{"id":221,"date":"2019-12-05T13:14:13","date_gmt":"2019-12-05T21:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.calbaptist.edu\/scm\/?p=221"},"modified":"2019-12-05T13:17:07","modified_gmt":"2019-12-05T21:17:07","slug":"pain-perspective-and-purpose-a-philosophical-discussion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.calbaptist.edu\/scm\/2019\/12\/05\/pain-perspective-and-purpose-a-philosophical-discussion\/","title":{"rendered":"Pain, Perspective and Purpose: A Philosophical Discussion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In\u00a0this post, Dr. Scott Key\u00a0provides an example of the type of discussion that may take place in\u00a0Philosophy 101.\u00a0During this class,\u00a0as well as throughout the philosophy program, CBU students are\u00a0taught to understand the foundations of other worldviews\u00a0and\u00a0are\u00a0encouraged to\u00a0consider them\u00a0from a biblical perspective\u00a0so they are\u00a0equipped to give\u00a0a defense for that\u00a0hope that they have in Christ (I Peter 3:15).<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jill Pole,\nEustace Scrubb, Puddleglum (a Marshwiggle), and Prince Rilian of\nNarnia were standing amidst the broken pieces of a silver chair that Rilian had destroyed with his sword.  At that very\nmoment the Queen of Underland walked in the door.  This\nscene is the setting for the climax of The Silver Chair<\/em> the\nfourth book in The Chronicles of Narnia, <\/em>written by C. S.\nLewis.  <\/em>Embedded within this marvelous story lies a serious\nphilosophical argument that is replicated in philosophical texts, novels,\nmovies, and ordinary conversation.  Do we construct our world in our own\nminds with our own purpose and meaning for our own goals, or do we\ndiscover a real world with a real\nshape on a pilgrimage in which we find purpose and meaning\nin relationships that stretch, deepen, and expand our understanding of\nourselves?  Are the most important aspects of our lives projections of ourselves with all our hopes\nand dreams on a meaningless world, or is the world we encounter outside of\nourselves filled with real meaning that calls us to discover our true\npurpose? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Queen\nof Underland acts.  She throws some incense into the fire and\nshe begins to strum a stringed instrument that produces a very monotonous\nthrumming sound.  Little by little, the others in the room\nsuccumb to the evil enchantment produced by the incense, the music, and,\nultimately, by the Queen.  She suggests strongly that the concepts of\nthe Overworld (the Sun in the sky, and Aslan) are merely aspects of a\ndream-world within the self-consciousness of Jill, Eustace, Puddleglum, and the Prince\u2014projected from the real,\nconcrete experience of Underland, a lamp hanging from the ceiling of\nthe room in which they are standing, and their experience of cats.  Soon\nthey ae repeating with the Queen, \u201cIt is all a dream.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, Puddleglum does a very \u201cbrave thing.\u201d  He walked\nover to the fire and stomped it out with his bare, duck-like, feet.  The\npain this caused him actually cleared his mind of the enchantment and he\nstrongly asserts that the \u201cdream-world\u201d or \u201cplay-world\u201d that he and the others\nsupposedly made up is far more real than the Queen\u2019s world and that he is going\nto stand with Aslan and live like a \u201cNarnian\u201d even if there is no Narnia. \nThe Queen turns into a \u201cgreat serpent\u201d seeking to crush them in her coils. \nA battle ensues and the Serpent or Queen is\nkilled.  Underland is released or liberated from its evil\nenchantment.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The arguments\nused by the Queen are a replication of arguments made by Ludwig Feuerbach, Karl\nMarx, and Sigmund Freud who assert that all religion is but a projection of our\nwishes upon a cold and meaningless cosmos.   The only thing that is\nreal is the struggle for survival, for economic well-being, and\nfor autonomous life day by day.  This is the drum beat of modernity,\nwhich, in a variety of ways, incessantly repeats that faith is mere\nfeeling driven by the desire to survive and experience more pleasure than pain\nwithin a world devoid of meaning or purpose.  This is the enchantment of\nour age.  And this the source of our true pain and disillusionment.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In The Silver Chair, <\/em>pain served its purpose by clearing Puddlegum’s mind. In a similar way, perhaps, the cultural pain of our time can be used by a gracious God to clear our minds, to transform our thinking, and to help us more clearly discern the perfect will of God.  As C.S. Lewis also explained, pain is a megaphone that God uses to rouse a deaf and dying world. Like Puddleglum may we recognize that there is purpose in the pain that we go through and that, as we stand with God and for His Kingdom, God can use our pain to accomplish great things.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Looking to “The Silver Chair” by C.S. Lewis to understand more deeply how God uses pain to accomplish His purposes. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":225,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.calbaptist.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.calbaptist.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.calbaptist.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.calbaptist.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.calbaptist.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.calbaptist.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":228,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.calbaptist.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221\/revisions\/228"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.calbaptist.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.calbaptist.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.calbaptist.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.calbaptist.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}