Into the Wardrobe

I've been looking for an illustration that I THINK was by CS Lewis. The author wants to illustrate Free Will by demonstrating that God cannot intervene at the individual level as His normal response to suffering. The illustration is that of the cricket match (or baseball/rounders) match. Should God turn the bat used to strike an opponent into a foam rubber instrument - or should he intervene in the thinking of the attacker - or should God now even allow bad thoughts to form?

Any idea of the source of this? It may, of course, not be a CS Lewis quote - whihc will then only reveal my poor memory.

peteradvent

Welcome, Peter!

The quote as described doesn't ring any bells with me, but let me think on it a bit.

In the chapter "Divine Omnipotence" in The Problem of Pain, we read:

"We can, perhaps, conceive of a world in which God corrected the results of this abuse of free-will by His creatures at every moment: so that a wooden beam became soft as grass when it was used as a weapon ..."

Good catch, Leslie!

"we will make holiday"

Thank you for this. Now to find a cricket match - and use the illustration to make a short film.

peteradvent

I just looked at the quote - and wonder if Lewis extended the illustration somewhere else. Hmmm

I can't imagine that Lewis would use a sports illustration - he had a great aversion to games. Perhaps someone else adapted it to the cricket analogy?

Ah. I actually think that the adaption was to baseball - and not cricket. I'm using one aspect - the thump of a bat against ball - and would try to remain faithful to the spirit of Lewsi. Not SO easy to find a cinematic illustration that would engage an audience. Hard words might be a way to look at this.

We'll see. I can see I need to get to know more about Lewis

Peter