Evidence for God from Science

Ohh, I'm so glad it was edifying for you both.

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Book:A Cloud of Unknowing

The book 'A Cloud of Unknowing' begins with this humble prayer:

GOD, unto whom all hearts be open,
and unto whom all will speaketh,
and unto whom no privy thing is hid.
I beseech Thee so for to cleanse the intent of mine heart
with the unspeakable gift of Thy grace,
that I may perfectly love Thee,
and worthily praise Thee.

Amen. (1-see reference notes)

The whole intent of Christian Mysticism is summed in that prayer: that we may perfectly love the Lord and worthily praise God with our entire life.

Intro

People have a need, I guess to categorize things, put labels on things in order to help aid clarification. Such has happened to the subject of Christian Mysticism. Expositors analyze this matter and draw conclusions from the world they know and make comparisons with other ideals borrowed from the world. This is the process of human learning.

Such comparison of Christian Mysticism to neo-platonic ideals or to eastern religious thoughts on meditation, Zen, balance, harmony, etc is something the natural mind is wont to do. Comparisons to make the book and what it reveals to bend to the norms of these worldly practices serves to stain and keep people away form a great treasure.

What makes a Christian a Christian?

As Christians, what makes us Christian? Is it form and rituals? Understanding all the great doctrines through intellectual process? Is that it: form, rituals, adhering only to intellectual indoctrination? After awhile of this, is it any wonder that we read, hear, or know of Christians chucking the whole 'Christian thing' away for the allures of the world?

The Bible teaches us that we can know God (John 17). To know God involves experiencing the living God who is real and desires you and I to know him. Christian writers have written many great books on “Knowing God,” “Experiencing God,” “How to have a deep relationship with God,” How to have a deep walk and experience with the Lord in ten easy steps,” to name a few genres.

Nobody thinks these strange or odd to pursue; yet, say the words 'Christian Mysticism' and all kinds of aghast sound. Christian Mysticism is about “Knowing God,” “Experiencing God,” “How to have a deep relationship with God”, “How to have a deep real living relationship with God.” So do not think of Christian Mysticism in terms of the world but rather what is missing from so many in the body of Christ, the Church universal, today: a real living relationship with the Lord.

While it is true that some Christian Mystics have gone off the deep end and entertained heresy as well guilty of giving pagan concepts a Christian label, these are the exception and not the rule. There are plenty of Christian books on the subjects of “Knowing God,” “Experiencing God,” “How to have a deep relationship with God,” How to have a deep walk and experience with the Lord in ten easy steps,” that are equally as bad. One needs to discern between the real and the fake.

Brief Synopsis

The Cloud of Unknowing is a book that helps discern the real from the fake. The entire book can be summed up in the first four chapters and that is all you need to know about how to experience God. After the first four chapters, the author goes on through the rest of the book sharing insights, instructing one to know what to do and expect as well as avoid.

What the writer says in the first four chapters is to simply have a yearning - longing heart to know God and then simply ask and wait for God's grace to call you to Himself. From this you can begin to pierce that impenetrable cloud between you and God. This cloud is called — 'I don't know how to reach God and too know God!'

Do you feel something missing in your Christian walk — do you have a sense that there is more to Christianity than just forms, rituals, rote, dogma? Do you feel a pull, something pulling you — you no not where? If so, the Lord is calling you to return and again walk in the cool of the day or like Mary chose the best part: sitting at the feet of our Lord and learning of him.

The Cloud of Unknowing is a book that teaches that it is by God's grace alone one can enter a deep living communion with the Lord. Such deepens your Christian love, sharpens faith, creates longing love for the Lord so that -- that we may perfectly love the Lord and worthily praise God with our entire life.

But be forewarned, the author shares a how too method but know this — the author states often that there are no set methods at all. It is the one that the Lord takes you on is what works best. The author shares a few techniques he has learned but what one needs to know is summed up in the first 4 short chapters, if time permits we'll look at a bit more closely.

Reference Notes:

(1) Johnston, William, The Cloud of Unknowing
New York: Doubleday, 1973 - Reissue August 1996
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Below is a copy of the first Chapter from the book — Cloud of Unknowing. I Copied this from the internet and the source and link is listed at the end. It is written in the King James English. I am sorry for this. There are better modern translations but I could not find any on the internet. If you do, let me know.

I posted this — so I can begin discussing what the author wrote so the reader can understand that the primary thing for the Christian is to learn to love the Lord with our whole being so he can flow thru us his love to those around us. (Discussion to be continued in next few frames)

This involves learning how to cultivate a living relationship with the Lord of Host! If that interest you — keep reading, if not, then please go in peace …

HERE BEGINNETH THE FIRST CHAPTER

Of four degrees of Christian men's living; and of the course of his calling that this book was made unto.

GHOSTLY friend in God, thou shalt well understand that I find, in my boisterous beholding, four degrees and forms of Christian men's living: and they be these, Common, Special, Singular, and Perfect. Three of these may be begun and ended in this life; and the fourth may by grace be begun here, but it shall ever last without end in the bliss of Heaven.

And right as thou seest how they be set here in order each one after other; first Common, then Special, after Singular, and last Perfect, right so me thinketh that in the same order and in the same course our Lord hath of His great mercy called thee and led thee unto Him by the desire of thine heart.

For first thou wottest well that when thou wert living in the common degree of Christian men's living in company of thy worldly friends, it seemeth to me that the everlasting love of His Godhead, through the which He made thee and wrought thee when thou wert nought, and sithen bought thee with the price of His precious blood when thou wert lost in Adam, might not suffer thee to be so far from Him in form and degree of living.

And therefore He kindled thy desire full graciously, and fastened by it a leash of longing, and led thee by it into a more special state and form of living, to be a servant among the special servants of His; where thou mightest learn to live more specially and more ghostly in His service than thou didst, or mightest do, in the common degree of living before. And what more?

Yet it seemeth that He would not leave thee thus lightly, for love of His heart, the which He hath evermore had unto thee since thou wert aught: but what did He? Seest thou nought how Mistily and how graciously He hath privily pulled thee to the third degree and manner of living, the which is called Singular? In the which solitary form and manner of living, thou mayest learn to lift up the foot of thy love; and step towards that state and degree of living that is perfect, and the last state of all.


Edited from the British Museum MS. Harl. 674
With an Introduction

BY
EVELYN UNDERHILL

SECOND EDITION

London
JOHN M. WATKINS
21 Cecil Court, Charing Cross Road

Link: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/anonymous2/cloud.i.html

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OK, finally, here is the second installment of Julian's 14th showing.

“This was a high wonder to the soul . . . that our Lord God, of his very nature, may not forgive since he may never be angry—for that would be impossible. This is what was shown: our whole life is grounded and rooted in love, for without love we may not live. And therefore once the soul, by God's special grace, sees to such a degree the high wonder of the goodness of God that we are oned to him in love without end, it is utterly impossible that God should be wroth. For wrath and friendship are two opposites. He who wastes and destroys our wrath, making us meek and mild, must accordingly be ever in the same love, meek and mild, which is contrary to wrath. . . . if God could be wroth even for a touch, then we should have no more life . . .” (p 96).

God's goodness continually strives to remove the wrath within ourselves. His mercy and grace work to make us fully meek and mild, at which time we will be oned with him, who is our peace. Jesus takes all our woes and sends them to heaven, where they will be turned into rewards, and once we are in heaven we will be unchanging, just as he is.

Julian says that in human terms, many are judged to be spiritually dead, “Yet in the sight of God, the soul that shall be saved was never dead nor will it be” (p 98). But since we feel so guilty over our sin, how can it be that the Lord puts no blame on us? she wonders. She was very frustrated, wanting to see sin as God sees it, or see what he does with it. She is then shown a “parable” of a lord and his servant.

There is a lord and his servant, and the Lord gently sends his servant on an errand. The servant very eagerly responds, but ends up falling into a type of bog and gets stuck. He's very uncomfortable, and cannot turn around to see his lord, who would be able to comfort him. So the servant is in agony, yet he was meek, too. The lord looked on him in love, and did not blame him for anything. The lord was also greatly pleased with the great rest he had planned for his servant, since it was his servant's loving will to carry out his lord's wishes that lead him to get stuck. In fact, the servant's reward will be greater because of his fall.

She knew the parable had to do with Adam, but she felt that there was more to it that she couldn't understand. Almost 20 years later she was given understanding. The lord was God and the servant was Adam, yet God views all humans through Adam. The lord knew and approved of the servant's will, even though the servant himself did not fully understand or know his own will. Nor could the servant see or understand the lord's love for him. God's continual pity keeps Adam (us) from eternal death, but in this life we cannot see God or his compassion and pity. She also saw that God made the human soul to be his dwelling place, his city. But since Adam's fall, it is unsuitable. However, God decided to wait for our cleansing (through Jesus) rather than make a new dwelling place. God was joyful of the planned restoration of Adam.

She came to understand a second meaning, where the servant was Christ, or Christ's manhood. Julian also brings in the Holy Spirit, which she says is the love in them both. When Adam fell, Jesus fell with him; Jesus fell to this earth to become a man here, and he even fell into hell.

" . . . for in all this, our good Lord showed his own Son and Adam as but one man. The virtue and the goodness that we have is of Jesus Christ, the feebleness and blindness is of Adam; both of which were shown in the servant. And so has our good Lord Jesus taken upon himself all our blame; and therefore our Father may assign, neither will he, no more blame to us, than to his own Son, dearworthy Christ. And so it was that he was the servant even before his coming into the earth [he came into the maiden's womb] . . ." (pp 108-109).

For all those who will be saved, they are part of the manhood of Christ, he being the head. Julian says that even though much was revealed to her about this parable, there is still much that is secret. She then gives more details of what the clothes and colors mean, which are not provided here.

“All that shall be saved have during their time of life a strange medley of both weal and woe” (p 113). We have Christ in us, yet we also have Adam. Though we might hate our times of woe and fall into sin, God works in us to trust in his mercy. Jesus takes joy in his fall, since it brings us such bliss, even more than if we had never fallen. It is a part of us to feel guilty and upset over our sin, to recognize all the harm it does, but it is part of God to excuse us. We are not to be in despair over our part, and we are not to be over reckless because of God's part.

We are to know that God looks on us in our fallen state just as he looked at Adam, with pity, compassion, and love.

“For I saw that God never began to love humankind . . . humankind has been, in the foresight of God, known and loved from without beginning, according to his rightful plan. And by the endless assent and full accord of all the Trinity, the Second Person would be the ground and Head of this fair nature. From him we all come, in him we are all enclosed, into him we are all going . . . by the foreseeing purpose of the blessed Trinity from without beginning” (p 118).

“For before he made us, he loved us; and when we were made, we loved him; and his love comes of the kindly substantial goodness of the Holy Spirit, mighty by reason of the power of the Father, wise in the mind of the wisdom of the Son. And thus the human soul is made of God and in the same point is knit to God” (p 118).

“Therefore he wants us to know that the noblest thing that ever he made is humankind; and the fullest substance and the highest power is the blessed soul of Christ. And furthermore he wills us to know that all the souls that shall be saved in heaven without end are knit in this knot and oned in this oneing, and made holy in the holiness” (p 119).

Amazingly, God makes no distinction between his love for Christ's soul and any of our own. And God dwells in us, and we in him, and we ought to take great joy in this. Just think of what a high understanding this is! Somehow our soul, which is made, dwells in God's substance (our faith is a power that comes from the Holy Spirit). God wants us to know that we are more in heaven than on earth, that our souls are the city of God, and that once he enters he never leaves. Julian also adds that she was given a glimpse of that part of her soul (the higher part) that resides in God.

Wow cslewislover!!

That is good!

Just a note - I have not forgot this thread - I became side tracked on another forum debating another person. That is about over so I'll begin again where I left off on "the Cloud' soon...
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B. W. wrote:Wow cslewislover!!

That is good!

Just a note - I have not forgot this thread - I became side tracked on another forum debating another person. That is about over so I'll begin again where I left off on "the Cloud' soon...
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Yay, great! I went and fixed some typos. When going through this and writing it, I did feel more heart-felt joy than any part of the showings so far (although this is my fourth reading, I think, and I've reacted like that to different parts at different times). Julian's writing in this section is very good.

A summary of the last third of Showing 14.

Julian learned that we come to know of God before we come to know of our own soul. We must know God before we can know our own soul, and we must desire to know our soul, and with the leading of the Holy Spirit we shall know them both. We are a city that Jesus resides in, and our soul in turn resides in Jesus. We are to be repentant while longing for God, and when we are deep in him we shall know our own soul. Julian goes on to explain that many things are needed for this, and that none alone will suffice. She lumps these into three, and they all work together: reason, insight and love, and mercy and grace.

The remaining sections (57-63) of showing 14 are some of the more difficult passages of all. She writes that our soul (substance) was knit to Jesus at the time he came into his mother's womb. He enclosed us within himself and became perfect man. She explains that it was the Trinity's plan to make the fair nature of humankind for Jesus, and that we were all made at once. Since she says that we were oned and knitted to him when we were made, one can infer that she means that we were made when he entered the virgin's womb. Julian does not explain this further here, except to say that Jesus is the mother (referring to our birth) of both our substance (soul) and sensuality (flesh) (but remember, she also says that God knew us and loved us before time). And Jesus reforms and restores us, oneing our substance and sensuality and thus making us perfect. He says:

I it am: the might and the goodness of the Fatherhood.
I it am: the wisdom of the Motherhood.
I it am: the light and the grace that is all blessed Love.
I it am: the Trinity.
I it am: the Unity.
I am the sovereign goodness of all manner of things.
I am that makes you to love.
I am that makes you to long.
I it am: the endless fulfilling of all true desires.

God willed that the second person of the trinity, Jesus, be our Mother, Brother, and Saviour (and he is our husband, too). God is our Father, to whom we give thanks and praise for our making. Because of his qualities resembling motherhood, we are to pray to Jesus for mercy and pity. And to the Lord the Holy Spirit, who is goodness, we pray for help and grace.

Julian then goes on to expound on the “motherhood” of Christ. He gave birth to us and he works in us to change our sensuality, and this by grace. (Her words may seem simple, but her theology is not; she is trying to explain how the trinity works within itself, and how it works within humankind.) While our natural mothers bore us to a life of pain and eventual dying, our Lordly mother bore us to joy and endless living. He would gladly suffer more for us, and he sustains us with himself, just as a natural mother gives her own milk for her children. A mother will lay her child tenderly on her breast, but Jesus leads us to his own breast through the opening in his side. “The property of true motherhood is kind love, wisdom, and knowing, and it is good” (p 135), and our Lord is himself these things. The mother knows her child and changes her response to it as it gets older, though her love does not change. In order for the child to break away from vices, and to receive virtues, he must be chastised.

“As soon as we fall, he promptly raises us, lovingly calling our name and touching us by grace. And when we have been strengthened thus by his sweet working, then we gladly choose him, by his sweet grace, to be his servants and his lovers lastingly without end. And after this he suffers some of us to fall more hard and grievously than ever before, or so it seems to us. And then in our ignorance we think that all we had begun is undone. But it is not so; for it is necessary that we fall and this we need to see. For if we did not fall, we would never know how feeble and how wretched we are by ourselves. Nor would we know in such great measure the marvelous love of our Maker” (p 136). . . . For rocklike and marvelous is that love which may not, nor will not, be broken in transgression” (p 137).

When we fall the Lord does not want us to flee, but to run to him just as a child runs to its mother for special help and comfort. And at times if we do not feel comforted at first, we can trust that He wills for us to mourn for awhile. We need to trust him just as a child may trust its mother. “His task is to save us, a duty he delights to fulfill. And he would have us know it; for he wants us to love him sweetly and trust in him meekly and mightily” (p 138).

cslewislover wrote:When we fall the Lord does not want us to flee, but to run to him just as a child runs to its mother for special help and comfort. And at times if we do not feel comforted at first, we can trust that He wills for us to mourn for awhile. We need to trust him just as a child may trust its mother. “His task is to save us, a duty he delights to fulfill. And he would have us know it; for he wants us to love him sweetly and trust in him meekly and mightily” (p 138).

cslewislover wrote:Julian learned that we come to know of God before we come to know of our own soul.

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; but fools despise wisdom and instruction. -Pr 1:7

FL

And here is the last installment of the Revelations of Love by Julian of Norwich. May you be blessed by all of them.


15. We will be in His presence suddenly, and be assured of this because of His goodness. The fifteenth showing is short in words compared to many of the others, but not short in meaning or intent. This showing relates to our passing, which Julian had longed for. “And even if there were no other pain in this life apart from the absence of our Lord, sometimes this alone seemed to me more than I could bear” (p 142). The Lord wanted her to know, and all of us, that we shall be taken suddenly, and He said: “. . . you shall have no more pain of any sort, no more discomfort, nothing will you want, but all shall be joy and bliss without end. Why should it seem hard for you to suffer awhile, since that is my will and to my honor?” (p 143). Julian saw that it was God's will that we feel as though we are always on the point of being taken.

She has a vision of a big, gross, swollen body — which is our flesh—and a clean child coming out of it. This is us, clean and pure, being taken out of our pain. She makes a point of this. That is, that we are taken from pain, and not that pain is taken from us. Why this distinction is important is not really explained, but she does emphasize it. The Lord wants us to take comfort in our passing and has promised us: “. . . you shall come up above; and you shall have me as your reward; and you will be filled of joy and bliss” (p 144). He wants us to focus on this, to contemplate it, as much as we can. It is to his honor that we do this, but when we ever lose focus, we need to remember that God has not forgotten us. He wants us to take our sufferings as lightly as we can in this life, to take less account of them because of our love for Him. The more we do this, the greater our reward will be.

So for whoever deliberately chooses the Lord for this life, they can be sure of God's never ending love for them and the endless bliss they will have later.

"It is God's will that I see myself as much bound to him by love as if he had done all his deeds just for me. And every soul should think inwardly in this way about their lover: that is to say, the love of God makes such a unity among us that, when it is truly seen, no one can part themselves from another. And so our soul should come to think that God has done for it all that he has done; this was shown to make us love him and fear no one except him (pp 145-146)."

Isn't that amazing, that God wants us to think that he has done for us, personally, all that he has ever done?


16. A conclusion and confirmation of the previous fifteen; the Trinity indwells us through Jesus, and it keeps us and so we won't be overcome by Satan. Unlike the other showings, which were given one after the other, all at once, this one came the following night. After her sickness and pains had returned, she was visited by a priest, then she fell asleep. During her sleep, she was visited by Satan, who was trying to strangle her (or made out that he was). She woke up, and others were with her. Julian saw and smelled smoke, or vapors, but no one else did. When she called on the Lord and remembered all the visions she had earlier, the foul vision left, and the Lord showed her something very wonderful.

"And then our Lord, opening my spiritual eye, showed me my soul in the middle of my heart. I saw the soul as large as if it were an endless world and as if it were a blissful kingdom. And by the details I saw therein, I understood it to be a glorious city (p 149)."

"In the middle of that city sits our Lord Jesus . . . . The place that Jesus takes in our soul, he shall never remove from it without end—as I see it; for in us is his homeliest home and his endless dwelling. . . . the blessed Trinity rejoices without end in the making of our soul; for he saw from without beginning what would please him without end (p 150)."

We may perceive the nobility in all things created by the Lord, since they reveal Him. Yet our soul knows that it is not among those things that it is to dwell—we can never find rest in those things. We may look upward and find our soul, yet it is to the Lord within our soul that we set our eyes on. Interestingly, Julian saw that if the Trinity had made the soul any better, then the Lord would not have been as pleased. “And he wants our hearts to be raised mightily above the deepness of the earth and all vain sorrows and rejoice in him” (p 150). Jesus wants us to take heart and have a firm hope in that He is sitting in His dwelling, our soul. While we may be tempted in this life, we will not be overcome. She then had a visitation from Satan again, but was comforted by the Lord; she spoke of Christ's passion as well, which is what overcomes the evil one, and he vanished in the morning.

When she had been visited by the priest earlier, and was in her pains again, she told the priest that she “raved.” And so Jesus came and told her that she hadn't raved, and showed her everything over again, even more fully than the first time.

". . . in whatever way he instructs us, he wants us to discern him wisely, receive him sweetly, and keep ourselves in him faithfully. For above the faith there is no goodness left in this life, as I see it; and beneath the faith there is no help to the soul; but only in the faith: that is where the Lord wills us to keep ourselves. And so we must keep ourselves in the faith by his goodness and his own working and, when he permits it, our faith is tested by the spiritual conflict so that we become strong. For if our faith has no conflict it would deserve no reward, as I understand the Lord's meaning (p 155)."

Jesus looks at us always, in love-longing, and wishes our soul to look to him cheerfully. Julian saw him look at us, or regard us, in three different ways. He has a look of suffering, from his time of dying here (this look “is also glad and merry, for he is God” p 156), which he looks upon us with when we suffer. His second look is that of pity and compassion, and he gives us this, with his mercy, when we sin; he thus keeps us and defends us against our enemies. His third look was that of bliss, which she saw the most but which is only mingled with the other two looks for us in this life. The blissful look imparts a touching of grace and enlightens us spiritually.

The highest bliss is to see our Lord, and the opposite is “deepest pain,” which is sin. The more grievous our sin, the farther we are away from seeing our Lord and being in bliss. We may feel dead and be partly dead in that we cannot see him, but to God, we are never dead. But, our Lord cannot be fully in his bliss until we are fully in bliss with him. We will always mourn and weep because we cannot see him, yet we have reason for happiness (“mirth”) since we can know that he is in us and we are in him.

Now Julian says that she had three types of vision: bodily sight, words formed in her understanding, and spiritual sight or visions. Since the spiritual visions are hard to explain, she wants to say more about them. The rest of this showing, then, consists of further elaborations of what she already presented.

There are two kinds of sickness (or sin) that we have, which are impatience or sloth (toward our suffering), and despair or fearful doubting. God is all love, and we tend to doubt this in regard to our sin. We sin regularly and we get so heavy regarding it, that sometimes we fear because of it. If someone takes this to be humility, it is false.

"For of all the properties of the blissful Trinity, it is God's will that we be most sure of and take most delight in his love; for love makes us strong and wisdom humbles us. For just as by the courteous wisdom of God, he forgives us our sin following our repentance, so also he wants us to forgive our sin in respect of our foolish dreads and these doubts that cast us down (p 160)."

Julian explains that there are four kinds of dread, but I will not explain them all here. The fourth one, the dread of God, is the most important one to God. The more we dread the Lord, the more we love him, and in fact the less we will feel the dread. This is an apparent contradiction, but reverent dread and meek love cannot be separated, she tells us. The more you have them, the more you will trust God. Pray for them, for you need them to please God.

Regarding penance, Julian said she did not see what kind we should take upon ourselves, but instead endure gladly the penance that God himself gives us. We are to remember Christ's own passion and what he suffered, and patiently bear our own sufferings. She recalled these words our Lord spoke:

“'Do not accuse yourself overmuch, nor imagine that all your troubles and woe are because of your trespasses; for it is not my will that you are heavy and unduly full of sorrow. Whatever you do, you will have sorrow. Therefore I want you to understand it is your penance and you will see in truth that all this life is a penance that is for your benefit.'” This place is a prison; this life a penance (p 168)."

“. . . he wants us to listen readily to his gracious touching, more rejoicing in his whole love than sorrowing in our frequent falls. For it is the most honor we can pay him of all that we might do, that we live gladly and merrily for love of him in our penance. For he beholds us so tenderly that he sees all our living and penance. The natural longing we have for him is ever a lasting penance in us; and this penance is his work in us and mercifully he helps us to bear it (p 175)."

And I will end her revelation with yet another quote.

"And therefore when the doom and judgment is given and we have all been brought up above, then we will see clearly in God those secret things that are hidden from us now. Then will none of us be stirred to say, “Lord, if only it had been thus, then it had been full well”; but we shall say all with one voice, “Lord, blessed may you be! For it is thus, it is well. And now we see truly that all thing is done as it was always ordained by you before anything was made” (p 180)."

Amen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCDC3AFu ... ef=profile

cslewislover wrote:And here is the last installment of the Revelations of Love by Julian of Norwich. May you be blessed by all of them.

Thank You! Good stuff

I haven't forgot this thread! I'll be back
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Much in mysticism strikes me as fertilizer but this actually makes sense:

cslewislover wrote:The more we dread the Lord, the more we love him, and in fact the less we will feel the dread. This is an apparent contradiction, but reverent dread and meek love cannot be separated, she tells us. The more you have them, the more you will trust God. Pray for them, for you need them to please God.

God is Big. And you should be afraid of Him. But if you love Him, don't be afraid.

(my translation)

FL

Just an interesting tidbit (sort-of, more like a real bite, I guess).

"Scott Peck has shown in a practical, popular, and effective way in the first half of his bestseller The Road Less Travelled, how wise our unconscious is--so impressive is this wisdom to him, in fact, that in the second half of the book he voyages far beyond the shores of scientific psychology in the hypothesis, apparently shared by Jung, that the unconscious is God. For the Christian, this is heresy, of course, but every heresy is based on a truth that is bent. The heretic is mistaken, but some truth must be taken before it can be mis-taken. The truth the Jungian takes is, I believe, precisely the truth of the Augustinian Divine Illumination--which, by the way, St. Thomas also teaches, though he clarifies it so that only in God's light do we see light. Divine Illumination is not an object of consciousness; it is the sun shining behind us rather than in front of us. As Chesterton says (in Orthodoxy), God is like the sun: only in the light of the one who cannot be seen (because he is too light, not too dark) can everything else be seen. Let one thing be mystical and everything else becomes rational. Let one thing be not a knowable object, and everything else becomes a knowable object. Let one thing be an x and everything else becomes a why" (p 263).

"The program is in our computer [us] because our Creator has designed and programmed us. Because 'Thou hast made us for Thyself,' therefore 'our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee' (Augustine 1:1). It is not a program that appears on our computer screen as data, as information to store and recall. Rather, it is an operational program, a procedural rule, a practical command and direction we follow. It is a program of the heart, not of the head or conscious mind. But 'heart' does not mean sentiment, emotion, or feeling in Scripture, as it does in modern parlance. It means our center, our I. Pascal is quite correct to say, 'The heart has its reasons which the reason does not know" (423:154). The heart has reasons. The heart has eyes. Love is not blind" (pp 263-264).

From Peter J. Kreeft, "C.S. Lewis's Argument from Desire,"in G.K. Chesteron and C.S. Lewis: The Riddle of Joy (William B. Eerdmans Pub Co, Grand Rapids, MI 1989).