This scrupulous care to preserve the Christian message as something distinct from one’s own ideas, has one very good effect upon the apologist himself.
It forces him, again and again, to face up to those elements in original Christianity which he personally finds obscure or repulsive. He is saved horn the temptation to skip or slur or ignore what he finds disagreeable. And the man who yields to that temptation will, of course, never progress in Christian knowledge. For obviously the doctrines which one finds easy are the doctrines which give Christian sanction to truths you already knew. The new truth which you do not know and which you need must, in the very nature of things, be hidden precisely in the doctrines you least like and least understand.
C.S. Lewis, "Christian Apologetics" (1945) included in God in the Dock (Eerdmans, 1970) 90.
Technorati Tags: C.S. Lewis, apologetics
It forces him, again and again, to face up to those elements in original Christianity which he personally finds obscure or repulsive. He is saved horn the temptation to skip or slur or ignore what he finds disagreeable. And the man who yields to that temptation will, of course, never progress in Christian knowledge. For obviously the doctrines which one finds easy are the doctrines which give Christian sanction to truths you already knew. The new truth which you do not know and which you need must, in the very nature of things, be hidden precisely in the doctrines you least like and least understand. C.S. Lewis, "Christian Apologetics" (1945) included in God in the Dock (Eerdmans, 1970) 90.
Technorati Tags: C.S. Lewis, apologetics
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