Ch. 4: Transposition

In this chapter, Lewis creates and explores a concept he calls "transposition." This is not in the musical sense of changing music to a different key nor is it in the sense of flipping lettesr around when you type. It is a description of the interface, in a way, between the spiritual and physical realms. Or, put another way, the way higher things are explained/experienced through lower things.

Lewis begins with the example of speaking in tongues. This is a practice which he admits "has often been a stumbling block...an embarrassing phenomenon." He continues later, "We cannot as Christians shelve the story of Pentecost or deny that there, at any rate, the speaking of tongues was miraculous...It looks, therefore, as if we shall have to say that the very same phenomenon which is sometimes not only natural but even pathological is at other times (or at least at one other time) the organ of the Holy Ghost." I think of 1 Corinthians 1:27--"But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong."

Ultimately he leaves speaking in tongues alone and expands on the concept he's come up with. He talks of the difficulty of having to understand things through our physical senses and the disadvantage of having those things we can sense in the natural realm be more inviting to us than those things we'd like to hope for in the spiritual realm, simply because we can more easily understand them. He also talks about the impossibility of the unbeliever grasping most anything spiritual. Those who can grasp the higher can grasp both the higher and the lower things. Those looking "up from the bottom" can only grasp the lower things.

Much more to cover on this chapter, but this post is long overdue already. Others want to chime in?