Comments on: Who Do You Love?

By: Scott Blum

Scott Blum — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 01:48:03 +0000

What can I say, C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton are perhaps my two favorite modern authors! Some of their words just got burned into my brain it seems.

You raise very interesting questions about the mind. My gut reaction is to observe that intelligence and wisdom seem to be quite independent of each other in human beings. Of the two, wisdom seems to me far more valuable. And though it can be acquired, there’s no sure way to get it. Jeremiah 17:5-10 comes to mind, the central quote of interest being “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?”

By: Nicholas Graham

Nicholas Graham — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:47:19 +0000

Wow, you share some very powerful statements, indeed.

I see your point about not worshiping the god within, as only to invite self-deception and all the rest of the psychological webs we weave.

However, I wonder if there is some merit and/or advantage to at least work with what you have; i.e. the mind within. The mind is so powerful and of course limited at the same time. To understand these limitations and tricks one may be able to make use of the mind as a tool for higher-achievement or perhaps self-realization. I don’t really know.

I do not feel committed either way if giving attention to the god within is beneficial or detrimental, however I do agree that WORSHIPING the god within spells trouble and that to worship anything else besides would be a step in the right direction. [Makes me interested in the writings of this C.K. Chesterton!}.

Interesting way to phrase this self-love as “animal self-love”. Hmmmm… Gives food for thought.

By: Scott Blum

Scott Blum — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:19:57 +0000

I tend to hold to the view espoused by C.S. Lewis in the Screwtape Letters: “He wants each man, in the long run, to be able to recognise all creatures, even himself, as glorious and excellent things. He wants to kill their animal self-love as soon as possible; but it is His long term- policy I fear, to restore to them a new kind of self love- a charity and gratitude for all selves, including their own; when they have really learned to love their neighbours as themselves, they will be allowed to love themselves as their neighbours.”

But I don’t think that’s something that can really happen in this lifetime. We’re not home yet, and it seems to me this kind of thinking is jumping the gun. If a person focuses on killing the animal self-love and concerning himself with loving others, then in due course I think God will work things out. To suppose that we can ourselves achieve that latter kind of self-love in this life, I fear is to invite deception. We may be merely dressing up that old animal self-love in fancy clothes.

I’m also very leery of the term “God-self” as I don’t really see that concept in Scripture. I feel more like C.K. Chesterton’s statement that “Of all horrible religions the most horrible is the worship of the god within. Any one who knows any body knows how it would work; any one who knows any one from the Higher Thought Centre knows how it does work. That Jones shall worship the god within him turns out ultimately to mean that Jones shall worship Jones. Let Jones worship the sun or moon, anything rather than the Inner Light; let Jones worship cats or crocodiles, if he can find any in his street, but not the god within.”