Meditation in a Toolshed by C.S. Lewis Doodle

We must, on pain of idiocy, deny from the very outset the idea that looking AT is, by its own nature, intrinsically truer or better than looking ALONG. One must look both along and at everything. The period of scientific or ‘expert’ intimidation has got to end...

This article is in a series of five fantastic newspaper articles written for the 'Coventry Evening Telegraph' from January to May 1945, that closed out the final months of Britain's war with Nazi Germany and addressed typical atheist arguments:

(1) ‘Religion and Science’ (3 Jan. 1945);

You can find the playlist of these doodles here:

(2:49) Before plastics, the faces of dolls were made of wax (or china) that was skin coloured and extremely life-like, but which would shatter if dropped and could be rather traumatic for the child concerned. Wax is still used at Madame Tussauds, which displays life-like waxworks of famous and historical figures.

(2:55) Nascent: just beginning, budding, developing.

(3:54) See Lewis' essay on chivalry called: 'The Necessity of Chivalry', written at the height of the Battle of Britain in 1940.

(4:00) See 'Men without Chests': "I had sooner play cards against a man who was quite sceptical about ethics, but bred to believe that ‘a gentleman does not cheat’, than against an irreproachable moral philosopher who had been brought up among sharpers [cardsharks, swindlers]. In battle, it is not syllogisms [logical arguments] that will keep the reluctant nerves and muscles to their post in the third hour of the bombardment."

On metaphysical subjects (such as God, love, morality, honour, and politics) scientific training gives no added value to a man's opinion.

(4:31) A ‘wiseacre’ is a know-it-all, a smart-alec; one who pretends to knowledge or cleverness.

(9:42) See the last chapter of the book the 'Abolition of Man': "It is no use trying to ‘see through’ first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To ‘see through’ all things is the same as not to see."

Scriptures mentioned in doodle:

More on prayer and gardening here: "The two methods by which we are allowed to produce events may be called work and prayer. Both are alike in this respect - that in both we try to produce a state of affairs which God has not (or at any rate not yet) seen fit to provide "on His own"...what we do when we weed a field is not quite different from what we do when we pray for a good harvest. But there is an important difference all the same. You cannot be sure of a good harvest whatever you do to a field" (Lewis, 'Work and Prayer').

[CSLewisDoodle]

(4:13) Lewis describes this type of 'scientific' wiseacre (smart alec), who attributes everything to ‘the laws of nature’, but doesn’t look behind the laws, here:

“God creates the vine and teaches it to draw up water by its roots and, with the aid of the sun, to turn that water into a juice which will ferment and take on certain qualities. Thus every
year, from Noah's time (Genesis 9.20) till ours, God turns water into wine. That, men fail to see. Either like the Pagans they refer the process to some finite spirit, Bacchus (the Roman wine god) or Dionysus (the Greek wine god) [or African god Nyonga]: or else, like the moderns, they attribute real and ultimate causality to the chemical and other material phenomena which are all that our senses can discover in it. But when Christ at Cana makes water into wine, the mask is off (John 2.1-11). The miracle has only half its effect if it only convinces us that Christ is God: it will have its full effect if whenever we see a vineyard or drink a glass of wine we remember that here works He who sat at the wedding party in Cana..." (Essay, ‘Miracles’).

More notes in the video description above.

[drummersagainstitk]

This is THE BEST channel on YouTube. I consider myself privileged to watch every post. Thank you.

[scruffythejanitor]

So happy you are reposting these. The narration is pretty good too!

[dw]

Lewis never fails to impress with the clarity of both his thinking and explaining.

[graphguy]

One of my favorite channels! - C.S. Lewis Doodle!

[pridefall]

I’ve read this essay several times and the illustrations helped me understand much better what Lewis meant by “looking along” something. Kudos!

[DK-rdbd]

Well, that explains the current siren call, "I am the science"