Did Lewis charge God foolishly?

[digorykirk]

In the book of Job, after Job hears that all of his sons and daughters have been killed, it says:



But C. S. Lewis, in A Grief Observed, let's his anger find expression in calling God a Cosmic Sadist and an Eternal Vivisector. Lewis admits that these are not the product of thought, but expressions of hatred and that he chose them precisely because he felt those sort of things would most offend God and his followers.

Was that sinful of Lewis?

If Lewis's wife had died in some sort of horrible accident, I could understand his anger more, but my understanding is that he didn't marry Joy until after she had already been diagnosed. It is hard for me to reconcile the very rationalist Lewis one sees in many of his other writings with this man who seems utterly shocked that a cancer patient ended up dying of cancer. He seems not just grief-stricken, but a little childish to me.

[Karen]

He had just lost the love of his life. It seems an entirely normal reaction to me, and not sinful at all. God can take it when we're angry with Him.

[Larry W.]

I don't know what I would have done in his situation so I really can't call him foolish. Whether someone is taken away from you through an accident or cancer the grief is probably the same. There is no reason to think Lewis was being foolish or childish when one considers the loss he experienced.

Larry W.

[digorykirk]

[digorykirk]

[Larry W.]

[Leslie]

[rusmeister]

[Dr. U]

I think one reason Lewis is so loved by so many people is his honesty, including in A Grief Observed. While not everyone going through experiences like his loss of Joy Davidman, or other great sorrows of life, may say things like he does in his journal, we certainly feel and think things like that inside.

The first time I read Job, I was more than a little baffled as a young Christian, including why it was in the Bible. Now (past age 50), it's one of my favorite books. Poor Job! He never does get the answers to his questions why everything has fallen apart in his life. He keeps insisting he has done right his whole life - and God even backs him up, both in the dialogue against Satan's accusations that Job knows nothing about, and, at the end of the book, when God tells Job's friends they've sinned by their accusations that Job was being punished for sinful behavior. Job keeps asking for the chance to ask God questions, and when he finally gets his opportunity, God answers his questions with questions (proving God is Jewish). I love how Augustine wrestles at length with the same issue in (I think) City of God, and concludes we cannot have the answers in this life in some of these type of situations, but have to trust that God is good and it will someday make sense.

I think A Grief Observed is like that, it seems like sorrow on top of sorrow and we ache for him, but I so appreciate Lewis for being honest enough to write his struggle with trusting God down for us. And he came through it, too. In fact, perhaps part of his trial was for the benefit of the people who have found wisdom and not given up on God, by reading A Grief Observed, most of them years after Lewis himself had died.

[digorykirk]

[Dr. U]

[rusmeister]

Second Dr U's motion, and I thought it was obvious that I basically agreed with you, Digory. I think it's understandable that people should want to defend Lewis - we have and desire mercy enough ourselves - but standards are standards, and so when you ask if at any point it might have been sin, then yes, it could have been (or crossed the boundary into) sin. But it is far more important that the sin was repented of.

[Leslie]

[digorykirk]

[Karen]