How Did Lewis Prepare You for Edwards?

00:00:00.000 | Pastor John, how did the influence of C.S. Lewis prepare you to discover the

00:00:10.320 | theology of Jonathan Edwards? Here's the connection, at least the best I've been

00:00:14.920 | able to figure out what God was doing, not just between '64 and '68, the Wheaton

00:00:20.360 | years, but '68 to '71, the Fuller years. I see the Lewis, Clyde Kilby, my lit

00:00:28.120 | professor, Wheaton connection, that cluster of influences as putting the

00:00:35.160 | intellectual and aesthetic kindling in place, and it was a very big pile. I mean

00:00:42.880 | these were dry and unbelievably flammable sticks that were being put in

00:00:51.400 | place, the sticks of logic and the sticks of aesthetic awareness, the sticks of

00:00:58.480 | longing and aching and yearning, the sticks of awareness of beauty and the

00:01:03.600 | desire to see it, know it, all those sticks were being put in place so that

00:01:08.200 | when the fire of Reformed theology, namely Dan Fuller, the Puritans, fell in

00:01:15.920 | the years '68 to '71, they had sticks ready to burn. That's the way I understand

00:01:23.760 | what God was doing. I didn't get the content so much of my theology at Wheaton

00:01:30.560 | as I did the categories of thinking and the categories of feeling and the

00:01:36.800 | intensification of a soul engagement with the world, so that when I began to

00:01:45.800 | read God's book, the Bible, having schooled myself on God's book, the world,

00:01:54.720 | everything in it just exploded. All the ways that Lewis had spoken about

00:02:01.880 | seeing things for what they really are, feeling them for what they really are,

00:02:06.400 | speaking them in words that awaken the true value of them, all of that came to

00:02:13.240 | bear on my reading of The End for Which God Created the World by Edwards or the

00:02:19.360 | Religious Affections by Edwards or The Freedom of the Will by Edwards. I felt no

00:02:24.800 | conflict between what I had become under C.S. Lewis. Theologically, I think there

00:02:33.040 | are conflicts. At least we're going to explore that. Doug Wilson doesn't think

00:02:38.040 | there are conflicts between Lewis and Reformed theology, and I'm

00:02:42.720 | real eager to hear how he works that out, but what I had met in the

00:02:47.480 | Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis and what I met in The Freedom of the Will didn't

00:02:51.040 | sound the same to me, and I would be happy to be shown how they're coherent.

00:02:55.680 | But yes, I think Lewis was a remarkable preparation and guide and help in

00:03:03.480 | many ways in preparing me for Jonathan Edwards. Thank you, Pastor John. We will

00:03:09.200 | be studying the enduring influence of C.S. Lewis later this fall on September

00:03:12.700 | 27, 28, and 29 here in Minneapolis at the Desiring God National Conference. The

00:03:17.520 | conference is titled "The Romantic Rationalist--God, Life, and Imagination in

00:03:22.200 | the Work of C.S. Lewis." More details and registration will be available soon at

00:03:25.680 | DesiringGod.org on the blog and under the Events tab. I'm your host Tony

00:03:30.040 | Rehnke, thanks for listening.

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