Everyone has warned me not to tell you what I'm going to tell you in this last book. They say ‘the ordinary reader does not want theology; give him plain practical religion’. I have rejected their advice. I do not think the ordinary reader is such a fool. Theology means ‘the science of God,’ and I think any man who wants to think about God at all would like to have the clearest and most accurate ideas about him which are available. You are not children: why should you be treated like children?
- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Book VI, Chapter 1
2 Comments
There is a strange idea abroad that in every subject the ancient books should be read only by professionals, and that the amateur should content himself with the modern books. Thus I have found as a tutor in English Literature that if the average student wants to find out something about Platonism, the very last thing he thinks of doing is to take a translation of Plato off the library shelf and read the Symposium. He would rather read some dreary modern book ten times as long, all about ‘isms’ and influences and only once in twelve pages telling him what Plato actually said. |
AuthorMy name is still Jonah, and I happen to have a love of reading. Here are quotes I come across in books I read that I find interesting and encouraging. Archives
August 2015
Categories
All
|