by Kolbitar » June 2nd, 2006, 2:35 pm
Hello Carlko.
In his essay The Poison of Subjectivism Lewis write:
"But it might be permissible to lay down two negations: that God neither obeys nor creates the moral law. The Good is uncreated; it never could have been otherwise; it has in it no shadow of contingency; it lies, as Plato said, on the other side of existence. It is the Rita of the Hindus by which the gods themselves are divine, the Tao of the Chinese from which all realities proceed. But we, favoured beyond the wisest pagans, know what lies beyond existence, what admits no contingency, what lends divinity to all else, what is the ground of existence, is not simply a law but a beggeting love, a love begotten, and the love which, being between these two, is also imminent in all those who are caught up to share the unity of their self-caused life. God is not merely good, but goodness; goodness is not merely divine but God."
I think that Lewis, coming from the Sacramental Tradition, does not have a low view of Scripture, but neither does he demand Scripture support a weight it was never intended to bear. He is quite content to let Scripture be taken side by side with tradition and with the conclusions of the body of the Church. This is now my view as well, one I think is Scriptural. I really don't intend to start an endless debate about this issue, I only want to defend a charge that often amounts to saying, "you don't agree with my interpretation, or the way I interpret, so your view is a low view." I'm not necessarily charging you with saying that, but it seems the case in general that when, say, Catholicism--and Scripture itself--speaks of the Church as the pillar and foundation of truth, and that the Bible is just one element included in that pillar, it's by default a view subordinating Scripture while exalting "religion" and "institutions" and "man's interpretation." The charge can be question begging for it often starts a-priori (it's just assumed) when the Traditionalist rightly notes it should begin a posteriori (a starting point that's itself a conclusion from experience).
Also within that Tradition, the Anglo-Catholic tradition especially, I think, is the acknowledgment of the distinction between reason and revelation. Mathematics is not specially revealed to us, it is known through human reason. Lewis' point in speaking of the moral law which sometimes leaves God out of the context concedes nothing but that basic moral precepts are rationally perceived--similar to mathematics in the sense that they do not require, in principle, revelation. This is why Lewis speaks of the natural virtues in Mere Christianity. The distinction also safeguards the supernatural virtues of faith, hope and love, which proceed from revealed knowledge and stand in that lofty realm above the summit of reason: where truth known to our limited faculties gives way to the beauty of transcendent truths, as of yet known only in the darkness of faith.