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Saturday, September 21, 2013

C.S. Lewis: Quote Collection


Despite the appeal of Lewis' 'superior truth,' some moral ideas - no matter how good in the abstract - may, for some people, be more hobbling than liberating.

Perhaps polygamy was more inspirational for King David than monogamy would have been.

As much as I love Lewis, I detect a certain sternness in his character that seems overvalued relative to the bedrock role of mercy and compassion - not always, but sometimes.

As a Catholic, I believe indulgence can be more spiritually fruitful than insisting on the unbreachable superiority of one's own beliefs.

It is an unpalatable truth that Christians are prey to perennial temptation from credos that provide prurient pleasure by distinguishing "the saved" from "the damned."

Even if they are right, they are wrong.

http://alanarchibald.homestead.com/CSLewis.html

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"The terrible thing about our time is precisely the ease with which theories can be put into practice.  The more perfect, the more idealistic the theories, the more dreadful is their realization.  We are at last beginning to rediscover what perhaps men knew better in very ancient times, in primitive times before utopias were thought of: that liberty is bound up with imperfection, and that limitations, imperfections, errors are not only unavoidable but also salutary. The best is not the ideal.  Where what is theoretically best is imposed on everyone as the norm, then there is no longer any room even to be good.  The best, imposed as a norm, becomes evil.”  
"Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander,” by Thomas Merton

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