tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20905577.post3771389970099428119..comments2024-02-22T04:58:19.083-08:00Comments on My Reflections: An Evaluation of C. S. Lewis's Argument from DesireUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20905577.post-44310606196945070172013-08-24T06:08:06.166-07:002013-08-24T06:08:06.166-07:00Bill, this is really fascinating. You're empha...Bill, this is really fascinating. You're emphasizing the "unfittingness" of our life on this planet (following Chesterton). There's a real poignancy and pathos.<br />As I read him, though Lewis certainly has a strong measure of this discontent, I think it's the satisfaction of the desire for Something More that does the heavy lifting as an apologetic argument.My Reflectionshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06398084457749292224noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20905577.post-84615972784520379882013-08-23T23:59:44.337-07:002013-08-23T23:59:44.337-07:00This is an argument that I didn't fully unders...This is an argument that I didn't fully understand when I first read Lewis. I understood more when I read Chesterton. It became pivotal in my life when I discovered this principle in my own experience...and then realized it was what Lewis was saying all along. <br /><br />To call it an "argument from desire" seems a bit strong...but it is an observation about what is a uniquely human experience...Not being "at home" in this world. I think it is a defining experience. It is what is behind humans constantly transforming the world. We can't leave things in this world the way the are because this world never satisfies us. "We can't get no satisfaction."<br /><br /> To be human is to be relentlessly discontent...Humans specialize in creativity...and that's a product of our discontent...We don't just 'adapt," we exponentially transform our surroundings to create a "whole new world." <br /><br />We don't even "live" in the "natural world." We live in a very "unnatural world" of our creation. A world constructed, sustained and immersed by our language. Our lives are carried in bubble of linguistic tissue of endless stories, myths and sci-fi that endlessly constructs our many "futures"...very unlike "this world." We live in a culture of Ipads and pods and technologies that separate us from the natural world a thousand fold...and it is never enough. In a very real sense, we created New York because we desired the New Jerusalem. We must find God to be at home, or become god and re-create the world.<br /><br />A groundhog is satisfied with a hole in the ground, a bird with a nest. Humans, however, are never satisfied, and live in erect angles to natures curves. It's not our nature to be satisfied with the world, and those who become content to live by just adapting to a hole in the ground, we view as acting in a less than human way. <br /><br />As Chesterton pointed out: The simplest truth about man is that he is a very strange being.; almost in the sense of being a stranger on the earth...He is at once a creator moving miraculous hands and fingers and a kind of cripple.He is wrapped in artificial bandages called clothes; he is propped on artificial crutches called furniture...It is not natural to see man as a natural product..."<br /><br />-Bill Jackson, Oroville CAAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com