{"id":4772,"date":"2021-07-30T05:46:38","date_gmt":"2021-07-30T10:46:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/?p=4772"},"modified":"2021-07-31T06:03:10","modified_gmt":"2021-07-31T11:03:10","slug":"by-means-of-his-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/by-means-of-his-light\/","title":{"rendered":"By Means of His Light…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"C.S. Lewis once made the helpful distinction between \u201clooking at\u201d and \u201clooking along\u201d a sunbeam (Lewis: \u201cMeditation in a Tool Shed,\u201d 1945). In the former case the mind looks \u201cat\u201d the beam itself, from a supposedly \u201ctranscendental\u201d perspective, as if it could objectively describe the thing in descriptive terms, as a \u201cfact\u201d or by reducing the phenomena to simpler, more \u201cnatural\u201d terms (e.g., defining light as waves or particles or energy). In the latter case, the mind see \u201calong\u201d the beam in relationship with it, seeing by its means, as part of his horizon of experience, not focusing on it (as a fact) but experiencing other things through its agency, and interpreting them in a semantic world of interrelated meanings. Now Lewis\u2019 point was that modern scientific humanism assumes it provides a \u201ctruer\u201d interpretation of experience by looking \u201cat\u201d things, as for example, when it \u201creduces\u201d (i.e., explains away) religious experience as a matter of genetics, sociology, psychology, or some other “natural” paradigm. Of course such a presupposition is without real warrant, since \u201clooking at\u201d something involves its own way of \u201clooking along\u201d the axis of assumptions hidden within its own methodology…. In short, there is no true \u201clooking at\u201d things as an independent observer, since everyone is affected by their own biases and assumptions they bring to experience. Such awareness should instill within every soul a deep sense of humility. Nevertheless, in questions of faith we are both look at and look along the contours of life to make inferences to the best explanation, and therefore as Lewis succinctly said, \u201c ‘I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.’ We (all of us) walk by faith, not by sight, and the only real question is what direction are we looking…<\/p>\n

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You can put this another way by saying that while in other sciences the instruments you use are things external to yourself (things like microscopes and telescopes), the instrument through which you see God is your whole self. And if a man\u2019s self is not kept clean and bright, his glimpse of God will be blurred – like the Moon seen through a dirty telescope. – C.S. Lewis: Mere Christianity<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Hebrew Lesson:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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