![]() Who does his best to keep you from talking too much and eating too much by giving you dry throats and headaches and indigestion? Eh?” “And what about sex?” said I. Who put an end to all those angry and revengeful thoughts last night? Me, of course, by insisting on going to sleep. “Well I like that! Who taught me to like tobacco and alcohol? You, of course, with your idiotic adolescent idea of being ‘grown-up.’ My palate loathed both at first: but you would have your way. “You are always dragging me down,” said I to my Body. “If the imagination were obedient, the appetites would give us very little trouble.” 7 Lewis humorously expands on the soul’s tendency to blame the body for its ills: But, Lewis reminds us, the body is not the primary source of temptation. The notion that our bodies are the root of our sinfulness is pagan in origin, even if it has found Christian sanction because of a misunderstanding of the Pauline use of the term flesh. Our Sinful SelvesĪt the same time, we must not blame our bodies for the scrapes and troubles we find ourselves in. Lewis's popular and lesser-known writings, illuminating how they help readers develop a deeper awareness of God's presence and work in their lives. Joe Rigney explores particular themes that run throughout C. We must accept and embrace the body, in all its glory and buffoonery, remembering that whatever our bodies do affects our souls. Something of God which the Seraphim can never quite understand flows into us from the blue of the sky, the taste of honey, the delicious embrace of water whether cold or hot, and even from sleep itself. There are particular aspects of His love and joy which can be communicated to a created being only by sensuous experience. Lewis here suggests that human beings know something about God that angels do not. That may be one of the reasons why we were made-and why the resurrection of the body is an important doctrine. They understand colors and tastes better than our greatest scientists but have they retinas or palates? I fancy the “beauties of nature” are a secret God has shared with us alone. For the beasts can’t appreciate it and the angels are, I suppose, pure intelligences. He invented it.” 3 In fact, Lewis expresses the amazing dignity of the body when he writes:īut for our body one whole realm of God’s glory-all that we receive through the senses-would go upraised. ![]() In contrast to the ascetics, Christianity insists that “God never meant man to be a purely spiritual creature. ![]() We sometimes adopt either of two attitudes we find among the pagans-body-hating asceticism or body-worshiping indulgence. It is easy for Christians to forget this. Human beings are hybrids, what Screwtape calls “amphibians-half spirit and half animal.” 2 In other words, we are composite beings, consisting of bodies (like the beasts) and souls or spirits (like angels). Lewis’s Screwtape Letters, Screwtape tells his nephew Wormwood to “keep the patient from the serious intention of praying altogether.” 1 When we pray, there is always the possibility that God will act directly to draw us closer to himself. Prayer, whether it is confession, supplication, thanksgiving, or adoration, always involves a surrender, an embracing of God’s ever-present presence. ![]() If the living God is here and now, confronting us with his presence, then prayer is precisely the point where we acknowledge that presence. ![]()
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