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BOOK FOUR:

BEYOND PERSONALITY : or FIRST STEPS IN THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY

Chapter 23

MAKING AND BEGETTING

Everyone has warnedto tell you in this last book They all say `the ordinary reader does not want Theology; give hiion&039; I have rejected their advice I do not think the ordinary reader is such a fool Theology means &039;the science of God,&039; and I think any man ants to think about God at all would like to have the clearest and most accurate ideas about Him which are available You are not children: why should you be treated like children?

In a way I quite understand why soy I re a talk to the RAF, an old, hard-bitten officer got up and said, `I&039;ve no use for all that stuff But, ious man too I know there&039;s a God I&039;ve felt Hiht: the tremendous mystery And that&039;s just why I don&039;t believe all your neat little dogmas and for they all seem so petty and pedantic and unreal !&039;

Now in a sense I quite agreed with that man I think he had probably had a real experience of God in the desert And when he turned from that experience to the Christian creeds, I think he really was turning fro less real In the same way, if a oes and looks at areal to so from real waves to a bit of coloured paper But here comes the point The s you have to remember about it In the first place, it is based on what hundreds and thousands of people have found out by sailing the real Atlantic In that way it has behind it masses of experience just as real as the one you could have froliether In the second place, if you want to go anywhere, theas you are content alks on the beach, your own glioing to be et to A and thinking about the Christian doctrines, if you stop there, is less real and less exciting than the sort of thing ot in the desert Doctrines are not God: they are only a kind of map But that map is based on the experience of hundreds of people who really were in touch with God-experiences cos you and I are likely to get on our own are very eleet any further, you must use the map You see, what happened to that man in the desertco to do about it In fact, that is just why a vague religion-all about feeling God in nature, and so on-is so attractive It is all thrills and no work; like watching the waves fro the Atlantic that way, and you will not get eternal life by si the presence of God in flowers orat o to sea without a y is practical: especially now In the old days, when there was less education and discussion, perhaps it was possible to get on with a very few simple ideas about God But it is not so now Everyone reads, everyone hears things discussed Consequently, if you do not listen to Theology, that will not mean that you have no ideas about God It willones - bad, reat many of the ideas about God which are trotted out as novelties to-day are sio and rejected To believe in the popular religion ofthe earth is flat

For when you get down to it, is not the popular idea of Christianity sireat ht be able to establish a better social order and avoid another war? Now, mind you, that is quite true But it tells you much less than the whole truth about Christianity and it has no practical importance at all

It is quite true that if we took Christ&039;s advice we should soon be living in a happier world You need not even go as far as Christ If we did all that Plato or Aristotle or Confucius told us, we should get on a great deal better than we do And so what: We never have followed the advice of the great teachers Why are we likely to begin now? Why are we more likely to follow Christ than any of the others? Because He is the best moral teacher? But that makes it even less likely that we shall follow Him If we cannot take the ele to take the most advanced one? If Christianity only ood advice, then Christianity is of no iood advice for the last four thousand years A bit more makes no difference

But as soon as you look at any real Christian writings, you find that they are talking about soion They say that Christ is the Son of God (whatever that ive Him their confidence can also become Sons of God (whatever that means) They say that His death saved us froood co that these state us about another world, about so behind the world we can touch and hear and see You may think the claim false; but if it were true, what it tells us would be bound to be difficult-at least as difficult as modern Physics, and for the saives us the greatest shock is the state ourselves to Christ, we can `become Sons of God&039; One asks `Aren&039;t we Sons of God already? Surely the fatherhood of God is one of the main Christian ideas?&039; Well, in a certain sense, no doubt we are sons of God already I ht us into existence and loves us and looks after us, and in that way is like a father But when the Bible talks of our `beco different And that brings us up against the very centre of Theology

One of the creeds says that Christ is the Son of God &039;begotten, not created&039;; and it adds `begotten by his Father before all worlds&039; Will you please get it quite clear that this has nothing to do with the fact that when Christ was born on earth as aabout the Virgin Birth We are thinking about so that happened before Nature was created at all, before tiotten, not created What does it otten lish, but everyone still knohat they et is to become the father of: to create is to et soets huets eggs which turn into little birds But when youof a different kind from yourself A bird makes a nest, a beaver builds a da more like himself than a wireless set : say, a statue If he is a clever enough carver he may make a statue which is very like a man indeed But, of course, it is not a real man; it only looks like one It cannot breathe or think It is not alive

Now that is the first thing to get clear What God begets is God; just as what ets is man What God creates is not God; just as what man makes is not man That is why men are not Sons of God in the sense that Christ is They s of the same kind They are more like statues or pictures of God

A statue has the shape of a man but is not alive In the sa to explain) the `shape&039; or likeness of God, but he has not got the kind of life God has Let us take the first point ( God has made has soeness: not that the greatness of space is the sareatness as God&039;s, but it is a sort of symbol of it, or a translation of it into non-spiritual terain, of course, physical energy is a different kind of thing froetable world is like Hi God&039; But life, in this biological sense, is not the same as the life there is in God: it is only a kind of symbol or shadow of it When we come on to the aniical life The intense activity and fertility of the insects, for exa activity and the creativeness of God In the higher s of instinctive affection That is not the sa as the love that exists in God: but it is like it - rather in the way that a picture drawn on a flat piece of paper can nevertheless be `like&039; a landscape When we coet the completest resemblance to God which we know of (There may be creatures in other worlds who are more like God than man is, but we do not know about theical life reaches its highest known level in hiot, is Spiritual life the higher and different sort of life that exists in God We use the saht that both , that would be like thinking that the &039;greatness&039; of space and the `greatness&039; of God were the sareatness In reality, the difference between Biological life and Spiritual life is so iive theical sort which co else in Nature) is always tending to run down and decay so that it can only be kept up by incessant subsidies from Nature in the form of air, water, food, etc, is Bios The Spiritual life which is in God from all eternity, and which made the whole natural universe, is Zoe Bios has, to be sure, a certain shadowy or symbolic resemblance to Zoe: but only the sort of resemblance there is between a photo and a place, or a statue and aZoe would have gone through as big a change as a statue which changed fro a real man

And that is precisely what Christianity is about This world is a great sculptor&039;s shop We are the statues and there is a ru to come to life