Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Great Quote: C.S. Lewis on the Law and the Need to Be "Born Again"

The very activities for which we were created are, while we
live on earth, variously impeded: by evil in ourselves or in
others. Not to practice them is to abandon our humanity. To
practice them spontaneously and delightfully is not yet
possible. This situation creates the category of duty, the
whole specifically moral realm.
   It exists to be transcended. Here is the paradox of
Christianity. As practical imperatives for here and now, the
two great commandments have to be translated "Behave as if you
loved God and man." For no man can love because he is told to.
Yet obedience on this practical level is not really obedience
at all. And if a man really loved God and man, once again this
would hardly be obedience; for if he did, he would be unable to
help it. Thus the command really says to us, "Ye must be born
again." Till then, we have duty, morality, the Law. A
schoolmaster, as St. Paul says, is to bring us to Christ. We
must expect no more of it than of a schoolmaster; we must allow
it no less.
   ... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on
         Prayer

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