Facing my pride and my prejudice

I used to think of Jane Austen as a writer of soppy romance novels, which have since been adapted into popular movies and TV series. I had watched some but had never read the novels. I thought of it as "chick lit" that has stood the test of time. Well, my pride and prejudice deceived me! In our extended family book club, we have been reading Pride and Prejudice. I now see that Austen uses romance as a backdrop for biting social satire,  insights into human folly, and the development of virtue.

This is illustrated in the following quotation, considered to be key to the novel. The heroine Elizabeth Bennett becomes aware of her own lack of virtue.

 "She grew absolutely ashamed of herself. Of neither Darcy nor Wickham could she think without feeling that she had been blind, partial, prejudiced, absurd. How despicably have I acted!" she cried; "I, who have prided myself on my discernment! I, who have valued myself on my abilities! who have often disdained the generous candour of my sister, and gratified my vanity in useless or blameable mistrust! How humiliating is this discovery! Yet, how just a humiliation! Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind! But vanity, not love, has been my folly. Pleased with the preference of one, and offended by the neglect of the other, on the very beginning of our acquaintance, I have courted prepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away, where either were concerned. Till this moment I never knew myself."

        Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 36.

Austen's narrative beautifully illustrates two important truths: we are social beings, and money significantly influences many aspects of our lives. On one level, we may think these are fairly obvious truths. However, we need Austen to show their profundity, depth and subtlety. In Austen's time and context, these truths played out in specific ways that may seem alien to us. Nevertheless, they are still true today.

We are social beings

Being children of the Enlightenment and living in a culture of individualism, we love to believe that we are rugged independent individuals who can do as we please. An important and controversial question in sociology is the relationship between personal agency and social structure. How does the latter constrain the former?

The moral philosopher, Alasdair MacIntyre, wrote in After Virtue:

“We enter upon a stage which we did not design and we find ourselves part of an action that was not of our making. Each of us being a main character in his own drama plays subordinate parts in the dramas of others, and each drama constrains the others.”  

[This important book is discussed more below.]

We desire social relations and sometimes enjoy them. We may crave social affirmation in the form of status and acclaim. We fear social censure.

Pride and Prejudice is a story about social relations. All the characters, regardless of their wealth, seem to do is socialise. It is an endless stream of balls, dinners, visits, and parlour games.

People are judged based on their wealth, family heritage, property, dress, physical appearance, social etiquette, conversational skills, moral character, musical performance, ... What a burden! Furthermore, these judgements may be made hastily and with prejudice, particularly towards those of a different social class.

The moral failure of one family member may forever condemn others to social censure.

The picture is the British ten-pound note, featuring Jane Austen, issued in 2017, and the subject of some controversy. I find it ironic that Austen's image is now on currency, given that money features so significantly in her novels.

The power of money

In Pride and Prejudice, money defines social status and the suitability of potential marriage partners. The famous opening sentences of the novel capture this.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters."

However, the power of money goes beyond this. It shapes attitudes, anxieties, and action. The value of a person is equated with their monetary wealth. The potential future lack of money creates anxiety. Potential financial windfalls motivate action, including manipulation. Money is used to solve problems, such as Wickham eloping with the young Lydia Bennett.

Again, our context today is different from Pride and Prejudice. In marriage, money plays less of a role, but not an insignificant one. On the other hand, money shapes politics, religion, and education profoundly. Perhaps more than Austen's era. 

The Economist recently had a nice article, How Jane Austen revealed the economic basis of society: Some unacknowledged truths about money

John Dickson's podcast Undeceptions has a wonderful episode on Jane Austen. Interestingly, Dickson reveals that the title of his podcast, Undeceptions, was inspired by a C.S. Lewis essay on Jane Austen.

The episode includes a discussion of Alasdair MacIntyre and After Virtue.  For perspective, according to Wikipedia, this work 

"is one of the most important works of Anglophone moral and political philosophy in the 20th century.^[3] "

In it, MacIntyre pays homage to Jane Austen as providing the narrative form needed to resolve the modern problems that he identifies, such as morality being rooted in emotivism and subjectivity.

“C.S. Lewis saw in her an essentially Christian writer. It is her uniting of Christian and Aristotelian themes in a determinate social context that makes Jane Austen the last great effective imaginative voice of the tradition of thought about, and practice of, the virtues which I have tried to identify.”

Finally, Why Cornel West loves Jane Austen 

"Cornel West views "Sistah Jane" as a radical revisionary whose promotion of courageous truth-speaking amid a tragicomic theater of humanity challenges us to change society by changing ourselves, by cultivating simple but now revolutionary virtues." 

I thank my daughter for bringing to my attention that Cornel West is an Austen fan.

Creative influence

 How do you influence people to take seriously and engage with an important issue in society? My natural tendency would be to document the problem with statistics, background, context, analysis and concrete suggestions to address the problem. In that sense, I am a technocrat. A Presbyterian once joked with me: if Presbyterians had heard Jesus tell the Parable of the Good Samaritan, that would have formed a committee to prepare a report about the problem of violent crime on the Jericho road!

There are alternative approaches to social and political critique. They are creative and indirect. A classic example is the novel, Animal Farm, by George Orwell. I recently read it for the first time, prompted by my daughter who had just read it for a book club. It is a classic work of satire. The book is only one hundred pages, easy to read, funny, subtle, imaginative, and pointed. It is a satire of the Soviet Union under Stalin. Violent and sudden political revolutions may begin with noble values of justice, truth, equality, and camaraderie. However, power corrupts and revolutionary governments can quickly degenerate into totalitarianism, the cult of personality, corruption, propaganda, violence, deception, revisionist history, and inequality. Truth suffers and the oppressed can't face the pain of questioning the deceptions and the failure of the revolution. Power is maintained by creating "the other", constructed enemies within and without, who allegedly threaten the revolution. This justifies the violent suppression of dissent.

Sadly, the Soviet Union was not a unique case. The same pattern of degeneration has happened in Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cambodia, ...

Orwell had political concerns, being opposed to tyranny of all forms, both from the left and the right. After fighting on the republican (socialist) side in the Spanish civil war, he witnessed firsthand the ruthless purges of his comrades by Stalinists. This partially motivated the writing of Animal Farm. He was concerned about the uncritical support of the Soviet Union, by both the left, and by the right. The latter saw it necessary in order to win World War II. Orwell's earlier writing had been more direct, such as in Homage to Catalonia, a chronicle of his experiences in the Spanish civil war. But, Animal Farm had a far greater impact, particularly in the long term. A new edition is about to be issued, with a new introduction, by Jason Cowley, Editor of The New Statesman. This gives nice background to the novel and its enduring influence.

I also recommend an Econtalk podcast, from 2009, featuring Christopher Hitchens, author of Why Orwell Matters. One of many items of interest in the podcast is the discussion of the review written in 1944 by Orwell of The Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek.

Generally, I am not a fan of Hitchens as he was one of the champions of The New Atheism. I consider that their critiques of Christianity are largely ill-informed and superficial. Terry Eagleton has presented robust critiques of him and Dawkins. However, this podcast gave me a greater appreciation of Orwell and how Hitchens did justifiably become well known for some of his essays and biographies.

Orwell's strategy of influence reminds me of the examples of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. C.S. Lewis started out doing traditional apologetics: giving rational arguments for the validity of Christianity. Later, he took a creative approach, aiming to capture people's imagination through his fictional work, such as The Chronicles of Narnia.

An excellent book on Christian apologetics

Apologetics concerns discussing intellectual questions or objections that people, both non-Christian and Christian, have about Christianity. The field has a long history, and there are a plethora of books, particularly from the USA on the subject. From my perspective, the books vary significantly in quality and some have quite narrow perspectives or offer simplistic answers and strategies.

The introductory book that I highly recommend is Mere Apologetics by Alister McGrath. He presents quite a balanced approach with regard to different apologetic methods. He also has an emphasis on the audience and tailoring approaches, methods, and arguments to them, particularly when the audience is postmodern. Following C.S. Lewis, McGrath highlights the value of appealing to the imagination and emotions, not just the intellect. Because of this audience sensitivity, the book is relevant and useful in non-Western contexts, unlike many Western books. This is the view of some of my non-Western friends who also say it is particularly accessible and clear as an introductory book.

I quite like this lecture McGrath gave where he discusses the importance of C.S. Lewis for apologetics.

A rich diversity of apologetic approaches

In his excellent book, Mere Apologetics, Alister McGrath considers a diversity of approaches for engaging with those who are skeptical or curious about the Christian faith.

Chapter 7, Gateways for apologetics: Opening the door to faith, considers four different approaches.

1. Explanation
2. Argument
3. Stories
4. Images

Most traditional apologetics focusses on the first two approaches.

Stories is not just concerned with the Biblical narrative but engaging with influential secular literature such as Dan Brown's The Da Vinci code. 

Images is not just art but using and engaging with powerful mental images and concepts such as Plato's cave or the theological notion of adoption.

C.S. Lewis was all the more impressive as an apologist because he was a master at all four approaches, from Mere Christianity to Narnia.

Which approach to use should be determined by the background and interests of the audience.

C.S. Lewis - the humble apologist

Vinoth Ramachandra has an interesting post, Which C.S. Lewis?
He mentions that his favourite piece of C.S. Lewis is “The Apologist’s Evening Prayer”.
Vinoth says, "I carry it in my Bible. I think it should be enshrined on the doors of all those churches and institutions that place too much emphasis on apologetics and preaching “techniques”."
Here is the prayer.

“From all my lame defeats and oh! much more
From all the victories that I seemed to score
From cleverness shot forth on Thy behalf
At which, while angels weep, the audience laugh;
From all my proofs of Thy divinity
Thou, who wouldst give no sign, deliver me.
Thoughts are but coins, let me not trust, instead
Of Thee, their thin-worn image of Thy head.
From all my thoughts, even from my thoughts of Thee,
O Thou fair Silence, fall, and set me free.
Lord of the narrow gate and the needle’s eye,
Take from me all my trumpery lest I die.”

C.S. Lewis' challenge to Christian scientists

What kind of books should Christian intellectuals and scientists write? What will be the most effective for defending and promoting the Gospel? I find it surprising, interesting, and challenging to consider the view of C.S. Lewis.

While we are on the subject of science, let me digress or a moment. I believe that any Christian who is qualified to write a good popular book on any science may do much more by that than by any directly apologetic work. The difficulty we are up against is this. We can make people (often) attend to the Christian point of view for half an hour or so; but the moment they have gone away from our lecture or laid down our article, they are plunged back into a world where the opposite position is taken for granted. As long as that situation exists, widespread success is simply impossible. We must attack the enemy's line of communication. 

What we want is not more little books about Christianity, but more little books by Christians on other subjects, with their Christianity latent. You can see this most easily if you look at it the other way round. Our Faith is not very likely to be shaken by any book on Hinduism. But if whenever we read an elementary book on Geology, Botany, Politics, or Astronomy, we found that its implications were Hindu, that would shake us. It is not the books written in direct defence of Materialism that make the modern man a materialist; it is the materialistic assumptions in all the other books. In the same way, it is not books on Christianity that will really trouble him. But he would be troubled if, whenever he wanted a cheap popular introduction to some science, the best work on the market was always by a Christian. The first step to the re-conversion of this country is a series, produced by Christians, which can beat the Penguin and the Thinkers Library on their own ground. Its Christianity would have to be latent, not explicit: and of course its science perfectly honest. Science twisted in the interests of apologetics would be sin and folly.

C.S. Lewis, "Christian Apologetics" (1945), included in God in the Dock (Eerdmans, 1970), p. 93.

What did C.S. Lewis believe about evolution?

Everyone likes a good C.S. Lewis quote to bolster their argument.

On Biologos David Williams has a great series of blog posts Surprised by Jack about C.S. Lewis considering his views on Scripture, Genesis, the Fall, and Evolution. It challenges our views of Lewis [why are conservative evangelicals so infatuated with this Anglo-Catholic?] and examines what he actually believed rather than what we might wish he believed.

Here is an extract of the post about evolution, which first discusses how Lewis overall accepted the science of evolution.

What Lewis did believe to conflict with Christian faith was what he called the great “Myth” of “Evolutionism” or “Developmentalism.” But this is not the same as evolutionary theory per se. “[We] must sharply distinguish between Evolution as a biological theorem and popular Evolutionism or Developmentalism which is certainly a Myth,” he writes in his essay "The Funeral of a Great Myth.” 

Lewis believed that the great myth of “Evolutionism” conflicted not only with the Christian faith, but with Reason itself, undercutting the grounds for believing in human rationality and, therefore, in any human rationale that could be offered for believing in Evolutionism in the first place. According to Lewis, Evolutionism’s chief premise, namely, Naturalism, invalidates human reasoning itself, amounting to “an argument which proved that no argument was sound—a proof that there are no such things as proofs—which is nonsense.” “All possible knowledge…depends on reasoning,” he writes in chapter III of Miracles. “We infer Evolution from fossils: we infer the existence of our own brains from what we find inside the skulls of other creatures like ourselves in the dissecting room.” All sciences, including evolutionary science, depend upon the validity of human inference for their own validity. “Unless human reasoning is valid no science can be true.” Naturalism, however, with its grand Myth of Evolutionism explains all of reality, including human reason, in terms of non-rational natural causes and effects, reducing all human reasoning to being no more than the accidental byproducts of chance, matter and time, and thereby undercutting the validity of reasoning itself.

 This important distinction between evolutionary science and evolutionism [a philosophical perspective] has also been stressed by Tim Keller.

A Shadow of reality

Yesterday I went to the play Shadowlands, based on the story of C.S. Lewis and Joy Gresham. In it Lewis grapples with the "why of suffering" as he sees his beloved Joy die of cancer:

Why love, if losing hurts so much? I have no answers anymore: only the life I have lived. Twice in that life I've been given the choice: as a boy and as a man. The boy chose safety, the man chooses suffering. The pain now is part of the happiness then. That's the deal.

The play was beautifully performed by Crossbow productions. Dressing the actors in black and using a largely black set and costumes helped bring out the idea that this life is but a "shadow" of a reality that is to come, where there will be no more death and suffering and pain.

Recommended play

My wife and son just went to a performance in Brisbane of Shadowlands, the story of C.S. Lewis, the love of his life, and grappling with the "why of suffering". Robin said it is very good and I am looking forward to seeing it when I return to Australia.

The play is performed by Crossbow productions. It is on until August 7 and tickets are on sale.

The purpose of government

In order to illustrate the real purpose of the church, C.S. Lewis discusses the real purpose of government. Although this is an aside to his main point I thought it was interesting in its own right.

Just as it is easy to think the State has a lot of different objects-military, political,economic, and what not. But in a way things are much simpler than that. The State exists simply to promote and to protect the ordinary happiness of human beings in this life. A husband and wife chatting over a fire, a couple of friends having a game of darts in a pub, a man reading a book in his own room or digging in his own garden-that is what the State is there for. And unless they are helping to increase and prolong and protect such moments, all the laws, parliaments, armies, courts, police, economics, etc., are simply a waste of time.

Mere Christianity, Book III, chapter 8.

Avoiding extremes

I think a great challenge in life is to avoid extreme positions: to keep a balanced perspective on subtle and complex issues.

Yesterday, my son and I read and discussed the chapter, Two notes, in Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis, where he makes two qualifications or clarifications about the previous chapter on free will and being transformed into the likeness of Christ.

In the second note he discusses the balance between affirming individuality and corporality in the church.

I found the following passage interesting because of the general caution at the end.

Christianity thinks of human individuals not as mere members of a group or items in a list, but as organs in a body different from one another and each contributing what no other could. .... But a Christian must not be either a Totalitarian or an Individualist.

I feel a strong desire to tell you - and I expect you feel a strong desire to tell me-which of these two errors is the worse. That is the devil getting at us. He always sends errors into the world in pairs-pairs of opposites. And he always encourages us to spend a lot of time thinking which is the worse. You see why, of course? He relies on your extra dislike of the one error to draw you gradually into the opposite one. But do not let us be fooled. We have to keep our eyes on the goal and go straight through between both errors. We have no other concern than that with either of them.

Do I want to change?

This morning my son and I read the chapter, Obstinate Toy Soldiers, in Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis.

I found the following passage helpful and challenging

Did you ever think, when you were a child, what fun it would be if your toys could come to life? Well suppose you could really have brought them to life. Imagine turning a tin soldier into a real little man. It would involve turning the tin into flesh. And suppose the tin soldier did not like it. He is not interested in flesh; all he sees is that the tin is being spoilt. He thinks you are killing him. He will do everything he can to prevent you He will not be made into a man if he can help it.

Similarily, God wants to transform us into people like Jesus, the perfect man, but often we do not like it, deluding ourselves that we are better off as we are.

Shadowlands in Brisbane

Previously, I have recommended plays performed in Brisbane by Crossbow productions. I am delighted that later this year (July 29-August 7) they will be performing Shadowlands, the story of C.S. Lewis and the love of his life.

Tickets are now on sale.

God is outside time

This morning my son and I read and discussed the chapter, Time and beyond time, from Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. He discusses the problem of God can keep track of the prayers of millions of humans "simultaneously" I thought the following analogy was particularly helpful:

Suppose I am writing a novel. I write 'Mary laid down her work; next moment came a knock at the door!' For Mary who has to live in the imaginary time of my story there is no interval between putting down the work and hearing the knock. But I, who am Mary's maker, do not live in that imaginary time at all. Between writing the first half of that sentence and the second, I might sit down for three hours and think steadily about Mary. I could think about Mary as if she were the only character in the book and for as. long as I pleased, and the hours I spent in doing so would not appear in Mary's time (the time inside the story) at all.

This is not a perfect illustration, of course. But it may give just a glimpse of what I believe to be the truth. God is not hurried along in the Time-stream of this universe any more than an author is hurried along in the imaginary time of his own novel. He has infinite attention to spare for each one of us. He does not have to deal with us in the mass. You are as much alone with Him as if you were the only being He had ever created. When Christ died, He died for you individually just as much as if you had been the only man in the world.

Lewis then introduces a second helpful analogy:

If you picture Time as a straight line along which we have to travel, then you must picture God as the whole page on which the line is drawn. We come to the parts of the line one by one: we have to leave A behind before we get to B, and cannot reach C until we leave B behind. God, from above or outside or all round, contains the whole line, and sees it all.

Do I need a map to get anywhere?

C.S. Lewis is certainly a master at using analogies to explain theology. I found the discussion below from Mere Christianity helpful. It is from the beginning chapter of Book IV, Beyond Personality: or First Steps in the Doctrine of the Trinity. It is partly answering a man who said he had no need for traditional doctrine because he experienced God while alone in the desert.

if a man has once looked at the Atlantic from the beach, and then goes and looks at a map of the Atlantic, he also will be turning from something real to something less real: turning from real waves to a bit of coloured paper. But here comes the point. The map is admittedly only coloured paper, but there are two things you have to remember about it. In the first place, it is based on what hundreds and thousands of people have found out by sailing the real Atlantic. In that way it has behind it masses of experience just as real as the one you could have from the beach; only, while yours would be a single glimpse, the map fits all those different experiences together. In the second place, if you want to go anywhere, the map is absolutely necessary. As long as you are content with walks on the beach, your own glimpses are far more fun than looking at a map. But the map is going to be more use than walks on the beach if you want to get to America.

Now, Theology is like the map. Merely learning and thinking about the Christian doctrines, if you stop there, is less real and less exciting than the sort of thing my friend got in the desert. Doctrines are not God: they are only a kind of map. But that map is based on the experience of hundreds of people who really were in touch with God-experiences compared with which any thrills or pious feelings you and I are likely to get on our own are very elementary and very confused. And secondly, if you want to get any further, you must use the map. You see, what happened to that man in the desert may have been real, and was certainly exciting, but nothing comes of it. It leads nowhere. There is nothing to do about it. In fact, that is just why a vague religion-all about feeling God in nature, and so on-is so attractive. It is all thrills and no work; like watching the waves from the beach. But you will not get to Newfoundland by studying the Atlantic that way, and you will not get eternal life by simply feeling the presence of God in flowers or music. Neither will you get anywhere by looking at maps without going to sea. Nor will you be very safe if you go to sea without a map.

Struggling with the dialectic of faith and works

This morning my son and I read the second Faith chapter in C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity. He considers our struggle to understand the relative role of faith in Christ and our own efforts in living as a Christian. I found the following passages particularly helpful:

Christians have often disputed as to whether what leads the Christian home is good actions, or Faith in Christ. I have no right really to speak on such a difficult question, but it does seem to me like asking which blade in a pair of scissors is most necessary. A serious moral effort is the only thing that will bring you to the point where you throw up the sponge. Faith in Christ is the only thing to save you from despair at that point: and out of that Faith in Him good actions must inevitably come....

The Bible really seems to clinch the matter when it puts. the two things together into one amazing sentence. The first half is, 'Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling'- which looks as if everything depended on us and our good actions: but the second half goes on, 'For it is God who worketh in you'- which looks as if God did everything and we nothing. I am afraid that is the sort of thing we come up against in Christianity. I am puzzled, but I am not surprised. You see, we are now trying to understand, and to separate into watertight compartments, what exactly God does and what man does when God and man are working together. And, of course, we begin by thinking it is like two men working together, so that you could say, 'He did this bit and I did that.' But this way of thinking breaks down. God is not like that. He is inside you as well as outside: even if we could understand who did what, I do not think human language could properly express it. In the attempt to express it different Churches say different things. But you will find that even those who insist most strongly on the importance of good actions tell you need Faith; and even those who insist most strongly on Faith tell you to do good actions. At any rate that is as far as I can go.

The Bible verse Lewis is quoting is Phillipians 2:11-13. Until now I had not appreciated the logical tension (or dialectic) inherent in that verse.

What does faith conflict with?

It is commonly stated that faith is in conflict with reason. But in Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis takes a very different view, arguing that the real conflict is actually faith and reason versus emotion and imagination. He discusses this in first of two chapters on Faith.

Lewis discusses how he came to change his mind and see faith as a virtue:

I was assuming that if the human mind once accepts a thing as true it will automatically go on regarding it as true, until some real reason for reconsidering it turns up. In fact, I was assuming that the human mind is completely ruled by reason. But that is not so. For example, my reason is perfectly convinced by good evidence that anaesthetics do not smother me and that properly trained surgeons do not start operating until I am unconscious. But that does not alter the fact that when they have me down on the table and clap their horrible mask over my face, a mere childish panic begins inside me. I start thinking I am going to choke, and I am afraid they will start cutting me up before I am properly under. In other words, I lose my faith in anaesthetics. It is not reason that is taking away my faith: on the contrary, my faith is based on reason. It is my imagination and emotions. The battle is between faith and reason on one side and emotion and imagination on the other.

C.S. Lewis on biblical imagery

In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis discusses the three theological virtues: faith, hope, and love. Last week my son and I read the chapter on Hope. It ends:

There is no need to be worried by facetious people who try to make the Christian hope of 'Heaven' ridiculous by saying they do not want 'to spend eternity playing harps'. The answer to such people is that if they cannot understand books written for grown-ups, they should not talk about them. All the scriptural imagery (harps, crowns, gold, etc.) is, of course a merely symbolical attempt to express the inexpressible. Musical instruments are mentioned because for many people (not all) music is the thing known in the present life which most strongly suggests ecstasy and infinity. Crowns are mentioned to suggest the fact that those who are united with God in eternity share His splendour and power and joy. Gold is mentioned to suggest the timelessness of Heaven (gold does not rust) and the preciousness of it. People who take these symbols literally might as well think that when Christ told us to be like doves, He meant that we were to lay eggs.

The end of science is the beginning of theology

I particularly like the end of the book, Foundations of Dialogue in Science and Religion, Alister E. McGrath (Blackwell, 1998, p. 208-9):

let me end by posing a question: what is the most significant difference between the natural sciences and religion?

One answer is suggested by George Herbert's poem, "The Elixir" which speaks of the possibility of seeing beyond the natural order to discern the divine:

A man that looks on glass

On it may stay his eye;

Or if he pleaseth, through it passe

And then the heav'n espie

This is a major theme of Christian theology - that the natural world, while wonderful in itself, offers a way to begin to discern the glory of God. For Calvin, the natural order is a theatre in which the glory of God is displayed to humanity, and through which something of the majesty of God can be known.....

C.S. Lewis addressed this issue in a remarkable sermon entitled "The Weight of Glory," preached before the University of Oxford on June 8, 1941:

The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things - the beauty, the memory of our own past - are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.

One can study the natural order, and stop at that point - or one can go on, and discern what lies beyond and behind it, realizing that, from a religious perspective, the natural order beckons us onwards to discover its creator. Perhaps one of the most significant differences between science and religion thus lies not in how they begin, nor even in how they proceed, but in how they end.

Is charging interest sin?

My son and I are continuing to read through Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. A passage in the chapter on Social Morality got our attention:

There is one bit of advice given to us by the ancient heathen Greeks, and by the Jews in the Old Testament, and by the great Christian teachers of the Middle Ages, which the modern economic system has completely disobeyed. All these people told us not to lend money at interest: and lending money at interest - what we call investment - is the basis of our whole system.

This is certainly challenging. But there are some subtleties that should be kept in mind. First, the Old Testament passages seem to be mostly concerned about charging interest to the poor and needy and/or Israelites. Second, the church banning the charging of interest has a long and troubled history which is nicely recounted on the Wikipedia entry on Usury. For example,

Lateran III decreed that persons who accepted interest on loans could receive neither the sacraments nor Christian burial.^[3] Pope Clement V made the belief in the right to usury a heresy in 1311, and abolished all secular legislation which allowed it.^[4] Pope Sixtus V condemned the practice of charging interest as "detestable to God and man, damned by the sacred canons and contrary to Christian charity."^[4]

On the other hand, I agree with Lewis [and the Global Financial Crisis provides significant empirical evidence!] that we have a problem. God wants us to forsake greed and be concerned with justice and equity.