality of Catholic Grace and Works, or Penance, etc. Ideas like the allegorical Sacred Heart of Jesus, come naturally to Catholics; but appears odd to Protestants or is belatedly adopted from Catholicism by the High Church element.

This is to be expected, as these traditions came to be after the apogee of Allegorical method. In works like the Romance of the Rose or such, the inner workings of man was explored by personfying them. Today, we wrap them in metaphors and symbols, in novels and such, which was made possible by allegory first making 'psychological events' intelligible historically. I think there is much truth in what Lewis said here, and trying to argue a 'middle path' misses the point. Symbolism isn't unknown to Catholicism, nor allegory to Protestants (Bunyan, Spencer, Lewis himself), but the nature of the traditions tend in opposite directions.

Lewis himself never became Catholic, though some of his closest friends were, and he held some very 'catholic' ideas, like a form of purgation. His thinking is more Protestant though, as for instance in Till we have Faces - the blood-splattered rock of Ungit is more viscerally real, but only when Orual looks beyond the wilderness in which she finds her sister, does she see the gods. But it is not an absolute rule, again, rather than a general tendency. A golden mean in other words, as the extremes are the 'degeneration' of old world religio or moral platitudes which we must avoid.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

*sighs*
Nobody cares about the Orthodox.

Lewis wrote in a western context, so understandable he would not be thinking of Orthodoxy. It simply is far less common. This is about the divide in Western Christianity though, after all. He asked four different ministers' opinions on Mere Christianity too, without even thinking of asking an orthodox priest.

If I would hazard a guess, Orthodoxy doesn't cut so cleanly here, but probably falls with Catholicism? In degeneracy, I see it more icons and peasant superficiality, rather than airy-fairy platitudes. As far as I know though, Allegory is more of a Latin spirit, as in Boethius or Martianus Capella, rather than a Greek one. I think the divide more present in potentia here, than in actuality. It is similar perhaps to Western controversies like Faith vs Works, or Free Will, that aren't as important in the East. I am speaking under correction of course, being far more familiar with the Western form of Christianity, than the Eastern one.

 

[Verv]

Dare I say it is good that Lewis does not write about the Orthodox. Not because the Orthodox don't deserve to be written about, and not because I think Lewis would do a bad job of it, but because sometimes the introduction of the third thing can become superfluous and now we are losing track of a point that is relevant for people in the Anglosphere at that time.

Besides, Orthodoxy has not been involved in this tangle between the Catholics & Protestants so much. There's a lot of important history specific to this division and it should be discussed in their own terms.

 

[Mountainmike]

That is so convoluted Sir Humphrey Appleby in Yes Minister would have been proud of that speech!
A solicitor would be proud of it.
Now own up...how many gave up after 3 or 4 lines of reading?

"The truth is not that allegory is Catholic, but that Catholicism is allegorical. Allegory consists in giving an imagined body to the immaterial ; but if, in each case, Catholicism claims already to have given it a material body, then the allegorist’s symbol will naturally resemble that material body. The whip of Penaunce is an excellent example. No Christian ever doubted that repentance involved 'penaunce’ and 'whips’ on the spiritual plane: it is when you come to material whips — to Tartuffe’s discipline in his closet — that the controversy begins. It is the same with the ‘House’ of Holinesse. No Christian doubts that those who have offered themselves to God are cut off as if by a wall from the World, are placed under a 'regula vitae' and ‘laid in easy bed’ by ‘meek Obedience’ ; but when the wall becomes one of real bricks and mortar, and the Rule one in real ink, superintended by disciplinary officials and reinforced (at times) by the power of the State, then we have reached that sort of actuality which Catholics aim at and Protestants deliberately avoid. Indeed, this difference is the root out of which all other differences between the two religions grow. The one suspects that all spiritual gifts are falsely claimed if they cannot be embodied in bricks and mortar, or official positions, or institutions: the other, that nothing retains its spirituality if incarnation is pushed to that degree and in that way. The difference about Papal infallibility is simply a form of this. The proper corruptions of each Church tell the same tale. When Catholicism goes bad it becomes the world-old, world-wide religio of amulets and holy places and priestcraft; Protestantism, in its corresponding decay, becomes a vague mist of ethical platitudes. Catholicism is accused of being much too like all the other religions; Protestantism of being insufficiently like a religion at all. Hence Plato, with his transcendent Forms, is the doctor of Protestants; Aristotle, with his immanent Forms, the doctor of Catholics. Now allegory exists, so to speak, in that region of the mind where the bifurcation has not yet occurred; for it occurs only when we reach the material world. In the world of matter. Catholics and Protestants disagree as to the kind and degree of incarnation or embodiment which we can safely try to give to the spiritual; but in the world of imagination, where allegory exists, unlimited embodiment is equally approved by both. Imagined buildings and institutions which have a strong resemblance to the actual buildings and institutions of the Church of Rome, will therefore appear, and ought to appear, in any Protestant allegory." - CS Lewis, in The Allegory of Love.

 

[URA]

This was a very interesting read, and it makes a lot of sense, but it's too new for me to say much more about it.

Thank you for sharing, this will give me something to ponder in the coming days!

 

[zippy2006]

Interesting quote, Quid. I wonder if it also spills into the faith/works identifications, with Catholics focusing more on earthly works and Protestants focusing on forensic justification and the hereafter. It might even shed light on subtly different conceptions of God, with Catholics leaning more towards pantheism and Protestants towards deism.

Catholics and Protestants disagree as to the kind and degree of incarnation or embodiment which we can safely try to give to the spiritual; but in the world of imagination, where allegory exists, unlimited embodiment is equally approved by both. Imagined buildings and institutions which have a strong resemblance to the actual buildings and institutions of the Church of Rome, will therefore appear, and ought to appear, in any Protestant allegory." - CS Lewis, in The Allegory of Love.

I think it will influence the imagination and the boundaries of imaginative orthodoxy as well, though. You can see it theologically in Barth's condemnation of the Catholic analogia entis as an invention of the Antichrist, and theological positions inevitably influence praxis and imagination, if slowly.

I am apt to call Catholics more Incarnational, and Lewis flirts with this idea when he speaks of Catholics have a greater degree of incarnation, but leaves himself an out when he says that it is also a difference of kind. Presumably Protestants would disagree that it is more Incarnational in a true sense.

...I can't help but wonder if the cleavage really centers on allegory (and in part I am thinking of Tolkien's objections). You yourself called allegory a presentation, and Lewis says it "consists in giving an imagined body..." But for Catholics it often isn't merely imagined or a presentation, it is the reality itself. This may well cause Catholicism to be more allegorical, but the precise relation of allegory to ontology seems important. Without understanding that relation it would be hard to say why Catholic thinking is more allegorical. (This isn't a criticism of Lewis, for his larger topic is allegory, not ecumenism)

 

[~Anastasia~]

*sighs*
Nobody cares about the Orthodox.

I too tend to think it's a good thing Lewis didn't try to address Orthodoxy - but a shame perhaps that he didn't know more about it.

And it's good that Orthodoxy has basically not been a part of any drift/reformation/re-reformation/etc that occurred in the west. Basically persecution has served Orthodoxy well in that it was not subjected to the kind of angst that has tormented western Christianity and torn it apart, creating any need to try to re-define and re-piece it together.

It's too bad it is so largely unknown in many places, when the reality is that worldwide it is among the largest faith umbrellas.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Interesting quote, Quid. I wonder if it also spills into the faith/works identifications, with Catholics focusing more on earthly works and Protestants focusing on forensic justification and the hereafter. It might even shed light on subtly different conceptions of God, with Catholics leaning more towards pantheism and Protestants towards deism.



I think it will influence the imagination and the boundaries of imaginative orthodoxy as well, though. You can see it theologically in Barth's condemnation of the Catholic analogia entis as an invention of the Antichrist, and theological positions inevitably influence praxis and imagination, if slowly.

I am apt to call Catholics more Incarnational, and Lewis flirts with this idea when he speaks of Catholics have a greater degree of incarnation, but leaves himself an out when he says that it is also a difference of kind. Presumably Protestants would disagree that it is more Incarnational in a true sense.

...I can't help but wonder if the cleavage really centers on allegory (and in part I am thinking of Tolkien's objections). You yourself called allegory a presentation, and Lewis says it "consists in giving an imagined body..." But for Catholics it often isn't merely imagined or a presentation, it is the reality itself. This may well cause Catholicism to be more allegorical, but the precise relation of allegory to ontology seems important. Without understanding that relation it would be hard to say why Catholic thinking is more allegorical. (This isn't a criticism of Lewis, for his larger topic is allegory, not ecumenism)

Well, Lewis came to Christianity via a form of Idealism, and as such, I don't think the difference between an 'imagined' or representation of 'reality', and Reality is such a stark divide. Lewis frequently intimates that myth or spiritual desires are in some way 'more real' than the more quotidian experience. As in his afterlife fables, things become 'more real' the deeper you go. To me, I know that my perceptions are all mediated via sense organs and nerve function if physical reality is in fact true intersubjectively, so functionally what appears real is merely my own abstraction drawn from this data. So even if true, it is perceived in the form of a mental abstraction, so the difference here between an divine allegory and its ontologic actuality doesn't seem that stark to me - but then again, I am a Protestant...

This has to do with Plato and Aristotle though, as Lewis notes, the more transcendant and the immanent, which you also connected to Pantheism and Deism. This is perhaps mirrored theologically, I agree. The ideas of a 'Spiritual Reality' beyond our own, of our actions mirroring such a deeper activity there, sound suspiciously like Plato's Cave. Our symbolic actions the shadow of deeper meaning there. As such, to think one can 'know of God' by watching the shadows dance perhaps seems understandably weird. If my spiritual perceptions are more akin to what is divine, with the added advantage of not being so encumbered by mere fallable sense-data, then trying to reconstruct the 'objective thing' casting said shadows should stress it more. For the world as we perceive it is of necessity distorted - in fact, with nerve modulation or psychologic bias and such, even physiologically we know it to be so. But then, we are back to fighting old battles, of inductive Forms we assume vs those extrapolated from the raw data we receive. What takes precedence and how do we establish epistemologic truth?

Lewis is a Protestant, and is clearly viewing this from a Protestant lens, if his schema is correct. To a Protestant, Catholicism is thus very allegorical toward spiritual truth; but from the Catholic viewpoint, this is actual reality as you noted - as the Eucharist makes very plain as an example. Perhaps this is more an example of the Ancient Unities of Barfield, where conceptually the spiritual 'essence' and the physical act has been separated by Protestantism into symbolism, while Catholicism left them undifferentiated - more akin to ancient ritual, and as Lewis noted, true allegory exists before this bifurcation really occurs. As in all things, the paradigm we bring to the table impacts the resulting conclusion we draw.

But this is a difficult problem. On reading this piece of Lewis', I noticed a lot lining up nicely to it, but there is a lot to digest. This was more an aside in a literary study on Allegory, than a theologic position, so there are many wrinkles to iron out.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

I too tend to think it's a good thing Lewis didn't try to address Orthodoxy - but a shame perhaps that he didn't know more about it.

And it's good that Orthodoxy has basically not been a part of any drift/reformation/re-reformation/etc that occurred in the west. Basically persecution has served Orthodoxy well in that it was not subjected to the kind of angst that has tormented western Christianity and torn it apart, creating any need to try to re-define and re-piece it together.

It's too bad it is so largely unknown in many places, when the reality is that worldwide it is among the largest faith umbrellas.

It seems to me as if Eastern and Western Christianity largely fought over different things. The East spent centuries fighting over the Trinity and fine gradations in the Godhead, which mostly the West missed out on (even Gothic Arianism was a late product, a barbarian fringe, after the real danger of Arianism had passed). The West became mired in faith and works, election, free will and such, though. Other controversies like Iconoclasm, first appeared in the East and only much later in the West. Eius religio cuius regio merely facilitated the shattering of Western Christianity into denomination, a by-product perhaps of the evolution of the Church into the Second Estate in the mediaeval period. In the East, with its various iterations of Caesaropapism or the later Millet system, such fractures are perhaps easier to paper over or left loosely defined in the main body, but splinter groups like the Oriental Orthodox occured now and then. In potentio, all the controversies are there in all forms of Christianity, it is about which conclusions were drawn and what left stressed or not. In this way, the very fact of the various schisms was a drift in a manner of speaking, of differences there in potential being brought into actuality. Perhaps we are all just untangling the rich tapestry of Christianity into our own little patch, but how to re-weave it, I don't know.

 

[~Anastasia~]

It seems to me as if Eastern and Western Christianity largely fought over different things. The East spent centuries fighting over the Trinity and fine gradations in the Godhead, which mostly the West missed out on (even Gothic Arianism was a late product, a barbarian fringe, after the real danger of Arianism had passed). The West became mired in faith and works, election, free will and such, though. Other controversies like Iconoclasm, first appeared in the East and only much later in the West. Eius religio cuius regio merely facilitated the shattering of Western Christianity into denomination, a by-product perhaps of the evolution of the Church into the Second Estate in the mediaeval period. In the East, with its various iterations of Caesaropapism or the later Millet system, such fractures are perhaps easier to paper over or left loosely defined in the main body, but splinter groups like the Oriental Orthodox occured now and then. In potentio, all the controversies are there in all forms of Christianity, it is about which conclusions were drawn and what left stressed or not. In this way, the very fact of the various schisms was a drift in a manner of speaking, of differences there in potential being brought into actuality. Perhaps we are all just untangling the rich tapestry of Christianity into our own little patch, but how to re-weave it, I don't know.

By the way, I didn't mean to imply that the East never had a controversy. Far from it, lol. Of course controversies existed even among the Apostles.

I think you are right that our controversies are of a different nature. It makes it very difficult to consider the way the east thinks and the way the west thinks - with how these align within a particular dynamic. It's easier to consider the two separately. And will lead to more accurate understanding as well, IMO.

Fortunately the efforts to hammer out an articulated understanding of God Himself within the Holy Trinity occurred early enough that it was essentially inherited by almost all, such that we can agree on that much.

 

[~Anastasia~]

But I will also add ... the differences in the ways we think I think are responsible for why we had different controversies.

There was never a need for us to fight over the Holy Mysteries, for example - because we simply accept what we received and don't try to explain scientifically or philosophically what is mystery.

And our understanding of the nature of man and sin has prevented many of the other theologies and controversies from developing.

And our view that schism of the Church is among the worst of sins made it an absolute last resort for us, so that has affected the progression of events.

 

[zippy2006]

Well, Lewis came to Christianity via a form of Idealism, and as such, I don't think the difference between an 'imagined' or representation of 'reality', and Reality is such a stark divide. Lewis frequently intimates that myth or spiritual desires are in some way 'more real' than the more quotidian experience. As in his afterlife fables, things become 'more real' the deeper you go. To me, I know that my perceptions are all mediated via sense organs and nerve function if physical reality is in fact true intersubjectively, so functionally what appears real is merely my own abstraction drawn from this data. So even if true, it is perceived in the form of a mental abstraction, so the difference here between an divine allegory and its ontologic actuality doesn't seem that stark to me - but then again, I am a Protestant...

This has to do with Plato and Aristotle though, as Lewis notes, the more transcendant and the immanent, which you also connected to Pantheism and Deism. This is perhaps mirrored theologically, I agree. The ideas of a 'Spiritual Reality' beyond our own, of our actions mirroring such a deeper activity there, sound suspiciously like Plato's Cave. Our symbolic actions the shadow of deeper meaning there. As such, to think one can 'know of God' by watching the shadows dance perhaps seems understandably weird. If my spiritual perceptions are more akin to what is divine, with the added advantage of not being so encumbered by mere fallable sense-data, then trying to reconstruct the 'objective thing' casting said shadows should stress it more. For the world as we perceive it is of necessity distorted - in fact, with nerve modulation or psychologic bias and such, even physiologically we know it to be so. But then, we are back to fighting old battles, of inductive Forms we assume vs those extrapolated from the raw data we receive. What takes precedence and how do we establish epistemologic truth?

Lewis is a Protestant, and is clearly viewing this from a Protestant lens, if his schema is correct. To a Protestant, Catholicism is thus very allegorical toward spiritual truth; but from the Catholic viewpoint, this is actual reality as you noted - as the Eucharist makes very plain as an example. Perhaps this is more an example of the Ancient Unities of Barfield, where conceptually the spiritual 'essence' and the physical act has been separated by Protestantism into symbolism, while Catholicism left them undifferentiated - more akin to ancient ritual, and as Lewis noted, true allegory exists before this bifurcation really occurs. As in all things, the paradigm we bring to the table impacts the resulting conclusion we draw.

But this is a difficult problem. On reading this piece of Lewis', I noticed a lot lining up nicely to it, but there is a lot to digest. This was more an aside in a literary study on Allegory, than a theologic position, so there are many wrinkles to iron out.

Thanks, this is a great reply and I agree with most of what you say here. It is interesting that Lewis was a kind of Idealist with a Platonic streak, and that angle dredges up all sorts of difficult questions.

I agree that the difference between a divine allegory and its ontologic actuality isn't so stark, but I was thinking more about allegory which is derived from human minds. Of course the legitimacy of human allegory will ultimately rest on one's belief regarding divine allegory. Perhaps part of my problem is an insufficient understanding of Protestantism as a whole. Is Lewis' Idealism and Platonism characteristic of Protestantism? It certainly is in the sense that direct, unmediated access to the divine is favored and too much mediation is seen as dangerous, but for some Protestants even Platonism seems to encroach upon transcendence. For Protestants such as Barth even divine allegory--in the strong sense of God infusing images of himself into creation--seems to be off-limits as contrary to radical divine transcendence.

The idea of "true allegory" derived from Barfield is quite interesting. I will have to read more about that. It does seem right to say that the spiritual and physical are less differentiated in Catholicism. I don't know how familiar you are with Chesterton, but I can't help but wonder if this was part of his transition from Anglicanism to Catholicism, given how well his fictional works show forth the "Ancient Unities." He doesn't mention that aspect in his essay explaining his transition, but he also intentionally makes that essay more abstract and impersonal than this consideration would require.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Thanks, this is a great reply and I agree with most of what you say here. It is interesting that Lewis was a kind of Idealist with a Platonic streak, and that angle dredges up all sorts of difficult questions.

I agree that the difference between a divine allegory and its ontologic actuality isn't so stark, but I was thinking more about allegory which is derived from human minds. Of course the legitimacy of human allegory will ultimately rest on one's belief regarding divine allegory. Perhaps part of my problem is an insufficient understanding of Protestantism as a whole. Is Lewis' Idealism and Platonism characteristic of Protestantism? It certainly is in the sense that direct, unmediated access to the divine is favored and too much mediation is seen as dangerous, but for some Protestants even Platonism seems to encroach upon transcendence. For Protestants such as Barth even divine allegory--in the strong sense of God infusing images of himself into creation--seems to be off-limits as contrary to radical divine transcendence.

The idea of "true allegory" derived from Barfield is quite interesting. I will have to read more about that. It does seem right to say that the spiritual and physical are less differentiated in Catholicism. I don't know how familiar you are with Chesterton, but I can't help but wonder if this was part of his transition from Anglicanism to Catholicism, given how well his fictional works show forth the "Ancient Unities." He doesn't mention that aspect in his essay explaining his transition, but he also intentionally makes that essay more abstract and impersonal than this consideration would require.

Protestantism isn't a very coherent thing as a category, hence all the denominations. Idealism however, has been very influential within it, but it very much depends how much from group to group. I think a big part thereof is the idea of God as Author, with predestination and so forth, especially stressed in Calvinism.

Both German and British Idealism were dominating philosophic currents of the 18th and 19th centuries though, and clear exponents like Bishop Berkeley, or Kant, did it from within a religious viewpoint. Nietszhe said Kant had Theologian's Blood. Even Kierkegaard seems to have been influenced significantly by it. So Protestantism was established in a more Idealist mileau in general, versus the long Scholastic and Aristotlean heritage of Catholicism.

That being said, Lewis wasn't a fan of Karl Barth:

"Even its theology–for that is a most distressing discovery I have been making these last two terms as I have been getting to know more and more of the Christian element in Oxford. Did you fondly believe–as I did–that where you got among Christians, there, at least, you would escape (as behind a wall from a keen wind) from the horrible ferocity and grimness of modern thought? Not a bit of it. I blundered into it all, imagining that I was the upholder of the old, stern doctrines against modern quasi-Christian slush: only to find that my ‘sternness’ was their ‘slush’. They’ve all been reading a dreadful man called Karl Barth, who seems the right opposite number to Karl Marx. ‘Under judgment’ is their great expression. They all talk like Covenanters or Old Testament prophets. They don’t think human reason or human conscience of any value at all: they maintain, as stoutly as Calvin, that there’s no reason why God’s dealings should appear just (let alone, merciful) to us: and they maintain the doctrine that all our righteousness is filthy rags with a fierceness and sincerity which is like a blow in the face.

Sometimes the results are refreshing: as when Canon Raven (whom you and Dyson and I sat under at Ely) is sharply told in a review in Theology that ‘it is high time persons of this sort learned that the enjoyment of a chair of theology at Cambridge does not carry with it a right to criticise the Word of God’–that’s the kind of rap on the knuckles which has not been delivered for a hundred years!

But the total effect is withering. Of two things I am now persuaded. (1) That a real red-hot Christian revival, with iron dogma, stern discipline, and ruthless asceticism, is very much more possible than I had supposed. (2) That if it comes, people like us will not find it nearly so agreeable as we had expected. ‘Why have they desired the Day of the Lord? It is darkness not light.’ I have no doubt the young gentlemen are substantially right: this is the goods. We ought to have expected that if the real thing came it would make one sit up (you remember Chesterton ‘Never invoke gods unless you really want them to appear. It annoys them very much.’)"


What I have read of Chesterton I like, but I certainly have not read him to the extent that I have read Lewis. High Church Anglicanism does seem to be the low road to Rome though. Barfield wrote that the Incarnation was "the solution to the divorce of the subjective and objective world which had recently arisen in human experience", so maybe?

 

[Verv]

(1) I think the reason why Protestantism can be overly ideal is because they were founded on opposing a lot of the ingrained doctrine that was labeled as natural theology by the Catholics. They didn't respond so much by emphasizing the inability to construct a natural theology, but rather, they constructed alternative natural theologies.

Jay Dyer rightfully pointed out in his podcast that there can be no rigorous, idealistic natural theology that is truly universal, and this is perhaps the biggest difference between Western & Eastern Christianity. This is a very enormous topic when you think about it.

(2) Concerning a Christian revival...

I agree, and it is definitely already happening.

I think that ideologies and religions that suffer from being bloated & dead always have a way of revitalizing themselves eventually. Islam would be a terrific example: in the 19th century, a hardcore Islamic identity was something of a joke. Every Middle Eastern city was incredibly decadent and there was no real Islamic power to speak of...

As a result, the Muslim Bortherhood forms and the last half of the 20th century gives birth to hardcore Islamic movements, both Sunni & Shi'a.

We will see something like this but I am sure that it is going to occur very differently because the ingredients themselves are very different.

 

[~Anastasia~]

Do you think it's possible that Protestantism in general tends to be idealistic because it is so very tied to "faith/belief" (often strongly divorcing faith/belief from what it views as "works" in order to hold to the way modern Christians often understand "faith alone")?

I'm not sure if that's a "cause" (though I think it's very possible) or merely a condition that fosters or exists alongside?

Forgive me, I hope I'm not offending anyone. But the whole "faith vs works" debate brought about largely through changed definitions and misunderstandings seems to predispose people to a very mental and individualistic Christian paradigm, which seems to at least foster idealism?

And I may be understanding some of these terms differently than other posters here too. So maybe my comment makes no sense to the discussion.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Do you think it's possible that Protestantism in general tends to be idealistic because it is so very tied to "faith/belief" (often strongly divorcing faith/belief from what it views as "works" in order to hold to the way modern Christians often understand "faith alone")?

I'm not sure if that's a "cause" (though I think it's very possible) or merely a condition that fosters or exists alongside?

Forgive me, I hope I'm not offending anyone. But the whole "faith vs works" debate brought about largely through changed definitions and misunderstandings seems to predispose people to a very mental and individualistic Christian paradigm, which seems to at least foster idealism?

And I may be understanding some of these terms differently than other posters here too. So maybe my comment makes no sense to the discussion.

No, I think this a fair observation. Faith vs Works certainly brings to the foreground the difference between acts and the underlying mental framework, and that they aren't necessarily the same. But this is already present in the Gospels, where even looking at a woman and desiring her is already sin. The world of forms, of a presumed Perfect form of acting, of always doing as one ought to, is suggested. How to connect that world, which we are presuming to be the Good, of God, with ours, depends how this Form mediates or juxtaposes to daily life. What the Greeks called Methexis.

Peter Abelard and Bernard of Clairvaux already had this disconnect though: With the former in his nominalism and quest for rationalising faith and stressing intention; which the latter saw as dangerous - what we would call subjective faith - and prompting his vendetta.

Certainly though, if your mental 'image' of faith is all that justifies, why not assume the mental sphere or numenous to be paramount? I can see it encouraging Idealism in Protestant circles. Someone once said that everyone is either a devotee of Plato or of Aristotle... without even realising it. I am rambling, but I would concede it related, but don't really think it causative. The Allegory/Symbolism divide that Lewis noted seems a more ready cause for that, I think; a divide mirrored in the decline of Allegorical representation in secular literature with the Reformation.