Integrative Essay

This world is far from ordinary. It is a strange place, sculpted and personalized by a great God with boundless creativity who is quite literally the definition of love (I John 4:8). This, of course makes the world complicated. For love is the great risk. Love asks for reciprocation. Love asks for a willing affection. And this demands giving freedom away, trusting that the other will voluntary love. This class has helped me to appreciate the supreme risk of the way this world was created.

The sad part of the risk is that we have failed to love in return. We have become caught up in the enthusiasm of gratifying our own desires. We go for the obvious happiness, but we always are left cold, because we are kicking against the order that the world has been set in, the order of whole and complete love. This divergence causes us real pain. Although we understand that this is not the way it’s supposed to be, our longing is constantly beaten down by our preoccupation with ourselves.

But this is where things become really strange. Not only is God adamant about giving us freedom to do whatever we like, but he is determined to have us, though all Hell stand against him. You see, God is majestic, but he will not limit himself by dignity. He will do anything, he will disturb the world he has created, he will speak to shepherds in the Sinai, he will limit himself to a tabernacle. Finally he dwelled among us, to be stripped naked and hammered to a stout piece of wood for the derision of the world. This is a God who is not content with the way things are.

This strange world is the one that this class taught me about. Plantinga’s book provided a framework while C. S. Lewis filled it in with fine style. The incredible beauty of God’s plan for his world was brought wonderfully to light by this class.

Plantinga refers to creation as being an outpouring of imaginative love. Creation is an expression of God’s character. We are God’s art: although he didn’t need us, he loves us as he loves himself, for we are an expression of himself. Art, because it is an expression, is also a way to convey a message. Creation, as art, is God’s first tendril of communication, speaking to us of his glory. This places a great responsibility on us as part of God’s creation to convey God’s message, to bear the weight of his glory. C.S. Lewis understood that this weight of glory that each person carries should influence our actions. “There are no ordinary people, Lewis writes, “It is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit-immortal horrors or everlasting splendours” (The Weight of Glory 9). As God’s artistic expressions we must understand both the gravity of conveying God’s message and the seriousness, mixed with merriment, with which we must engage the world, and especially the people around us as God’s creation.

The tragic beauty of God’s creation is that he gave us a choice. In his desire for reciprocated voluntary love he gave us a choice. Yet we fail him because we limit ourselves to immediate happiness. “We are half-hearted creatures,” says Lewis, “fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us” (The Weight of Glory 1). Because we are people limited in our perception, we attempt to satiate ourselves with temporal pleasures that never really satisfy the great longing for perfect love that we have inherited from God. This misguided desire of ours cleaves us from God. Petty selfish desires make us embarrassed, and as Wormwood points out, fill us with a cloud of guilt that makes us reluctant to seek communion with our creator (The Screwtape Letters Letter XII).

So we have insulted our creator terribly. He has lavished his artistic love on us. He has created with his glory and we toss it aside every day in our disregard for his creation, in our exploitation of those who bear his image. The whole affair is really rather embarrassing, damnably embarrassing, and yet God would not have us despair in our own meagre worlds that we have created. In our embarrassment we try to escape from God’s invitation of love, fleeing the light. But God will follow us to the far side of the sea. “He stoops to conquer,” writes Lewis, “He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to him” (The Problem of Pain 96). The Lord is willing to humble himself because he is a God of sacrifice. The God who sacrificed complete control over his creation that they might have the freedom to love him will also sacrifice anything to save his people from their self-affliction. We may see his sacrifice anywhere in the story of salvation. He used the weak vessels of prophets and shepherds, he allowed puny sacrifices of doves to atone for sins, and he finally dwelled among us, enduring the cross and scorning the shame (Hebrews 12:2).

The Lord’s supreme example of sacrifice must be our guiding light as redeemed people. We must obey Christ’s message that perfect joy, gained through perfect communion, is to be had at any cost. For us these costs are superficial. The sacrifices that God calls us are simply to deny our fallen selves. Plantinga points out that God calls us to a perfect joy by giving us the Ten Commandments. The Law limits not our true freedom, but our tendency towards self-centeredness. The Law, far from restricting us, sets limits that shear off our sinful selves. Through this painful cleaving we are freed from that which restricts us from joyful communion with God.

Lewis, in A Right to Happiness, points out that rights are only freedoms that are given us. When thinking of freedom we must think as God does. Freedom is not the ability to do whatever we want, for when we are given that option, we inevitably do things we regret. God knows this and asks us to voluntarily give up our “freedom” in order to embrace the higher freedom that he has prepared for us.

The beauty of God’s call on all of our lives is that He despises the mold. He is an artist and has crafted each of his creatures unique. He would not squish us into morality, but encourage us towards a high freedom. He would not squish us into becoming a Christian, but unleashes to us the gifts and passions he has given us for their intended purpose. He not only allows us to pursue our passions, but asks us to: purposefully, for him. In that way we are all beautifully reliant on eachother. We each have our unique place in the kingdom which gives us all a unique value. C.S Lewis points out that this is comforting because we need not worry about whether God has placed us in a practical enough field (Learning in War Time 5). Instead we can trust in him and concentrate on following His will within our sphere of influence. Now I should caution that even within our vocation we must always be attentive to God’s call. If the Bible is anything to go by, God frequently calls us to pull up our stakes and follow him elsewhere.

Of course following God’s will is not often easy. We may be certain we will never regret our obedience, but we must never expect to enjoy the process. C.S. Lewis spoke of this in Our English Syllabus, saying that even if our passion for our academic calling wanes, we must “at least pretend” our enthusiasm (Our English Syllabus 86). This grin-and-bear-it idea will help us get through the tough times for we can, though not easily, pretend passion into existence.

Although C.S. Lewis is quite correct that difficulties will come, we must strive to remove all obstacles of apathy from our pursuit of God’s calling on our lives. We must strive, through every decision we make, through every contact with others, and with God through prayer and scripture, to align our life’s passion with God’s will. I witnessed the power of this synchronization in the DCM film Pray the Devil Back to Hell. The film depicted a group of Liberian women attempting to stop the bloodshed of a corrupt regime. These women were driven by a passion for peace. They pursued it the best way they could. First they protested where the president passed by, then they moved their protest to separate a conflict between the regime and the rebels. When the president still didn’t listen, they sat in front of the parliament until the president agreed to peace talks. And when the peace talks bogged down, they sat down, barring the leaders from leaving until they had resolved the conflict. The women of Liberia were both relentless and ingenious. They identified so closely with their mission that it became a passion that ran straight from their heart, coursing fluidly throughout their body and manifesting itself in actions.

The Liberian women felt their passion so strongly that it instantly manifested itself in actions. Their responses to bloodshed were instinctive, reacting to the changing circumstances. I wish I had this kind of fluidity between knowledge and action. I know God’s mission as he outlines it in history, in creation, in the world. And yet I see the mission imperfectly, blinding myself to it with petty desires. I find it endlessly frustrating that these obstacles are impossible to remove in my own strength. I believe it is God alone who can and will remove the viscosity of deliberation and pride from our lives, allowing the pure flow of God’s will through us, his chosen vessels.


Works Cited
C.S. Lewis, “A Right to Happiness”, http://www.calvin.edu/~pribeiro.html

C. S. Lewis, “Learning in Wartime”, http://www.calvin.edu/~pribeiro.html

C.S. Lewis,“Our English Syllabus”, http://www.calvin.edu/~pribeiro.html

C.S. Lewis, “The Problem of Pain”, http://www.calvin.edu/~pribeiro.html

C.S. Lewis, “The Screwtape Letters”, http://www.calvin.edu/~pribeiro.html

C.S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory”, http://www.calvin.edu/~pribeiro.html

Plantinga, Cornelius Jr. Engaging God’s World: A Reformed Vision of Faith, Learning,
and Living. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002.

The Holy Bible, New International Version