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Making and Begetting | C. S. Lewis · Reformed Thinking

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  Hello and welcome back to Reformed Thinking.
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  We are really glad to have you with us again.
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  It's going to be here. We're doing something today that
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  I honestly think is one of the most intellectually stimulating
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  exercises a thinking believer can do.
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  Oh yeah. We're taking a stack of sources.
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  Well, really one core source. We are cracking open CS Lewis's
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  classic Mere Christianity. And not just the whole book.
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  We're really zooming in. We are.
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  We're focusing entirely on Book 4, Chapter 1.
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  The goal here is to extract the core theological insights from a
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  chapter that, well, it's effectively rewrites the
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  definition of what it means to be a Christian.
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  It's a huge pivot point in the book.
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  I mean, up until this chapter he's been talking about
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  morality, general behavior, right?
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  You know, be nice, don't divorce, be charitable, that
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  kind of thing. And then he just stops, and he
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  steps into what he calls the science of God.
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  And the subject for this deep dive is making and be getting.
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  Which right off the bat might sound a little abstract.
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  Yeah, I know. I want to address you the
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  listener. Right now you might be thinking
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  making and beginning. That sounds maybe a bit DRY.
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  And that reaction is actually the whole point.
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  It brings us right to the tension Louis addresses in the
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  very first paragraph of this chapter.
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  There is this very modern, very real aversion to the word
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  theology. Oh, absolutely.
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  It's the hurdle we have to clear.
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  The common feeling is, you know, don't give me creeds, give me
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  deeds or. I don't need doctrine, I just
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  need to love my neighbor. Exactly.
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  There's this sense that theology is academic, maybe even a
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  barrier to authentic faith. People prefer the simple
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  kindness of the Golden Rule, or, you know, the spiritual feelings
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  they get from a beautiful sunset.
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  They think that's the real stuff and the books, the doctrines,
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  are just dead weight. But Lewis pushes back on that,
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  and he pushes back hard. So our mission for this deep
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  dive is really twofold. OK, First we need to understand
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  why Lewis argues that doctrine is like a map, and why throwing
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  away the map is, well, spiritually dangerous.
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  And. 2nd. 2nd. We need to uncover the critical
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  technical difference between being made by God and being
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  begotten by God. And that second point, that's
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  where the stakes get incredibly high.
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  This isn't just Lewis playing with words, not at all.
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  As we're going to see, it distinguishes between being a
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  statue, a carved stone image, and being a living son.
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  It's the difference between an artwork and a child.
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  A profound difference. So let's start with that first
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  part, his defense of theology. Lewis opens this chapter by
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  admitting that everyone, and he means everyone, warned him not
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  to write. It right, he says he was told,
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  and I'm quoting here the ordinary reader does not want
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  theology give him plain practical religion it's.
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  Kind of patronizing advice, isn't it?
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  It is the assumption is that the average person, the ordinary
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  reader, is just too simple minded to handle the heavy
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  lifting of thinking about God's nature.
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  That they just want the warm fuzzies.
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  And I love Lewis's refusal to play that game.
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  He basically says I reject that. He doesn't think the ordinary
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  reader is a fool. His line is you are not
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  children, why should you be treated like children?
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  It's so refreshing. He respects his audience and
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  then he defines theology very simply.
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  He just calls it the science of God.
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  And the logic that follows is, I think, airtight.
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  It is if you want to think about God at all, and most people do
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  in some way, you should want the clearest, most accurate ideas
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  available. Of course, you wouldn't settle
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  for a plain practical astronomy if it meant believing the moon
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  was made of green cheese just because it was a simpler idea
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  than orbital mechanics. You want the truth, even if it's
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  complex. To illustrate this, he tells a
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  story, an anecdote, about an RAF officer.
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  This is such a relatable story. I think we've all met this
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  person. Or maybe at times, we've been
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  this person. Possibly so.
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  Lewis has given a talk to the Air Force and this old, hard
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  bitten officer stands up to object.
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  And the officer's point is basically, I have no use for all
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  that stuff, he says. He's a religious man, but his
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  religion is based on direct experience.
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  Specifically, he talks about being out alone in the desert at
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  night. The desert experience, he says
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  he felt a tremendous mystery. And you know, I get that you're
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  out there. The stars are huge, the silence
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  is heavy. You feel small.
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  You feel a presence. Sure, it's a real experience.
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  And then the officer says, and this is the key part, that is
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  just why I don't believe all your neat little dogmas and
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  formulas about him. Did anyone who's met the real
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  thing? They all seem so petty and
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  pedantic and unreal. It's a powerful objection, it
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  really is. It's rooted in sincerity.
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  And Lewis, to his credit, doesn't just dismiss the man.
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  No, he validates him. He says the officer probably did
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  have a real experience of God in the desert.
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  The feeling was authentic. He agrees that turning from that
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  massive, mysterious desert experience to a written creed
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  like the Apostles Creed, it can feel like a let down.
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  It feels like turning from something real to something.
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  Less real. And this is where Lewis
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  introduces the central analogy of the entire chapter.
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  The Atlantic Ocean versus the map exactly.
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  So walk us through this How does a map solve the problem of the
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  man in the desert? Well, Lewis asks you to think of
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  that desert experience, or in his analogy, walking along the
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  beach and watching the waves as the direct experience.
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  It's real, It's fun. You feel the salt spray on your
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  face, you hear the roar of the ocean.
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  It's exciting. Right.
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  Now contrast that with a map of the Atlantic Ocean.
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  OK, the map is just a piece of colored paper.
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  It's flat. It doesn't roar.
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  It isn't wet. By comparison, it looks very,
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  very unexciting. So if you just compare the two
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  things side by side, the crashing waves versus the piece
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  of paper, the waves win every time.
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  Just like the officers, desert mystery wins in his mind over a
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  dry mythology textbook. Precisely.
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  But, and here's the Lewis twist, he argues that the map is
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  superior, or at least absolutely necessary, for two big reasons.
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  OK, what's the first one? The first is that the map is
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  based on collective experience. That piece of paper isn't just
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  some artists drawing, it is the synthesis of hundreds of
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  thousands of people who have actually sailed the real
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  Atlantic. That is such a crucial point.
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  Your personal walk on the beach is just a single isolated
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  glimpse. It's just you, your feelings,
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  that one moment. But the map?
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  The map is the result of captains and explorers and
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  sailors all fitting together their masses of experience.
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  It's the communal wisdom of the ages written down.
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  So theology isn't 1 person's opinion, it's the church's
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  collective experience of navigating the reality of God.
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  Exactly. And the second reason is even
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  more practical. It's about destination.
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  Where you're trying to go, right?
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  If you want to go anywhere, Lewis uses the example of
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  getting to America, or more specifically Newfoundland.
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  The map is absolutely necessary. Walks on the beach are great,
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  but they won't get you across the ocean.
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  You can stare at the waves all day long, you can feel the
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  mystery of the sea until you're blue in the face, but you will
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  never reach the other side without that map to steer the
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  ship properly. And this is where it really gets
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  interesting for our faith. He connects this directly to how
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  we view God. The mystical feelings.
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  God in the flowers, God in the music.
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  The desert mystery. Those are like the beach.
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  They're wonderful, they're stimulating, they're beautiful,
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  but they lead nowhere on their own.
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  That's right. Doctrines are the map.
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  The Westminster Confession, the Nicene Creed.
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  These things are not God. Lewis is very clear on that.
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  The map is not the ocean. The map is not the ocean, but
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  these doctrines, they are based on the experiences of those who
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  are truly in touch with God, prophets, apostles, the church
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  throughout history and. If you want to, I get to
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  Newfoundland, which in this case stands for eternal life or true
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  union with God. I think that's the kicker, he
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  says. And this is a hard truth for our
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  culture. You will not get eternal life by
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  simply feeling the presence of God in flowers or music.
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  It's a tough pill to swallow. We love the feelings.
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  We love the vibes of spirituality.
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  But Lewis, and really the Reformed perspective in general,
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  insist that feelings are not a substitute for truth.
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  You can't cross the ocean by just enjoying the view from the
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  shore, and there's a safety element to Lewis points out.
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  You won't be very safe if you go to sea without a map.
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  A vague religion all about thrills and feelings is
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  attractive because it's, as he says, all thrills and no work.
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  But real Christianity involves setting sail, and for that you
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  need the church. You need to know where the rocks
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  are. You need to know the proper
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  course. And that is what theology
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  provides. That's the argument.
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  So what does this mean for us today in the modern world?
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  Lewis transitions into talking about the practicality of dogma.
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  He makes a point about education that I think is even more
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  relevant now than when he first wrote it.
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  Oh, for sure. He notes that in the old days,
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  when maybe education was less widespread, people could get by
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  with a few simple ideas about God.
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  They just follow tradition. But today, everyone reads,
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  everyone has a podcast, everyone discusses things.
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  We are just bombarded with information and ideas.
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  And he warns that if you don't listen to theology from the
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  great tradition, it doesn't mean you'll have no ideas about God.
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  No, it means you'll have bad ideas.
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  Bad ideas, muddled, confused or just out of date ideas?
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  That's such a smart insight. There's no vacuum in your head.
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  You will fill your mind with something.
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  And Lewis points out that many of the new and exciting ideas
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  about God that pop up in popular culture, they're actually just
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  old heresies. Ancient heresies that real
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  theologians examined and rejected centuries ago for very
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  good reasons. Believing in some popular fuzzy
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  religion is like deciding to believe the Earth is flat.
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  He calls it retrogression. It's going backward, not
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  forward. And one of the biggest examples
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  of this, one of the most common bad ideas floating around, is
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  what I call the moral teacher trap.
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  Lewis attacks this head on. Oh, this is the classic 1.
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  You hear it all the time. It's the popular definition of
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  Christianity you get from people who don't really want to deal
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  with the supernatural planes. They'll say, well, I think Jesus
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  was a great moral teacher, and if we only took his advice, we
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  could establish a better social order, stop wars and fix the
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  world. And Lewis being fair as always,
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  he concedes the point. He says, well that is quite
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  true. If we all follow Jesus's advice,
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  the world would be a much happier place.
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  But he doesn't stop there. No, and here comes the counter
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  argument. And it's devastatingly simple.
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  Lewis asks. And So what?
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  We've never followed the advice of the great teachers.
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  Why on earth are we likely to begin now?
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  Right. We had Plato, we've had
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  Aristotle, we've had Confucius. They all gave fantastic moral
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  advice. And we haven't followed them
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  either. So Lewis argues that if
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  Christianity is just good advice, then it's of no real
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  importance. There has been plenty of good
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  advice for 4000 years. A little bit more isn't going to
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  magically change the human condition.
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  If we can't even follow the elementary lessons from the
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  past, why would we suddenly start following the most
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  advanced and difficult teacher of all?
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  It's the definition of insanity, doing the same thing and
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  expecting a different result. Here's more good advice this
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  time it'll work. Lewis says no, that is not it.
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  That's not what Christianity is. The real Christian writings, the
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  Gospels, the Epistles, they say something totally different.
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  They make radical claims. They don't just say be nice,
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  they say Christ is the Son of God.
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  They say his death saved us from sin.
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  They say that those who trust Him become sons of God.
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  And he adds those little parenthetical comments, whatever
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  that means, to show that he knows these are difficult,
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  strange concepts. We compares it to modern
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  physics. You know, physics tells us
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  things about the universe, about quantum mechanics, that seem
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  impossible or paradoxical to our common sense.
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  But we accept them because scientists tell us they're
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  describing reality. Theology is the same.
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  It's describing a reality that is behind the world we touch and
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  see. And because it's describing a
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  complex reality, it's bound to be difficult.
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  If it were simple, it probably wouldn't be true.
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  And that claim that we can become sons of God is shocking.
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  Lewis anticipates the question. Wait a minute.
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  Aren't we all sons of God already?
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  Isn't God the Father of all mankind?
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  And this question brings us right to the core distinction of
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  the chapter. This is where the science of God
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  really hinges on one specific definition, the.
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  Difference between making and be getting?
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  This is where we have put our thinking caps on.
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  This comes straight from the ancient creeds of the Church,
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  Begotten, not created. And he's careful to clarify,
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  this is not about the virgin birth.
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  This is about something that happened before all worlds,
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  before time and nature even existed.
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  It's about the eternal relationship within the Trinity.
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  So let's define the terms just as Lewis does.
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  What does it mean to bigot? To bigot is to become the father
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  of something of the same kind as yourself.
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  He uses simple biology to explain it, which is brilliant.
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  A man begets human babies. A Beaver begets little Beavers a
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  bird. Begets eggs that hatch into
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  little birds. The key is that the offspring
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  shares the same nature as the parent.
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  OK. That's clear.
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  So what about making or creating?
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  To make is to create something of a different kind from
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  yourself. A bird makes a nest.
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  The nest is not a. Bird.
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  A Beaver makes a dam. The dam is not a Beaver.
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  A man makes a wireless set. Or, to use a more timeless
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  example, he gives a man makes a statue.
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  The statue analogy is the one he really leans into, and it's
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  perfect for this. A sculptor can carve a statue
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  that looks incredibly like a man.
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  It has a shape of a man, the features of a, but it is not a
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  man. No, it can't breathe.
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  It can't think. It's not alive.
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  It belongs to a completely different order of existence.
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  It is stone. The sculptor is flesh and blood.
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  So now we apply this to God. What God begets is God, that is
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  Jesus Christ. He is of the same nature as the
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  Father. God from God, light from light,
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  as the Nicene Creed says. But what God creates is not God.
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  That's us humans. We are made.
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  We are creatures. This is a massive theological
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  distinction. We so often hear people say
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  things like we are all divine or we all have a spark of the
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  divine within. Us and Lewis, and certainly the
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  Reformed tradition would say, hold on a minute, let's be
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  precise here. We are like God, but we are not
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  of the same kind as God. Exactly.
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  We are like the statue, we resemble him, We are made in his
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  image, just as a statue is made in the image of a man, but we do
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  not share his specific type of existence by nature.
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  We're not little gods, we're artifacts.
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  Divine artifacts, yes, but artifacts nonetheless.
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  To really drive this home, Lewis then walks us through the
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  different levels of resemblance. He shows how everything God made
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  has some likeness to him, but it's a sort of hierarchy.
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  It's a fascinating list. He starts at the very bottom
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  with space. How does space resemble God?
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  In its hugeness, it's a symbol of his greatness, his immensity.
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  But of course space is empty and God is full of life and energy.
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  OK, so then he moves up to matter.
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  Matter resembles God in having energy, but he's careful to say
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  physical energy is very different from spiritual power.
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  It's just a faint echo. Then we get to the vegetable
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  world. Plants.
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  They resemble God because for the first time in this list they
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  are alive. We have biological life.
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  Right. And then you go up to animals,
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  they have activity. Insects, he says, have this
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  intense fertility and constant motion, which is a dim shadow of
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  God's unceasing creativeness. In higher mammals, they have
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  instinctive affection. A mother bear protecting her
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  Cubs. It looks like love.
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  It's a picture of God's love. And then finally you get to man,
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  the highest of the animals man lives, loves and reasons.
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  This is the most complete resemblance to God we know of in
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  the visible universe. But, and this is the critical
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  gap he points to, even the highest human life is only a
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  shadow or a symbol of God's life.
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  Lewis says a picture of a landscape is like the landscape,
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  but it is not the landscape. You can't walk in the picture.
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  You can't smell the grass in the picture.
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  In the same way, our natural life is a picture of God's life,
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  but it's not the same substance. And this leads him to introduce
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  2 Greek words to distinguish these two different types of
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  life. This is one of the most famous
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  parts of Mere Christianity I think.
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  BIOS and Zoe. Yes, it's a very helpful
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  distinction he draws. BIOS is the biological sort of
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  life. It's what we have by nature.
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  It's what all animals and plants have.
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  It comes to us through our parents, the food chain, the air
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  we breathe. And what are its
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  characteristics? Well, it's temporary.
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  It tends to run down and decay. It needs constant subsidies,
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  Food, water, air, sleep, just to keep going.
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  It's a life of constant maintenance and eventual
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  decline. That's BIOS and the other word,
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  Zoe. Zoe, this is the spiritual life.
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  It is the life that is in God Himself from all eternity.
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  It's the life that made the universe.
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  It doesn't decay, it doesn't need subsidies or maintenance.
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  It's self existent and sovereign.
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  The comparison he makes is just stark, he says.
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  BIOS is like a photograph of a place.
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  Zoe is the real place. BIOS is a statue.
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  Zoe is a living man. Where's the So what of the
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  entire chapter? This is the point of all this
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  theology. Like a man changing from having
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  merely BIOS biological life to having Zoe spiritual life is as
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  big a change as a carved stone statue turning into a real
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  breathing man. That is a staggering image.
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  I mean, just picture that you're in a room with a beautiful
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  marble statue, and suddenly the stone softens.
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  It turns to flesh, the chest. He's with the breath, the eyes
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  blink, and it steps off the pedestal.
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  That's a miracle. That is a fundamental change of
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  nature. And that is precisely what Lewis
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  says Christianity is all about. It's not about teaching the
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  statue how to be a better statue.
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  It isn't about polishing the marble so it looks shinier or
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  has better morals. It's about the statue coming to
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  life. Which connects all the way back
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  to that radical claim about becoming sons of God.
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  Right. We are not naturally sons of God
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  in the same sense Christ is. We are made.
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  We are the statues. To become a Son we have to be
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  begotten, or to put it another way, adopted.
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  We have to receive Zoe. And I want to pause here and
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  disconnect this to our reformed focus.
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  This sounds an awful lot like the doctrine of regeneration,
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  doesn't it? It aligns with it perfectly.
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  In Reformed theology, we believe that man in his natural state
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  with only BIOS is spiritually dead in his trespasses and sins.
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  He's. Spiritually inanimate.
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  Like the statue? Exactly.
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  And no amount of moral advice or self help can make a dead man
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  live. You need a sovereign act of God
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  to impart new life. You need to be born again, which
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  literally means to be begotten from above.
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  That's the language of John 3. So when Lewis talks about a
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  person acquiring Zoe, he's describing in his own way that
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  moment where the Holy Spirit applies the work of Christ to
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  the believer and fundamentally changes their nature.
• 18:49
  It's not just I decided to be a better person, it's I was stoned
• 18:54
  and now by grace, I am flesh. That's it.
• 18:58
  And this explains why the whole great moral teacher view of
• 19:01
  Jesus is so tragically insufficient.
• 19:04
  You can shout moral instructions at a statue all day long.
• 19:07
  Be kinder. Stop being so hard.
• 19:09
  Love your neighbor. But the statue is stone.
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  It cannot do it. It needs life first.
• 19:16
  Then, and only then, can it begin to act like a living man.
• 19:20
  Lewis brings this whole line of argument to a close with an
• 19:22
  incredibly evocative metaphor. The world is a sculptor shop.
• 19:26
  It's a great visual he. Says and I love this line.
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  This World is a great sculptor shop.
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  We are the statues and there is a rumor going around the shop
• 19:34
  that some of us are someday going to come to life.
• 19:37
  That gives me chills every time I read it.
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  The idea that we're all walking around bumping into each other,
• 19:41
  obsessed with our statue problems.
• 19:42
  You know, a chip in the marble here, some dust on the shoulder
• 19:45
  there. And meanwhile, the real story,
• 19:47
  the great rumor, is that we're all meant to wake up.
• 19:50
  And the gospel is that rumor becoming reality.
• 19:53
  Christianity is the official announcement that the sculptor
• 19:56
  has entered the shop and he isn't just carving anymore.
• 20:00
  He's breathing into the stone. He is sharing his own Zoe with
• 20:04
  his creatures of BIOS. So if we circle all the way back
• 20:07
  to the map analogy from the beginning.
• 20:08
  The map tells us how this process works.
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  Right. The theology, the doctrines, the
• 20:13
  Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atonement.
• 20:15
  These are the descriptions of how the life of God Zoe comes
• 20:19
  down to us, the statues. And if you throw away the map
• 20:22
  because you prefer the feeling of being in the shop, you might
• 20:24
  have a nice emotional experience.
• 20:27
  But you'll remain a statue, you won't undergo the actual change.
• 20:30
  It really redefines what practical religion means,
• 20:33
  doesn't it? Completely The world thinks
• 20:35
  practical means fixing society's problems right now with better
• 20:38
  policies or advice. And Lewis says the most
• 20:41
  practical thing in the universe is becoming a new kind of
• 20:44
  creature that will live. Forever.
• 20:45
  And paradoxically, it's only those new creatures, the living
• 20:49
  men, who can actually fix the world in any lasting way.
• 20:52
  A world full of statues will just keep bumping into each
• 20:55
  other and cracking. You need living people to build
• 20:58
  a living society. So the impractical theology
• 21:01
  turns out to be the only thing that actually works in the long.
• 21:04
  Run. This has been such a meaningful
• 21:06
  discussion. I feel like we've really gotten
• 21:08
  to the core of why Lewis matters, and more than that, why
• 21:11
  theology itself matters. I agree, it's a powerful
• 21:15
  reminder that we shouldn't be afraid of the deep end of the
• 21:17
  pool. The map is there for a reason to
• 21:20
  guide us. So let's just recap quickly the
• 21:22
  big points we've covered today. First, theology is the science
• 21:25
  of God. It's not an academic luxury.
• 21:28
  It's the necessary map based on the collective experience of the
• 21:31
  church. 2nd moral advice is ultimately useless without the
• 21:35
  power to carry it out. Jesus isn't just a teacher, he
• 21:38
  is the source of a new kind of life. 3rd That crucial
• 21:41
  distinction between making and be getting.
• 21:44
  We are made like statues. Christ is begotten like a son.
• 21:48
  We are created in God's image, but we don't share his nature
• 21:52
  innately. And finally, the goal of
• 21:54
  Christianity is not just better behavior, but a fundamental
• 21:58
  change of our nature, the change from BIOS or biological life to
• 22:03
  Zoe's spiritual life. It's the change from being a
• 22:06
  constructed thing to being a begotten thing, from an artifact
• 22:09
  to a son. That's the whole.
• 22:11
  Ball game. And so here is a final thought
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  for you to chew on as you go about your week.
• 22:17
  If we are currently, as Lewis suggests, just statues in a
• 22:21
  sculptor shop waiting to come to life, or maybe in the very early
• 22:24
  stages of that change, what does that make all our current real
• 22:28
  world obsessions? We spend so much energy
• 22:31
  polishing our surfaces, accumulating money, seeking
• 22:33
  political power, worrying about our status and our image.
• 22:36
  Polishing the marble. Exactly.
• 22:38
  Are we just polishing a stone surface while ignoring the
• 22:40
  heartbeat that's trying to start inside?
• 22:42
  Are we so focused on being the best looking, most admired
• 22:45
  statue in the gallery that we are missing the sculptors
• 22:47
  invitation to become alive and walk out the door?
• 22:50
  That is a question worth wrestling with.
• 22:52
  Indeed it is. Thank you for joining us on this
• 22:54
  deep dive into Mere Christianity.
• 22:57
  We hope this map helps you steer your own course a little better
• 23:00
  this week. Until next time.
• 23:01
  Take care.