Blindspots

C.S. Lewis reminds us of our “blindspots” and why it is unhelpful to only read books from our day. The latest are not always the greatest.

Here’s an excerpt from his foreword to an English translation of Athanasius’ On the Incarnation.

(Find more about Athanasius, the “Father of Orthodoxy.” In this book Athanasius demonstrates the utter uniqueness of the God-Man Jesus.)

Lewis gives a good reminder to read good, old books, giving a needed place to the historic voices that speak beyond their day:

… Naturally, since I myself am a writer, I do not wish the ordinary reader to read no modern books. But if he must read only the new or only the old, I would advise him to read the old. And I would give him this advice precisely because he is an amateur and therefore much less protected than the expert against the dangers of an exclusive contemporary diet. A new book is still on its trial and the amateur is not in a position to judge it. It has to be tested against the great body of Christian thought down the ages, and all its hidden implications (often unsuspected by the author himself) have to be brought to light. Often it cannot be fully understood without the knowledge of a good many other modern books. If you join at eleven o’clock a conversation which began at eight you will often not see the real bearing of what is said. Remarks which seem to you very ordinary will produce laughter or irritation and you will not see why—the reason, of course, being that the earlier stages of the conversation have given them a special point. In the same way sentences in a modern book which look quite ordinary may be directed at some other book; in this way you may be led to accept what you would have indignantly rejected if you knew its real significance. The only safety is to have a standard of plain, central Christianity (“mere Christianity” as Baxter called it) which puts the controversies of the moment in their proper perspective. Such a standard can be acquired only from the old books. It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones.

Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books. All contemporary writers share to some extent the contemporary outlook—even those, like myself, who seem most opposed to it. Nothing strikes me more when I read the controversies of past ages than the fact that both sides were usually assuming without question a good deal which we should now absolutely deny. They thought that they were as completely opposed as two sides could be, but in fact they were all the time secretly united—united with each other and against earlier and later ages—by a great mass of common assumptions. We may be sure that the characteristic blindness of the twentieth century—the blindness about which posterity will ask, “But how could they have thought that?”—lies where we have never suspected it, and concerns something about which there is untroubled agreement between Hitler and President Roosevelt or between Mr. H. G. Wells and Karl Barth. None of us can fully escape this blindness, but we shall certainly increase it, and weaken our guard against it, if we read only modern books. Where they are true they will give us truths which we half knew already. Where they are false they will aggravate the error with which we are already dangerously ill. The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books. Not, of course, that there is any magic about the past. People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes. They will not flatter us in the errors we are already committing; and their own errors, being now open and palpable, will not endanger us. Two heads are better than one, not because either is infallible, but because they are unlikely to go wrong in the same direction. To be sure, the books of the future would be just as good a corrective as the books of the past, but unfortunately we cannot get at them.

• Read the rest of Lewis’ foreword and Athanasius’ On the Incarnation online

For us and for our salvation

I’ve been returning to some of my roots, reading the Nicene Creed a lot lately. In preparation to teach on the life of Athanasius — to our high school group, in a series called INSPIRED — I’ve been contemplating the first official church creed (AD 325). Here’s the modern wording of the Nicene Creed (edited again in 381 at Constantinople and of course translated into English, after the Reformation):

We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father [and the Son].
With the Father and the Son
he is worshipped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. AMEN.

(I grew up saying it every week in church, but only in the last decade have my eyes been open to realize the significance and truth found in the words of this creed. Thankful the words were memorized from a young age, and are becoming to me more colorful and beautiful now.)

Athanasius (c. AD 296/98 – 373) has long been my favorite figure in church history, and he may be the single most influential person in church history since Christ and the Apostles. (more…)

Christology: Pre-Existence + Deity

I’ll be unfolding my doctrinal statement on Jesus Christ over the next few days.

—

I believe Jesus the Christ is Savior and Lord.

Pre-existence + Deity
Jesus Christ is fully God and always has been. He is the Creator of all things (John 1:3; Col. 1:15-17; Heb. 1:3), having never been made, for He has no beginning and will never have an end (Heb. 13:8; Rev. 1:8). He is one Person within the eternal Trinity known to us as Father, Son and Spirit. Jesus, the Son, is co-eternal, co-equal in nature in the Triune Godhead, being is the same essence of the Father and Spirit, being of one substance with each [n1]. He is unique in His role to enter human existence and reveal the Triune God to creation (John 1:18).

On the Incarnation

Last night in our Foundations class at Foothills Community Church I taught on the Hypostatic Union, that is, how Jesus is both fully God and fully Man. In the Incarnation, Jesus who is God added to Himself humanity. God literally “put on flesh” (John 1:14).

It was a glorious time delving this mystery while saturating our minds with Who Jesus is in His perfect Person. He is God! He is Man! He is the God-Man!

A helpful resource on this topic comes from the staff of Desiring God, who put together this article summarizing the five main truths put forth in the Chalcedonean Creed, AD 451.

I also highly recommend getting to know Athanasius, the father of orthodoxy, and his treatise On the Incarnation available to read online here and here. Athanasius stood contra mundum (“against the world”) in defense of the biblical doctrine of Christ. He opposed Arius at the Council of Nicea in AD 325, when it seemed all the world would follow Arius’ heresy. Athanasius’ work remains even today one of the definitive statements of orthodox Trinitarianism.

• Also see some notes on Athanasius life from Monday’s post.