Ch. 2: Learning in War-Time

This was a sermon given in 1939, early in World War II. Though it initially deals with the debate over learning's importance during a time of war, it's really broader than that. Lewis looks at the "sacred vs. secular" debate, i.e whether one's life should be fully devoted to "religious" activities or not. Ultimately, he chooses a middle path, neither advocating for people to run off to monasteries nor encouraging them to compartmentalize their lives into sacred and secular realms. As 1st Corinthians 10:31 says, "Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God."

Some prime quotes from this chapter:

"The war creates no absolutely new situation; it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice...We are mistaken when we compare war with 'normal life.' Life has never been normal."

"[People] propound mathematical theorems in beleaguered cites, conduct metaphysical arguments in condemend cells, make jokes on scaffolds, discuss the last new poem while advancing to the walls of Quebec, and comb their hair at Thermopylae. This is not panache; it is our nature."

"[E]very duty is a religious duty, and our obligation to perform every duty is therefore absolute."

"A man may have to die for our country, but no man must, in any exclusive sense, live for his country. He who surrenders himself without reservation to the temporal claims of a nation, or a party, or a class is rendering to Caesar that which, of all things, most emphatically belongs to God: himself." This is a great quote, in my estimation, to rebut those who blur the line between faith in God and patriotism/nationalism.

"The work of a Beethoven and the work of a charwoman become spiritual on precisely the same condition, that of being offered to God, of being done humbly 'as to the Lord'."

"To be ignorant and simple now - not to be able to meet the enemies on their own ground - would be to throw down our weapons, and to betray our uneducated brethren who have, under God, no defence but us against the intellectual attacks of the heathen. Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered."

"[W]ar does do something to death. It forces us to remember it...War makes death real to us, and that would have been regarded as one of its blessings by most of the great Christians of the past."

"If we had foolish un-Christian hopes about human culture, they are now shattered. If we thought we were building up a heaven on earth, if we looked for something that would turn the present world from a place of pilgrimage into a permanent city satisfying the soul of man, we are disillusioned, and not a moment too soon."

There's almost too much to cover, so I'll leave it at that. Join us this week as we dive into another war-time topic, "Why I am Not a Pacifist." This should be a great discussion.