THE SUN HAS RISEN I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
C.S. Lewis
GOD CANNOT GIVE US A HAPPINESS AND PEACE APART FROM HIMSELF, BECAUSE IT IS NOT THERE.
DDAIM IAND Y DDEAR DSIN. A IIYOU G
THERE IS NO SUCH THING.
HEA WIL THR IN. E NEI
AV E N LL GET ROWN EARTH ITHER
maintaining that two sides of a triangle were together greater than a third — ”Oh you say that because you are a man.” “At that moment,” E. Bulver assures
us,
“there
flashed
across my opening mind the great truth that refutation is no necessary part of argument. You must show that a man
Assume that your opponent
is
start
is wrong, and the world will
explaining why he is wrong.
be at your feet. Attempt to
The
to
prove that he is wrong or
discussion
(worse still) try to find out
that he is wrong and then
whether he is wrong or right,
distract his attention from this
and the national dynamism
(the only real issue) by busily
of our age will thrust you to
explaining how he became so
the wall.” That is how Bulver
silly. In the course of the last
became one of the makers
fifteen years I have found this
of
vice so common that I have had
B U L V E R I S M
wrong
before
modern
assume
you
method
without
is
to invent a name for it. I call it “Bulverism.” Some day I am going to write the biography of its imaginary inventor, Ezekiel Bulver,
whose
destiny
was
determined at the age of five when he heard his mother say to his father—who had been
the
Twentieth
Century.
TYRANNIES
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the
VICTIMS approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.
CH URC
H CH Imagine yourself as a living
is building quite a different
house.
house
God
comes
in
to
from
the
one
you
rebuild that house. At first,
thought of - throwing out a
perhaps, you can understand
new wing here, putting on an
what
extra floor there, running up
He
is
doing.
He
is
getting the drains right and
towers,
stopping the leaks in the roof
You thought you were being
and so on; you knew that
made
those jobs needed doing and
cottage: but He is building a
so you are not surprised. But
palace. He intends to come
presently He starts knocking
and live in it Himself.
making
into
a
courtyards.
decent
little
the house about in a way that
hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense.
What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He
A cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute.
COURAGE IS NOT SIMPLY ONE OF THE VIRTUES
It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are
like eggs
at present. And you
cannot
go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.
FAILURES A POSTS ON
TO ACHIE
ARE FINGER THE ROAD
EVEMENT.
PEOPLE SAY DIFFERENT THINGS
Telling us to obey instinct is like telling us to obey ‘people.’ People say different things: so do instincts. Our instincts are at war... Each instinct, if you listen to it, will claim to be gratified at the expense of the rest.
TO LOVE AT ALL IS TO BE VULNERABLE
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly b e w r u n g a n d p o s s i b l y b e b r o ke n .
BLIND WAR // A RETROSPECTIVE JUNE 11, 2014 // 1 LMU DRIVE LOS ANGELES, CA 90045