by Stanley Anderson » January 8th, 2007, 7:07 pm
I've mentioned before on these forums a theory I have about Lewis' concept of Joy and I'll recreate it here since it seems pertinent. Note that what I will be describing are only my wandering thoughts about the idea and are not necessarily what I "believe" about any of it, but simply find it interesting to think about and conjecture about. If any of it conflicts with established Christian doctrine, I would obviously concede to that of course.
The scriptural concept of Hope, to me always seemed a bit "corrupted" by our worldly concept of hope in that the worldly concept apparently has a "desire" aspect, and an "uncertain" aspect combined. In other words, when I say I hope so-and-so wins an election, I have a desire for that to happen, but by saying "hope" I also imply that I'm not sure that it actually WILL happen.
But the "uncertain" aspect seems to me to be out of place in the Scriptural concept of Hope (as in "Faith, Hope, and Charity"). It seems to me that Faith is the act of our belief, while Hope is a longing or desire for God and his Will without the necessity of being uncertain. I tend to relate it a bit to the letter to the church at Ephesus where it says "Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love". I think of that criticism as saying that they are doing the things they should by rote, but have lost the desire or the longing to do them -- ie, their first love -- or their Hope, if you will.
So, back to Lewis' concept of Joy as being an intense desire for "I know not what". He acknowledged (before his conversion) that the apparent object of that intense desire or longing never seemed to "pan out" -- ie, if he actually walked over to that distant hillside that seemed to call out to him and manifest the pain and longing of Joy, he would find out that it disappeared or seemed to come from somewhere else. The physical thing that seemed to be the source of Joy always turned out to be more just a "tool" to call it up, but was not the true source of the Joy.
And of course, as we all know, what he finally concluded was that the pangs of Joy were really longings for God and were only "disguised" as it were, as coming from His Creation, and Joy's elusive manner was meant to eventually draw the one experiencing it to God Himself.
And so my "theory" about Lewis' idea of Joy is that it is a sort of "pre-conversion" version of Scriptural Hope, its difference being that in Hope we know what the true object of the desire of that Hope is (ie God), but in Lewis' Joy the one experiencing it has yet to discover that true object of longing that it seems to call forth.
--Stanley
…on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a fair green country under a swift sunrise.