We’re persevering. Let me send
a blessing on what you may do
that it be right and it be true.
At last I know you as a friend
to look for when we reach the end.
We’ve seen the way the devil groups
despair with his deceitful troops,
because he wants to hold his ground.
Deep time is short. We’re homeward bound.
He’ll trip and fall, his final oops.
Ronovan Hester offers the rhyme word “oops” to be used in the C line of a décima having rhyme pattern ABBAACCDDC for this week’s challenge.
This prairie’s thick with butterflies.
From bloom to bloom they make a trip
as summer’s winds through flowers slip
at home with life and cloudy skies.
These butterflies distract my eyes
like yellow leaves that float and fall.
They calmly work though very small.
While on this journey patiently,
though home seems far away from me,
I’ll walk and pray, obey the call.
Ronovan Hester offers the rhyme word “trip” to be used in a B line of a décima having rhyme pattern ABBAACCDDC for this week’s challenge. And Eugenia offers “journey” for her prompt this week.
What we learn from experience depends on the kind of philosophy we bring to experience.
C.S. Lewis, Miracles: A Preliminary Study, Page 11.
In Miracles C.S. Lewis wants to convince his readers that miracles, especially the grand miracle of the Incarnation where God became Man in Jesus, are possible and fitting. He does this by challenging views of nature, both theistic and atheistic, that reject the supernatural as a source for miracles.
Naturalism claims that supernatural reality does not exist implying that there could be no miracles. Lewis takes from Naturalism that nature is orderly, impersonal cause and effect processes. He then shows that our reasoning ability would not be the result of such processes. Whenever we reason we thereby demonstrate reality that Naturalism cannot explain without something else outside it.
Hence, given Naturalism’s presuppositions about nature, nature cannot be the whole show. Alvin Plantinga carried this idea further in his Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism.
Combine Naturalism with some field of consciousness (to avoid the supernatural) and one gets Pantheism, an ancient but ever-popular form of spirituality. Lewis writes (pages 99-100), “The popular ‘religion’ excludes miracles because it excludes the ‘living God’ of Christianity and believes instead in a kind of God who obviously would not do miracles, or indeed anything else.”
Although that characterization of Pantheism makes sense, it seems limited. These nature religions also have an ominous underbelly of demonic activity that Ephesians 6 warns us about. Miracles are wonders to our eyes. God is not the only source of them.
Furthermore, I see Platonism as a rationalization of these popular religions that Lewis objects to. However, and this is where my problems start, Lewis views Christianity as having “incorporated both” Platonism and Judaism (page 101). After reading his appendix on special providences I lost the ‘living God’ in all that philosophy.
There is much in Miracles of value especially when Lewis uses the presuppositions of Naturalism to argue for the supernatural, however, I suspect that Lewis accepted without adequate questioning many of the presuppositions of Naturalism such as impersonal natural laws and my own worldview inclines me to trust the Jewish scriptures over Plato.
Next Sunday I will look at miracles as presented by Greg Bahnsen.
The audio below is a reading of a shorter essay by Lewis on the topic of miracles.
Weekly Bible Reading: Job (Audio)
Commentary: David Pawson, Job, Part 28 and Part 29, Unlocking the Bible
He was a craft-less, cranky crook
who stole the money from some kid.
He ran and laughed at what he did
then found a darkened, dreary nook,
unwrapped the bills to have a look,
and counted dollars, one by one.
Just five? All singles? That’s no fun.
He wanted more. There were no more.
Complaining life was such a bore
the rats approached. This tale is done.
Ronovan Hester offers the rhyme work “crook” to be used in an A line of a décima having rhyme pattern ABBAACCDDC for this week’s challenge.
We tried, but knew we could not say,
“Those others were the ones at fault.”
We went along, insipid salt,
and we ourselves would not obey.
Ours was the wide, not narrow, way
where newscasts pumped each cover lie.
We offered babies up to die
for curses Satan would approve.
That mark we got did help us move
about, buy junk. We scream and cry.
Ronovan Hester offers the rhyme word “move” to be used in the D line of a décima have rhyme pattern ABBAACCDDC for this week’s challenge. I’m thinking of Revelation.
The stakes were high for those who played
It wasn’t just another game.
It wasn’t just more of the same
that one could flee when brightness grayed.
It was a time for those who prayed.
It was the ending of the war
and those connected to the core
rejoiced. Their blood flowed through the heart.
That victory tore death apart
from life and that forevermore.
Ronovan Hester offers the rhyme word “core” to be used in a C line of a décima having rhyme pattern ABBAACCDDC for this week’s challenge. I was thinking of Revelation 20.
When demons push their hostile lies,
trashing truths to trip and stumble,
laughing through deceit they mumble
then justice seems the one that dies.
But round the world comes other cries
of those who know that all’s not lost.
It never was. With rough waves tossed
the darkness hides the light from day
pretending dark’s the only way.
A holy life is worth the cost.
Ronovan Hester offers the rhyme word “mumble” to be used in a B line of a décima having rhyme pattern ABBAACCDDC for this week’s Décima Poetry Challenge. Eugenia offers “round the word” for this week’s Thursday Prompt. I am thinking of Leviticus 11:45 and 1 Peter 1:16.
Flowers through the window
that I’m looking through
with petals open on display,
staying open come what may,
there for all to view.
Dale offers the prompt “a room with a view” for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge and Eugenia offers “petals” as this week’s Thursday Prompt.
The ocean’s waves press to the beach.
They soak the sand then move away.
Some rough, some calm, throughout the day
indifferently the waters reach.
Persistently the pastors preach
repentance; Kingdom! Some don’t care,
but others do. Stay standing there.
Sing words, like waves upon the shore,
to offer praises ever more.
May all who’d hear join in the prayer.
Ronovan Hester offers the prompt word “beach” to be used in an A line of a décima having rhyme pattern ABBAACCDDC for this week’s Décima Poetry Challenge.
Without repentance, anxious, I
try hard to mindlessly sit still.
In lotus pose I’ll stay until
I save myself and learn to fly,
to levitate before I die
as gravity brags it will win.
My baggage stores a weight of sin
that keeps me from a soaring leap.
I need to find before I sleep
that way I’ve blocked, the true way in.
Ronovan Hester offers the rhyme word “leap” to be used in a D line of a décima having rhyme pattern ABBAACCDDC for this week’s Décima Poetry Challenge and Eugenia offers “soaring” for this week’s Thursday Prompt.
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking 