“The Problem of Pain” is a C.S. Lewis book that I’ve probably not read carefully enough. But this one may be useful if I ever get around to blogging that First Things article, “No Friend in Jesus” by by Meir Soloveichik. I’m not sure if the two are reconcilable. (Which two, you might ask? Ah, that’s the thing. There are different ways things might be paired off.)
In his introduction to The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis described two kinds of religion: the apprehension of the Numinous-the fear and awe of the sublime-and the following of a moral code. And he noted how bizarre it was that Judaism and Christianity had brought the two together:
We desire nothing less than to see that Law whose naked authority is already unsupportable armed with the incalculable claims of the Numinous. Of all the jumps that humanity takes in its religious history this is certainly the most surprising. It is not unnatural that many sections of the human race refused it; non-moral religion, and non-religious morality, existed and still exist.
The quote is in a book review by Eve Tushnet in The Weekly Standard: “Campus Confidential : Loving to learn, and learning to love, in America“