Letter 1

I wonder what it would be like to be in a world without propaganda. Imagine a world where filmmakers, pundits, novelists, and preachers were telling stories without any spin. Imagine if everyone from politicians to parents just told things like it really is, instead of their perception of things.

Screwtape points out how we are surrounded with a flood of philosophies, e.g., materialism, skepticism, pragmatism…blaah! Who cares! There are so many and they all lead to different conclusions and ways of seeing reality.

Perhaps that is why people today seem to be like Screwtape describes. There are so many ways of thinking, many of which we’ve unconsciously have “dancing about together” inside our heads, that we had to stop thinking of them “as primarily ‘true’ or ‘false’.

I have to wonder if C.S. Lewis, through Screwtape, is onto something when he says, “Above all, do not attempt to use science (I mean, the real sciences) as a defense against Christianity.” Philosophers can have great insight into the world and truth, but at the end of the day philosophers’ arguments just have to make sense. Scientists, however, have to not only make sense, their ideas about reality have to be testable in the physical realm. Perhaps the best way to find the truth isn’t to think about it and write a paper on the results, but to actually live it out in the physical world.

Maybe—just maybe—that is why the God of the Old Testament, who never had a fully physical body within creation never said, “I am the truth” but Jesus, who believed himself to be the incarnation of that God, could say those very words. Perhaps Jesus’ experience in the physical realm gave him the right to say that not only is he promoting the ideas, he’s living them out in reality and testing them. And if his ideas do turn out to be true, than perhaps he’s not just another pundit, but a real (and rare) straight-talker.