The Weight of Glory
Author: CS Lewis
Review: September 18, 2009
Edition: 2000 printing
Pages: 192
Overall Rating: 5/5 [Great]
Synopsis: A collection of address that CS Lewis gave [mostly] to university and college students on the topic of Christianity and how it applies to daily life.
Strengths: Approachable writing, broad range of topics, very insightful/helpful.
Weaknesses: N/A.
Further Review: These conversational addresses provide the reader with Lewis’ meditations on several different topics of Christianity.
The Weight of Glory—The first of these topics, from which the collection draws its title, discusses the promises made to us in the Bible, with special attention paid to the idea of being with God and that of glory. Lewis discusses the Biblical meaning of the word glory as being acknowledgment from God rather than being uniquely famous. My favorite part of this discussion, however, is how Lewis stresses the importance of loving one’s neighbor, not just because we are told to do so but because each person around us is as close as we can get to holiness on earth outside of the Sacrament. These explanations changed what I thought of the word “glory” for the better.
Apparently, then, our lifelong nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside, is no mere neurotic fancy, but the truest index of our real situation. And to be at last summoned inside would be both glory and honour beyond all our merits and also the healing of that old ache.
Learning in War-Time—The second address concerns the morality of being a student (or a learner) during the war (WWII), discussing the validity of culture in comparison to human nature. Essentially Lewis says that when we devote our lives to some duty, it’s not that we cease doing or thinking about everything else in our lives but, instead, we are doing something worth
dying for, not
living for. In other words, there is a difference between whole-hearted duty and obsession.
To be ignorant and simple now- not to be able to meet the enemies on their own ground- would be to throw down our weapons, and to betray our uneducated brethren who have, under God, no defence but us against the intellectual attacks of the heathen. Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered.
In this chapter he also speaks of the importance of continuing to pursue knowledge and culture, because if we as humans wait until we are safe and secure, we will never get a chance to pursue these things. Actually, my favorite part of this section comes not with the quote I left above, but later on in the section as Lewis provides strategies for succeeding in the scholar’s vocation while there is a war on, although these strategies are all perfectly applicable to daily life. In his guard against frustration, I find
exactly my life’s philosophy written out much more eloquently and meaningfully than I could execute it, and it’s really uplifting to know I’ve been on the right track, or the right track according to CS Lewis (whom I will admit was far smarter than I am!) . In short, it says to treat our long term goals somewhat lightly, but live more absorbed in the day. That is, do not invest everything in the future. “It is only our
daily bread that we are encouraged to ask for. The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received.”
Why I Am Not a Pacifist—The third address details CS Lewis’ reasons for not being a pacifist considering World War II. Instead of examining WWII specifically, he approaches from another angle: morality, and how we ought to judge right and wrong in the same method of discerning truth and falsehood. He provides argument by selecting each of the reasons a person would become pacifist, and explains why that belief does not apply to him. While this writing is thought-provoking, to me it isn’t as profound as the previous two works.
Transposition – In this address, Lewis explains his theory of transposition- the act of using something intended for a higher medium (eg., a piece for an orchestra) on a lower medium (eg., to play that piece on only a piano) to describe spiritual sensations, and why, though they are beyond our means truly, we experience them in familiar fashion. Shortly he’s saying that what we feel is something from a higher source being interpreted by a lesser source, so that until we arrive at Heaven we will not know entirely what it is like, only symbolically through the natural methods we now have.
Is Theology Poetry?—Here, Lewis shows that Christianity does not attract members by being poetic; that if this were the case, there are other religions that are far more poetic in the traditional sense, particularly in comparing with European mythologies. He also includes his thoughts on science and religion, and how Christianity can encompass not only science but art, morality, etc. while science can not encompass these things, even itself.
The contemplation of what we take to be real is always, I think, in tolerably sensitive minds, attended with a certain sort of aesthetic satisfaction—-a sort which depends precisely on its supposed reality. There is a dignity and poignancy in the bare fact that a thing exists. Theology is, in this sense, poetry to me because I believe it; I do not believe it because it is poetry.
The Inner Ring—This address is a bit different than the others, being less on some aspect of Christian theology. Instead, Lewis talks about “inner circles,” or cliquish behavior, and how this has the tendency to become fulfilling if one lives his life nurturing only a desire to be on the “inside” of some clique without regard to the group’s integrity or purpose. He goes on to say that friendship is an example of this sort of behavior done properly, and that cliquish desire is itself not bad, but only when it becomes an obsession to belong rather than to pursue one’s interests with like-minded individuals.Membership— Lewis here discusses how modern life has become extremely public and crowded, and the paradox that religion is, in the modern world, meant to be reserved only for private life. He goes onto to describe the fallacy to give in to either collectivism or individualism, saying that we are separate organs of Christ who exist in that Body, and that only by submitting to that purpose can we approach what is asked of us. He also explores the origin of the word “membership,” that initially it refers to an organ of a body and not a “unit” in an organization.
We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and privacy, and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship. [...] If you subtract any one member, you have not simply reduced the family in number; you have inflicted an injury on its structure. Its unity is a unity of unlikes, almost of incommensurables.
It was not for societies or states that Christ died, but for men.
I find this particular work a little bit confusing, and would have liked more detail on Lewis’ thoughts on this.On Forgiveness—Lewis describes the importance of forgiveness. He explains the difference between excusing and forgiving, and how, Biblically, we must forgive the sins done against us to be truly repentant before God.
A great deal of our anxiety to make excuses comes from not really believing in [the forgiveness of sins], from thinking that God will not take us to Himself again unless He is satisfied that some sort of case can be made out in our favour. But that would not be forgiveness at all. Real forgiveness means looking steadily at the sin, the sin that is left over without any excuse, after all allowances have been made, and seeing it in all its horror, dirt, meanness, and malice, and nevertheless being wholly reconciled to the man who has done it. That, and only that, is forgiveness, and that we can always have from God if we ask for it.
A Slip of the Tongue—In his last sermon, printed here, Lewis talks about the importance of submitting fully to God and not being reluctant to pursue Him. For his argument he mainly uses the human desire for “temporal” things, such things that, once we enter into the kingdom of God (or are rejected from it) will no longer hold importance, but which we try to guard in our earthly lives anyway.
[In case my review of this book is not enough, another more thorough one can be found here via the Into the Wardrobe website.]
