One of the remarkable balances C.S. Lewis makes in his theology seems to be his focus on

quiddity, the thisness of created reality, but without losing the eager anticipation of

heaven or the new creation, things unseen.

Pastor John, how does C.S. Lewis strike this balance?

He does do it well.

And probably the best thing we could do is to just read him and watch him do it instead

of trying to formulate how he did it, but I do think that Lewis does it well in large

measure because in God's providence Lewis came to faith by discovering the inadequacy

of the lilies of the field, the inadequacies of the experience of northernness when he read

his Norse mythology because what he discovered was that his pangs of joyful longing as he saw

beauty evaporated as soon as he turned a look at them. And he was endlessly frustrated that he

would never really be able to have what he thought he wanted, namely the stabs of joy.

They came, they went and then Lewis discovered God and then he discovered Christ and then

he discovered the gospel and then he discovered the creator of all things and the goal of all things.

And he realized that all of those things that had been trying to awaken him and he was trying

to fasten on as the end in themselves were all pointers. The affection of joy was a pointer and

the things that were awakening it, those mythologies that he was reading. They were all pointing

towards the true myth, as he called it, namely Christianity. So probably Lewis is a good guide

for us in cherishing the eternal, cherishing the unseen, cherishing God's the source and

goal of all things, as well as being able to see the the thisness and the beauty of this world

because God had brought him to faith through an appreciation of the thisness of things and then

showed him that they were all thick with God. They were all pointing toward God. They were all

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