Notes on Hillsdale College Online Course part 1

C.S. Lewis on Christianity  

By Reverend Lonnie C. Crowe

I have recently finished an online study from Hillsdale College entitled “C.C. Lewis on Christianity.  The lecturer was Michael Ward, a fellow at Oxford in England as well as Hillsdale.  The course stretched both my mind and my soul and, therefore, my spirit.  I am delighted to share some of my notes from the course. Remember these are my notes.  They are what captured my thoughts.  They are not an outline of the course. 

 

 Notes on Hillsdale College Online Course 

C.S. Lewis on Christianity 

Lecturer Michael Ward 

“Good and Evil” 

Lewis was born in Belfast, Ireland before division into the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.  Lewis’ experience in boarding school was difficult .  He later forgave the head master.  He became an “effective” believer at that time. He learned that Christian doctrine is different from general uplift.  He faithfully "practiced" Christianity. Self doubt came with the study of ancient mythology. He abandoned Christianity from the age of 13 or so.   

Adult Lewis was an academic.  Started out in philosophy .  Taught English lit.  He was an ethicist.  He lectured on the qualities of goodness.  Moral value is objective and not a subjective choice.  Moral value is universal, self-evident and learned by practice. It is discovered.  To deny moral value makes one morally blind. 

Reason is the organ of morality.  The Tao-the way- Is the basic universal principles of morality.  We learn moral value by practice.  It becomes a way of life.   

A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery. 

Character development comes from what we see and hear. It depends on where we are standing and the person we are. (subjective) 

To participate in the Tao (practical reason) makes one truly human.  One must walk the talk. We mature into the Tao as our influencers demonstrate the Tao. 

The Tao is consistent with Christianity because God created man in His own image.  Therefore, we are created to walk in the image of God. 

 Notes on Hillsdale College Online Course Part 2 

C.S. Lewis on Christianity  

By Reverend Lonnie C. Crowe 

I have recently finished an online study from Hillsdale College entitled “C.C. Lewis on Christianity.  The lecturer was Michael Ward, a fellow at Oxford in England as well as Hillsdale.  The course stretched both my mind and my soul and, therefore, my spirit.  I am delighted to share some of my notes from the course. Remember these are my notes.  They are what captured my thoughts.  They are not an outline of the course. 

 Notes on Hillsdale College Online Course 

C.S. Lewis on Christianity 

Lecturer Michael Ward 

“Conversion and New Life” 

 

Human beings believe they should act in a certain way.  They do not act in that way.  They know the natural law and they break it.  It brings guilt and shame.  It can come even to those who do not believe in God. This thought is an argument against law.  A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line.  

This led to Lewis becoming a theist. At this point in his life, Lewis believed in God, but did not accept the doctrine of salvation in Jesus. He believed that the natural law (moral law) is an expression of God's nature. 

Goodness cannot be separated from God.  Then the Tao, considered from a particular point of view, is the Word Himself.  God is an expression of the moral  law.  The objective moral law is the nature, the essence of God. 

The Tao is the way of being moral.  Jesus is the way.  Jesus is the one who keeps the moral law. 

We not only have the moral law, we have a law giver and a law keeper. 

Lewis wrote, "If I met the idea of a god sacrificing himself to himself...I liked it  and was moved by it provided I met it anywhere except in the Gospels." 

Encouraged by his friends, Lewis looked at the sacrifice of Jesus simply as a story rather than as allegory.  He came to believe that Jesus is the Son of God.   

 

Christianity tells people to repent and receive forgiveness.  It has nothing to say to people who do not know they need any forgiveness.  If you come to realize there is a real Moral Law and a Power behind that law that you realize a need to repent and be forgiven. 

Some tendencies in each natural man may have to be simply rejected. (The anguish of conversion.)

It is so fatally easy to confuse an aesthetic appreciation of the spiritual life with the life itself. 

 Because some are quick to twist truth, we must be ever vigilant to stand in truth. Matthew 12:36 says that we will be accountable for every idle word we have spoken. Fact check.

 Do not Be Afraid, nor Be Dismayed (Part 1)

Rev. Lonnie C. Crowe 

Because of the circumstances surrounding us on the national and international levels, Christians must fervently seek to overcome discouragement.  The word literally means to deprive of courage, hope, or confidence.  Discouragement is a weapon of the enemy meant to weaken the army of God. 

 
In our difficult world, we are surrounded, bombarded and often overwhelmed with discouragement. Negativity fills the airwaves, the newspapers and the coffee klatches. A spirit of discouragement has attached itself to many people, even believers. 

The spirit of discouragement can be so oppressive that we may neglect to cry out to the Lord for encouragement. We may also be so distraught that we do not recognize the encouragement when it comes. 

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines encourage as: to make (someone) more determined, hopeful, or confident; to make (something) more appealing or more likely to happen; to make (someone) more likely to do something: to tell or advise (someone) to do something.  
 
These definitions are all about doing something. They miss the mark by not telling us what we need in our lives in order to do something. In order to chop down the tree of discouragement, we need to lay the axe to the root.  
 
The root word of “encourage” is “courage.” In other words, if we want to be encouraged, we must be filled with courage. The Lord spoke to Joshua as he was stepping into the role of leadership after the death of Moses: “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go" (Joshua 1:9).  
 

God does not want us to be afraid. Fear robs us of courage, and we must lay the axe to the root of fear. We fear tomorrow. We fear the unknown. We fear because we lack understanding. We fear because we feel that God has distanced Himself from us.  

Believers, however, are called to be Joshuas in this world. God has commanded us to be strong and of good courage. The word translated as courage has many synonyms. In the Hebrew, to be courageous is to be strengthened, established, strong, fortified, and obstinate.