Tuesday, March 25, 2003 Feast of the Annunciation of our Lord to the Virgin Mary
Long before I believed Theology to be true, I had already decided that the popular scientific picture at any rate was false. One absolutely central inconsistency ruins it... The whole picture professes to depend on inferences from observed facts. Unless inference is valid, the whole picture disappears. Unless we can be sure that reality in the remotest nebula or the remotest part obeys the thought-laws of the human scientist here and now in his laboratory—in other words, unless Reason is an absolute—all is in ruins. Yet those who ask me to believe this world-picture also ask me to believe that Reason is simply the unforeseen and unintended by-product of mindless matter at one stage of its endless and aimless becoming. Here is flat contradiction. They ask me at the same moment to accept a conclusion and to discredit the only testimony on which that conclusion can be based. The difficulty is to me a fatal one; and the fact that when you put it to many scientists, far from having an answer, they seem not even to understand what the difficulty is, assures me that I have not found a mare’s nest but detected a radical disease in their whole mode of thought from the very beginning. The man who has once understood the situation is compelled henceforth to regard the scientific cosmology as being, in principle, a myth—though no doubt a great many true particulars have been worked into it.
... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), “Is Theology Poetry?”, in They Asked for a Paper, London: Geoffrey Bles, 1962, p. 162
(see the book; see also Prov. 3:5; 14:12; Matt. 7:13-14; Luke 13:24; Acts 17:2-3; 1 Cor. 1:18; Gal. 6:3; more at Belief, Man, Myth, Reason, Social, Theology, Thought, Truth)
Compilation Copyright, 1996-2024, by Robert McAnally Adams,
Curator, Christian Quotation of the Day,
with Robert Douglas, principal contributor
Logo image Copyright 1996 by Shay Barsabe, of “Simple GIFs”, by kind permission.
Send comments to curator@cqod.com.
Last updated:
04/10/20
Fun stuff
Tweet this
CQOD is now available to include on your personal home page, blog, or church web site—perfect for a sidebar.
To display CQOD on your web site, updating daily, copy the line below and paste directly into the position that CQOD should appear:
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://cqod.com/js/"></script>
To display this particular quotation on your web site, copy the line below and paste directly into the position that CQOD should appear:
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://cqod.com/js/index-03-25-03.js"></script>
For more information, see CQOD Web Home
|
Welcome to the CQOD home page. This page changes daily, publishing a different
quotation each day, so return here often. Many people use this page as their browser home page. Bookmark this page by pressing cntl-d.
means text and bibliography have been verified.
CQOD makes numerous features and links available. Here are some important links to help you get around:
Previous day’s CQOD (Goodspeed)
Following day’s CQOD (Gray)
This month’s CQODs
CQOD for today
CQOD on the go!
Use our double opt-in listserve to receive CQOD by email
CQOD daily index
All monthly archives
What’s New on CQOD
Author index
Title index
Poetry index
Scripture index
Subject index
Search CQOD (or see below)
CQOD Blog
CQOD RSS
Facebook CQOD Fan Page
Follow CQOD on Twitter
Follow CQOD on Instagram
About CQOD
CQOD on the Web
CQOD FAQ
CQOD Liturgical Calendar
Mere Christianity: a conversation
Simple Songs for Psalms
Quotations Bible Study
Essays Archive
Bookworms
Spotlights
Publications:
Jonah: a miracle play
Ruth: a play
Also visit these organizations:
Arab Vision
Crescendo
Oratorium
More devotionals
Search CQOD:
|