In this doodle, C.S. Lewis describes 'the spiritual preparation of humanity' from the introductory chapter of his book 'The Problem of Pain'. Notes below:
0:11, 15:48 The climbing rope at the end showing four 'strands' within it, is a link to the introductory rope illustration of 'Developed Religion'.
0:56, 6:09 See the following quote on this uncanny or "peculiar feeling" in regards to the dead & ghosts: "I am not so much afraid of death, as ashamed because of it; it is the very disgrace & ignominy of our human natures that, in a moment, can so disfigure us that our nearest friends, wife, & children stand afraid and start (=recoil) at us." (Thomas Brown)
8:24 Parricide is the killing of a parent. Our conscience is there first. The act of murder could not produce a sense of guilt, unless our conscience was already saying 'you ought not'.
9:01 The ancient texts are as follows:
'And surely proper behaviour to parents & elder siblings is the root of goodness' (Ancient Chinese, Chinese Analects, i. 2/Respect of parents & seniors consider right).
'I have not slain men' (Ancient Egyptian, from the Confession of the Righteous Soul, 'Book of the Dead'/Murder considered wrong).
'I saw in Nástrond (= Hell) . . . beguilers of others' wives' (Old Norse, Volospá 38, 39/Adultery considered wrong).
'Whoso takes no bribe . . . well pleasing is this to Samas' (Babylonian, List of sins/Stealing considered wrong).
'Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour' (Ancient Jewish, Exodus 20.16/Perverting justice considered wrong).
[See appendix to the 'Abolition of Man' by Lewis]
12:18 Genesis 12:1-3: "And in you [Abram] shall all families of the earth be blessed".
12:51 A paradox is a situation or statement that seems difficult to understand because it contains two opposite facts or characteristics. Conflicting with expectation, literally beyond belief or thought.
14:22 Examples of 'non-moral worship' are explained in the following chapters & essays:
Sexuality - See essay called the 'The Grand Miracle': "The nature religions are those of the old, simple pagan sort that you know about...you actually committed fornication in the temple of Aphrodite."
The Life-Force - More on this in chapter 4 of 'Mere Christianity'. "The Life-Force is a sort of tame God. You can switch it on when you want, but it will not bother you. All the thrills of religion & none of the cost. Is the Life-Force the greatest achievement of wishful thinking the world has yet seen?"
The Worship of the Future - See Letter #15 of 'Screwtape Letters': "But we (demonic forces) want a man hag-ridden by the Future — haunted by visions of an imminent heaven or hell upon earth—ready to break the Enemy's commands in the present if by so doing we make him think he can attain the one or avert the other—dependent for his faith on the success or failure of schemes whose end he will not live to see. We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow's end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the future every real gift which is offered them in the Present."
14:42 Pagan Myths - See doodle called 'The Grand Miracle' (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0VxljSppWk). "The principle (of death & rebirth) is there in Nature because it was first there in God Himself."
14:58 Entropy means that disorder increases over time & this means time has an actual direction from order to disorder. Up until the mid-20th century scientists maintained the universe/matter was eternal (no creation or ending) & then, with a better understanding, changed its position & held that it was continuously self-creating (infinity creations & infinity ends). But these ideas were killed off when we learnt that the universe is irreversibly getting old, & will 'wear out', with one real creation & one real end. Science has moved, quite uncomfortably for many, much closer to a Bible/theistic point of view held from the get-go. Cosmologists have tried to get rid of the need of God in both ways - by pretending the universe is eternal (& therefore needing no eternal Creator) and by pretending the universe is self-creating.
14:52 Pantheism is the belief that God Is Nature. Atheism is the belief that there is Nothing But Nature. Theism is the belief that God Is Outside Nature, and created it. "Pantheism is in fact the permanent natural bent of the human mind; the permanent ordinary level below which man sometimes sinks, under the influence of priestcraft and superstition, but above which his own unaided efforts can never raise him for very long" (Miracles, Chapter 11).
14:53 A PRIORI: Being without examination or analysis; presumptive.
LUCIDITY: The quality of being easily understood, i.e. 'Presumptive obviousness' of Pantheism and Newtonian Physics.
15:25 ANFRACTUOSITY: A winding, circuitous, or intricate passage, surface, process, etc.
Hi, is there a way to contact you to talk about your lewis doodles? I tried to email playmobible but their inbox is full
@waynestewart1919 Says:
These are soo well done. Like a animation illustrating the most iconic thinkers of the last century. C.S. Lewis would be inspired.
@Deafmonkey21 Says:
Was not expecting fish slap.
No one expects fish slap.
@billmoxon9506 Says:
Wow. I suspect that this video is going to be very hard for most of us to digest! Humanity would be trapped in the physical realms without God's revelation and rescue from ultimate spiritual realities.
@toddtyoung Says:
Thank you for posting this one. More wonderfully profound insights from the great C.S. Lewis, brilliantly illustrated. Absolutely mesmerizing! You are doing a great thing that is blessing many. I am deeply grateful for your work, and pray that the Lord will bless it to his glory.
@robertkrog2429 Says:
This is awesome. Thank you. I’ve been waiting on your next doodle to drop.
@terryhollifield9343 Says:
Another brilliant one! The ichtus slap at the end was unexpected and made me laugh out loud. It was perfectly placed. Side note: are there prints of the illustrations created for the videos available? I'm sure I can't be the o ly one who would hang something like that on a wall.
@markheaney Says:
Lewis had a very logical mind (like God).
@JamesYourStudyingFriendo Says:
I just started The Problem of Pain and was having problems understanding the Numinous so this was perfect timing. Thank you friendo. God bless.
@ipso-kk3ft Says:
I've been looking for a doodle version of this segment, thanks for the upload! This section of the book really had a massive impact on me years back.
@DavidWilliams-ej2tr Says:
More complex philosophy made easily understandable to us plebs. Keep up the good work sir. I wish every major philosopher had a dedicated doodler, especially pre 1800s. You have to tackle complex ideas and simultaneously translate the old ways of speaking. One can dream.
@CSLewisDoodle Says:
14:48 Christianity, like reality, is a bit of a slap in the face. In the unbridged chapter, C.S. Lewis uses the concepts of (a) quantized energy, (b) speed, and (c) the shape of the universe, as a metaphor to show that the Christian story is not something that can be predicted, just as quantum mechanics revealed a fundamental aspect of the universe that defied the expectations of Newtonian physics. C.S. Lewis: “Science itself has already made reality appear less homogeneous than we expected it to be: Newtonian atomism was much more the sort of thing we expected (and desired) than Quantum physics” (Nature and Supernature, 'Miracles').
- Robert Millikan in 1914 confirmed that energy is quantized as "energy packets" (not continuous), or photons, additionally showing that the electron is both a wave and a particle, verifying Einstein's theory from 1905 about the quantization of energy (E=hν).
- For centuries, physicists thought there was no limit to how fast an object could travel. But Einstein showed that the universe does, in fact, have a speed limit: the speed of light in a vacuum (that is, empty space). Nothing can travel faster than 300,000 kilometers per second (186,000 miles per second).
- The reality of the cosmos was even a shock to Einstein himself, who by his pioneering theory had opened the way to exploring it. It was only in 1931, after visiting Hubble in California, that Einstein accepted cosmic expansion and discarded at long last his vision of a static Cosmos. Einstein’s equations provided a much richer universe than the one Einstein himself had originally imagined or wanted.
Unabridged Quote: "Christianity has the seemingly arbitrary and idiosyncratic character which modern science is slowly teaching us to put up with in this wilful universe, where energy is made up of little parcels of a quantity no-one could predict, where speed is not unlimited, where irreversible entropy gives time a real direction and the cosmos, no longer static or cyclic, moves like a drama from a real beginning to a real end" ('The Problem of Pain', Introductory Chapter).
More notes in the video description above.
LATEST COMMENTS