I recently heard that Bernie Sanders described his views about God this way: “Everyone believes in the golden rule, and we call that God.”
That sounds nice, but I don’t believe it’s true.
Plato might agree with the idea that a “rule” may be God, but I believe that the best evidence suggests that God is a personal being. The golden rule, itself, is part of the proof.
The golden rule, of course, is the statement famously made by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. He said, in part: “Do to others what you would have them to do to you.”[1]
The golden rule requires interpersonal relationship.
Bernie Sanders believes that the golden rule is universal. It certainly has universal applicability and universal appeal. But, it isn’t universally believed, and it certainly isn’t universally observed.
From a clip from EWTN’s “Tolkien’s ‘The Lord of the Rings:’ A Catholic Worldview”
Are myths fiction? The stories they tell aren’t true. Are they, therefore, lies? Are they worthless? Nothing but “beautiful lies”? Nothing but fairy tales?
These are the questions posed by one man playing J.R.R. Tolkien to his counterpart playing C.S. Lewis in a fictional conversation between the two men: Lewis and Tolkien Debate Myths and Lies (embedded at the end of the article).
This interplay, while fictional, is intended to capture the essence of the relationship between Lewis and Tolkien as Lewis was transitioning from the materialism he embraced as a young man to theism. At this point, he is wrestling with doubts that were rising in his mind about the truth of that materialist world view. He was becoming convinced his previous conclusions no longer made sense.
Lewis had been raised on a diet of classical Greek and Latin literature that he learned to read in the original languages. He read these classics along with Celtic, German and other literature filled with myth, allegory and symbolism. The literature captured his imagination as a child and young adult.
As he got older, he embraced materialism, but that materialism eventually clashed with a profound undercurrent of something “real” that appealed to him in that ancient literature. The reality Lewis was confronting might, perhaps, be considered nothing more than a love of art, beauty, poetry and love itself that the materialist enjoys in common with more metaphysically minded men.
But it raises some existential questions: Is matter and energy all that exists? What of the sublime reality we all intuitively “know” and sense in classic, timeless literature and art?
Tolkien’s response to Lewis’s existential angst is the subject of this article. The substance of it continues to resonate and illuminate such modern thinkers as Jordan Peterson, whose thoughts on the same subject are contained (briefly) in a short video embedded at the end.
Meanwhile, I have done a transcript of the fictional reimagining of the Tolkien and Lewis discourse to follow:
I recently heard a Sermon on Matthew 3:15. The verse was posited for the proposition that believers in Christ should be baptized as a public expression of faith in obedience to God. This is a pretty fundamental proposition that most Christian denominations would advocate in some form or another.
In Matthew 3, John the Baptist has been preaching repentance, turning to God and baptism to make the way for one who “is coming soon who is greater than I am – so much greater that I’m not worthy even to be his slave and carry his sandals”.[1] This was Jesus, of course. Then we are told that Jesus went to Galilee to the Jordan River to be baptized by John, and John tried to talk him out of it, saying, “I am the one who needs to be baptized by you….”[2] This is the context in which Jesus makes the statement that was the focus of the sermon.
The New Living Translation of the Bible was used for the textual reference. I tend to use the ESV and NASB translations because they are more literal. They are word for word translations, rather than phrase for phrase (or idea for idea) translations, like the NLT. The word for word translations tend to be considered more accurate and more authentic to the original text. These are things I was thinking as I listened to the message, and I wondered what difference a more literal translation would make.
A loving God who is just and fair would not foreclose a connection to those who are born without the intellectual capacity to understand or know what is required of them
I read an autobiographical account by CS Lewis in college in which he recounted his journey from atheist to agnostic to Christian. The twists and turns of his journey were fascinating to me. I gained much insight into my own journey and how God works in the hearts of people who are inclined to follow the prompts.
His journey was like mine in some respects and much different in others. Just as I see how uniquely tailored and personal those prompts were for me, they were just as uniquely tailored for CS Lewis.
The God revealed in the Bible is a Person, and He is personal. He made us in His image. He made us to have relationship with Him. He relates to us as no one can. He knows our innermost being. I have found all these things to be true to my own experience.
After CS Lewis conceded the intellectual point that the universe was more likely created by a Causal Agent than not, he began to sort through the various possibilities for what that Causal Agent could be. Searching out the various world religions, he found that one stood out. One was not dependent on man’s own capacity to know or to understand. All other religions required special knowledge, understanding, and effort to achieve a connection with that Causal Agent.
He reasoned that a loving God who is just and fair would not foreclose a connection to those who are born without the intellectual capacity to understand or know what is required of them. Such a God would have to be accessible by all people, regardless of capacity. The complexities of religion did not seem appropriate to Lewis as he contemplated these things.
From the Switchfoot YouTube video of The Sound (John Perkins’s Blues)
I have been struggling for the right words since I learned of the Charlottesville tragedy. Of course, I denounce the hate-filled act that took a life and put others in the hospital. I denounce racism in all its ugly forms. I joined in with other voices to acknowledge that this was an act of terrorism. Plain and simple.
But, when the dust settles and the loud cries for justice fade to a simmering fury, it isn’t that plain and simple.
How did we get here? More importantly, how do we escape this rat trap that seems to have perpetually bound us to the doom of repeated history?
I listen to the clamor of voices, and I just want to weep – so much heat and very little light. More knee-jerk reactions are not sufficient to counter the forces that…
(c) Can Stock Photo / Massonforstock
From the Switchfoot YouTube video of The Sound (John Perkins’s Blues) 
