Simple Gifts

As book ten ended, Adam and Eve were bowing in worship and sincere repentance to God for their failures, so book eleven opens with heaven's response, God's grace in His Son, offering Himself as "advocate and propitiation," so that:

my merit those shall perfect ... till death, his doom ... to better life shall yield him; where with me all my redeemed may dwell in joy and bliss; made one with me, as I with thee am one.

Thus the breaking of relationship accomplished in sin and Fall is restored in the Son. But the Father declares that the Pair must leave Eden, for "longer in that Paradise to dwell the law I gave to Nature him forbids," and to keep man from eating of the tree of life which would serve, "but to eternize woe," for God's mercy "provided death" as a "final remedy" for a life of sin.

The Archangel Michael is chosen to carry out the mission of driving Adam and Eve from the Garden, and to "guard all passage to the tree of life."

Adam expresses to Eve his fundamental faith in God's goodness: "Eve, easily may faith admit, that all the good which we enjoy from Heaven descends. Acknowledging her part in the Fall, Eve pledges to Adam, "I never from thy side henceforth to stray, where'er our day's work lies, though now enjoined laborious ... here let us live, though in fallen state, content."

When the Pair hear of their expusion from Eden, Adam says this:

This most afflicts me, that, departing hence, as from his face I shall be hid, deprived of his blessed countenance: here I could frequent with worship place by place where he vouchsafed Presence Divine.... In yonder nether world where shall I seek His bright appearances, or foot-step trace?

The loss of the immediate presence of God to man is part of the great tragedy Milton sees in the fall. Michael's response is that God is to be found everywhere in Creation.

The remainder of Book eleven is a recounting of the history to come for Adam, ending with the great flood and the Noahic covenant - the rainbow in the sky.

Paradise Lost Book 11 Summary & Analysis | LitCharts

This is an excellent summary and commentary on each of the books in PARADISE LOST. I strongly recommend reading these commentaries over as you listen to our readings of this great poem!

If you enjoy our content, why not buy us a cup of coffee? via https://ko-fi.com/thechristianatheist

PLEASE check out our first book, THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS: The Imploding Of An Atheist Professor's Worldview

#paradiselost #paradise #johnmilton #milton #poetry #poem #epic #epicpoem #classicpoetry #classicpoem #classics #westernliterature #satan #hell #earth #christianity #religion #thechristianatheist #drjohndwise #drjohnwise #johnwise #christian #atheist #christianity #atheism #jesus #jesuschrist #god #bible #oldtestament #newtestament #nocompromise #rationality #faith #philosophy #philosopher #culture #society #hegelism #hegel #reason #incarnation #history#psychology #theology #literature #humanities #hardquestions #postmodernism #woke #wisdom #ethics #science #poetry

C. S. Lewis said in MERE CHRISTIANITY, "anyone who is honestly trying to be a Christian will soon find his intelligence being sharpened: one of the reasons why it needs no special education to be a Christian is that Christianity is an education itself. That is why an uneducated believer like Bunyan was able to write a book that has astonished the whole world."

By all counts PILGRIM'S PROGRESS is one of the most influential and well-read books in all history. Lewis himself did it homage as a new Christian when he penned his own PILGRIM'S REGRESS soon after his conversion from theism to Christianity.

If you enjoy our content, why not buy us a cup of coffee? via https://ko-fi.com/thechristianatheist

Check out our first book, THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS: THE IMPLODING OF AN ATHEIST PROFESSOR'S WORLDVIEW

https://www.youtube.com/c/TheChristianAtheist/featured 

https://www.youtube.com/c/TheChristianAtheist/featured

https://www.facebook.com/JnJWiseWords

https://wisewordsforyouroccasion.wordpress.com

For more great content, check out our other podcasts:

The Christian Atheist: where faith and reason fuse in the incarnation …https://pod.link/1553077203

and

No Compromise: where faith and reason fuse in conversation …

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLS9AH1236qO-xEEfBcBP39ip0UJtCpP9R

#thepilgrimprogress #christianallegory #bunyan #johnbunyan #theologicalfiction #bedfordshireprison #evangelist #obstinate #pliable #help #worldlywiseman #goodwill #beelzebub #interpreter #apollyon #faithful #cityofdestruction #poem #poetry #verse #literature #aestheticliterature #aesthetic #history #historical #philosophy #religion #christianity #bible #god #jesus #science #culture #society #humanities #wisdomofthepast #wisdom #classics #faith

Plato's Phaedo is one of his most read, and certainly one of the most dramatically interesting of his dialogues. It gives the account of Socrates' death-day, but contains a great deal of Plato's own philosophical musings. For the scholarly, this dialogue is from Plato's early middle period, in which we think he was using Socrates as the mouthpiece for his own philosophical theories, whereas in the earlier dialogues - for example, Euthyphro, Apology and perhaps Crito, Socrates was much closer to his actual practice as the "gadfly of Athens." Phaedo almost certainly was written before Republic, and in many ways prefigures it. One of my favorite passages from Phaedo is when the character Simmias says this to Socrates on the topic of life-after-death:

It seems to me, Socrates, and perhaps to you too, that definite knowledge of such matters is either impossible or extremely difficult in this life. That said, however, it is a very faint-hearted person who does not scrutinize the arguments about these matters in every manner possible, without giving up until totally exhausted by the enquiry. For we should proceed on these issues in one of two ways, either learn or discover how matters stand, or if this is impossible, then adopt the best and most unassailable argument of humankind, climb on board that, as if it were a raft in a perilous sea, and sail upon it through life, unless one can travel on a more secure vessel, some divine word, safely and free from danger.

This passage speaks to me of faith in a way consonant with Socrates's views (and, perhaps to a lesser extent, with Plato's), and has played an important role in my own thinking about the nature of faith in human life.

There are innumerable other valuable insights to gain here, not least the noble death to which Socrates committed himself, and the manner in which his death prefigured that of the Lord Jesus.

Enjoy!

If you enjoy our content, why not buy us a cup of coffee? via https://ko-fi.com/thechristianatheist

Check out our first book, THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS: THE IMPLODING OF AN ATHEIST PROFESSOR'S WORLDVIEW

#phaedo #plato, #socrates, #platoandsocrates, #socratesandplato, #euthyphro, #republic, #westerntradition, #philosophy, #rationality, #drjohndwise, #philosopher, #philosophical, #philosophicalauthor #westerntraditionphilosophy, #traditionalphilosophy, #foundations, #foundationalphilosopher, #foundationaltext, #platosrepublic, #philosophy, #dialogue, #dialogues, #greekphilosophy, #ancientgreekphilosophy, #athens, #platonicdialogue, #platonic, #ancientgreeks, #ancientgreece, #hellen, #hellenistic, #athenian, #atheniantradition, #greekcivilization, #greeksociety, #greekhistory #apology #plato #socrates #socraticdialogue #trialofsocrates #piety #justice #aporia #socraticirony

Authored by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay to appear anonymously in New York papers under the pseudonym "Publius" in 1787 and 1788, the Federalist Papers aimed to rally public support for the proposed Constitution of the United States. As such, it is one of the most important sources for understanding the original intent of the US Constitution by those who participated in its construction.

In Federalist number one Alexander Hamilton sets forth the ambition of arguing the following positions in favor of the adoption of the Constitution:

"I propose, in a series of papers, to discuss the following interesting particulars:

THE UTILITY OF THE UNION TO YOUR POLITICAL PROSPERITY

THE INSUFFICIENCY OF THE PRESENT CONFEDERATION TO PRESERVE THAT UNION

THE NECESSITY OF A GOVERNMENT AT LEAST EQUALLY ENERGETIC WITH THE ONE PROPOSED, TO THE ATTAINMENT OF THIS OBJECT

THE CONFORMITY OF THE PROPOSED CONSTITUTION TO THE TRUE PRINCIPLES OF REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT

ITS ANALOGY TO YOUR OWN STATE CONSTITUTION and lastly,

THE ADDITIONAL SECURITY WHICH ITS ADOPTION WILL AFFORD TO THE PRESERVATION OF THAT SPECIES OF GOVERNMENT, TO LIBERTY, AND TO PROPERTY."

Articles and essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay under the collective pseudonym "Publius" to promote the ratification of the Constitution of the United States.

If you enjoy our content, why not buy us a cup of coffee? via https://ko-fi.com/thechristianatheist

Check out our first book, THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS: THE IMPLODING OF AN ATHEIST PROFESSOR'S WORLDVIEW

and

No Compromise: where faith and reason fuse in conversation …

Gilbert Kyle Chesterton remains one of the great voices of Christian faith in the last century, and it is a tragedy that more Christians are not familiar with his work. C. S. Lewis credits Chesterton, and in particular The Everlasting Man, with displaying the rationality of the Christian worldview par excellence, though it was not one work alone, but a progressive development away from atheism and toward God, that Lewis discusses.

I was at this time living, like so many Atheists or Antitheists, in a whirl of contradictions. I maintained that God did not exist. I was also very angry with God for not existing. I was equally angry with Him for creating a world.

It was while in the army in WWI that Lewis said:

It was here that I first read a volume of Chesterton's essays. I had never heard of him and had no idea of what he stood for; nor can I quite understand why he made such an immediate conquest of me. It might have been expected that my pessimism, my atheism, and my hatred of sentiment would have made him to me the least congenial of all authors. It would almost seem that Providence, or some "second cause" of a very obscure kind, quite over-rules our previous tastes when It decides to bring two minds together. Liking an author may be as involuntary and improbable as falling in love. I was by now a sufficiently experienced reader to distinguish liking from agreement. I did not need to accept what Chesterton said in order to enjoy it.... For the critics who think Chesterton frivolous or "paradoxical" I have to work hard to feel even pity; sympathy is out of the question. Moreover, strange as it may seem, I liked him for his goodness. I can attribute this taste to myself freely (even at that age) because it was a liking for goodness which had nothing to do with any attempt to be good myself. I have never felt the dislike of goodness which seems to be quite common in better men than me.... It was a matter of taste: I felt the "charm" of goodness as a man feels the charm of a woman he has no intention of marrying. It is, indeed, at that distance that its "charm" is most apparent.

It seems as though Lewis himself took up this "charm" when he wrote the Chronicles of Narnia years later, introducing the real-world content of the Gospel message in a digestible form for those who might not wish to taste it full strength, and thus avoiding the censor.

In reading Chesterton, as in reading MacDonald, I did not know what I was letting myself in for. A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. There are traps everywhere--"Bibles laid open, millions of surprises," as Herbert says, "fine nets and stratagems." God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous.

This is a point that motivates ALL of our work here on Simple Gifts ... ALL of God's creation, and thus all of man's best creative efforts, when properly understood point us to the Creator. For Lewis, one work in particular was the proverbial "straw":

Then I read Chesterton's Everlasting Man and for the first time saw the whole Christian outline of history set out in a form that seemed to me to make sense. Somehow I contrived not to be too badly shaken. You will remember that I already thought Chesterton the most sensible man alive "apart from his Christianity". Now, I veritably believe, I thought--I didn't of course say; words would have revealed the nonsense--that Christianity itself was very sensible "apart from its Christianity".

We present here this text with the hope that the effect might be reproduced in others, too.

Enjoy!

#christianapologetics #gkchesterton #chesterton #orthodoxy #westerncivilisation #theeverlastingman #poem #poetry #verse #literature #aestheticliterature #aesthetic #history #historical #philosophy #religion #christianity #bible #god #jesus #science #culture #society #humanities #wisdomofthepast #wisdom #classics #faith

As book ten ended, Adam and Eve were bowing in worship and sincere repentance to God for their failures, so book eleven opens with heaven's response, God's grace in His Son, offering Himself as "advocate and propitiation," so that:

my merit those shall perfect ... till death, his doom ... to better life shall yield him; where with me all my redeemed may dwell in joy and bliss; made one with me, as I with thee am one.

Thus the breaking of relationship accomplished in sin and Fall is restored in the Son. But the Father declares that the Pair must leave Eden, for "longer in that Paradise to dwell the law I gave to Nature him forbids," and to keep man from eating of the tree of life which would serve, "but to eternize woe," for God's mercy "provided death" as a "final remedy" for a life of sin.

The Archangel Michael is chosen to carry out the mission of driving Adam and Eve from the Garden, and to "guard all passage to the tree of life."

Adam expresses to Eve his fundamental faith in God's goodness: "Eve, easily may faith admit, that all the good which we enjoy from Heaven descends. Acknowledging her part in the Fall, Eve pledges to Adam, "I never from thy side henceforth to stray, where'er our day's work lies, though now enjoined laborious ... here let us live, though in fallen state, content."

When the Pair hear of their expusion from Eden, Adam says this:

This most afflicts me, that, departing hence, as from his face I shall be hid, deprived of his blessed countenance: here I could frequent with worship place by place where he vouchsafed Presence Divine.... In yonder nether world where shall I seek His bright appearances, or foot-step trace?

The loss of the immediate presence of God to man is part of the great tragedy Milton sees in the fall. Michael's response is that God is to be found everywhere in Creation.

The remainder of Book eleven is a recounting of the history to come for Adam, ending with the great flood and the Noahic covenant - the rainbow in the sky.

Paradise Lost Book 11 Summary & Analysis | LitCharts

This is an excellent summary and commentary on each of the books in PARADISE LOST. I strongly recommend reading these commentaries over as you listen to our readings of this great poem!

If you enjoy our content, why not buy us a cup of coffee? via https://ko-fi.com/thechristianatheist

PLEASE check out our first book, THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS: The Imploding Of An Atheist Professor's Worldview

#paradiselost #paradise #johnmilton #milton #poetry #poem #epic #epicpoem #classicpoetry #classicpoem #classics #westernliterature #satan #hell #earth #christianity #religion #thechristianatheist #drjohndwise #drjohnwise #johnwise #christian #atheist #christianity #atheism #jesus #jesuschrist #god #bible #oldtestament #newtestament #nocompromise #rationality #faith #philosophy #philosopher #culture #society #hegelism #hegel #reason #incarnation #history#psychology #theology #literature #humanities #hardquestions #postmodernism #woke #wisdom #ethics #science #poetry

C. S. Lewis said in MERE CHRISTIANITY, "anyone who is honestly trying to be a Christian will soon find his intelligence being sharpened: one of the reasons why it needs no special education to be a Christian is that Christianity is an education itself. That is why an uneducated believer like Bunyan was able to write a book that has astonished the whole world."

By all counts PILGRIM'S PROGRESS is one of the most influential and well-read books in all history. Lewis himself did it homage as a new Christian when he penned his own PILGRIM'S REGRESS soon after his conversion from theism to Christianity.

If you enjoy our content, why not buy us a cup of coffee? via https://ko-fi.com/thechristianatheist

Check out our first book, THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS: THE IMPLODING OF AN ATHEIST PROFESSOR'S WORLDVIEW

https://www.youtube.com/c/TheChristianAtheist/featured 

https://www.youtube.com/c/TheChristianAtheist/featured

https://www.facebook.com/JnJWiseWords

https://wisewordsforyouroccasion.wordpress.com

For more great content, check out our other podcasts:

The Christian Atheist: where faith and reason fuse in the incarnation …https://pod.link/1553077203

and

No Compromise: where faith and reason fuse in conversation …

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLS9AH1236qO-xEEfBcBP39ip0UJtCpP9R

#thepilgrimprogress #christianallegory #bunyan #johnbunyan #theologicalfiction #bedfordshireprison #evangelist #obstinate #pliable #help #worldlywiseman #goodwill #beelzebub #interpreter #apollyon #faithful #cityofdestruction #poem #poetry #verse #literature #aestheticliterature #aesthetic #history #historical #philosophy #religion #christianity #bible #god #jesus #science #culture #society #humanities #wisdomofthepast #wisdom #classics #faith

Plato's Phaedo is one of his most read, and certainly one of the most dramatically interesting of his dialogues. It gives the account of Socrates' death-day, but contains a great deal of Plato's own philosophical musings. For the scholarly, this dialogue is from Plato's early middle period, in which we think he was using Socrates as the mouthpiece for his own philosophical theories, whereas in the earlier dialogues - for example, Euthyphro, Apology and perhaps Crito, Socrates was much closer to his actual practice as the "gadfly of Athens." Phaedo almost certainly was written before Republic, and in many ways prefigures it. One of my favorite passages from Phaedo is when the character Simmias says this to Socrates on the topic of life-after-death:

It seems to me, Socrates, and perhaps to you too, that definite knowledge of such matters is either impossible or extremely difficult in this life. That said, however, it is a very faint-hearted person who does not scrutinize the arguments about these matters in every manner possible, without giving up until totally exhausted by the enquiry. For we should proceed on these issues in one of two ways, either learn or discover how matters stand, or if this is impossible, then adopt the best and most unassailable argument of humankind, climb on board that, as if it were a raft in a perilous sea, and sail upon it through life, unless one can travel on a more secure vessel, some divine word, safely and free from danger.

This passage speaks to me of faith in a way consonant with Socrates's views (and, perhaps to a lesser extent, with Plato's), and has played an important role in my own thinking about the nature of faith in human life.

There are innumerable other valuable insights to gain here, not least the noble death to which Socrates committed himself, and the manner in which his death prefigured that of the Lord Jesus.

Enjoy!

If you enjoy our content, why not buy us a cup of coffee? via https://ko-fi.com/thechristianatheist

Check out our first book, THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS: THE IMPLODING OF AN ATHEIST PROFESSOR'S WORLDVIEW

#phaedo #plato, #socrates, #platoandsocrates, #socratesandplato, #euthyphro, #republic, #westerntradition, #philosophy, #rationality, #drjohndwise, #philosopher, #philosophical, #philosophicalauthor #westerntraditionphilosophy, #traditionalphilosophy, #foundations, #foundationalphilosopher, #foundationaltext, #platosrepublic, #philosophy, #dialogue, #dialogues, #greekphilosophy, #ancientgreekphilosophy, #athens, #platonicdialogue, #platonic, #ancientgreeks, #ancientgreece, #hellen, #hellenistic, #athenian, #atheniantradition, #greekcivilization, #greeksociety, #greekhistory #apology #plato #socrates #socraticdialogue #trialofsocrates #piety #justice #aporia #socraticirony

Authored by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay to appear anonymously in New York papers under the pseudonym "Publius" in 1787 and 1788, the Federalist Papers aimed to rally public support for the proposed Constitution of the United States. As such, it is one of the most important sources for understanding the original intent of the US Constitution by those who participated in its construction.

In Federalist number one Alexander Hamilton sets forth the ambition of arguing the following positions in favor of the adoption of the Constitution:

"I propose, in a series of papers, to discuss the following interesting particulars:

THE UTILITY OF THE UNION TO YOUR POLITICAL PROSPERITY

THE INSUFFICIENCY OF THE PRESENT CONFEDERATION TO PRESERVE THAT UNION

THE NECESSITY OF A GOVERNMENT AT LEAST EQUALLY ENERGETIC WITH THE ONE PROPOSED, TO THE ATTAINMENT OF THIS OBJECT

THE CONFORMITY OF THE PROPOSED CONSTITUTION TO THE TRUE PRINCIPLES OF REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT

ITS ANALOGY TO YOUR OWN STATE CONSTITUTION and lastly,

THE ADDITIONAL SECURITY WHICH ITS ADOPTION WILL AFFORD TO THE PRESERVATION OF THAT SPECIES OF GOVERNMENT, TO LIBERTY, AND TO PROPERTY."

Articles and essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay under the collective pseudonym "Publius" to promote the ratification of the Constitution of the United States.

If you enjoy our content, why not buy us a cup of coffee? via https://ko-fi.com/thechristianatheist

Check out our first book, THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS: THE IMPLODING OF AN ATHEIST PROFESSOR'S WORLDVIEW

and

No Compromise: where faith and reason fuse in conversation …

Gilbert Kyle Chesterton remains one of the great voices of Christian faith in the last century, and it is a tragedy that more Christians are not familiar with his work. C. S. Lewis credits Chesterton, and in particular The Everlasting Man, with displaying the rationality of the Christian worldview par excellence, though it was not one work alone, but a progressive development away from atheism and toward God, that Lewis discusses.

I was at this time living, like so many Atheists or Antitheists, in a whirl of contradictions. I maintained that God did not exist. I was also very angry with God for not existing. I was equally angry with Him for creating a world.

It was while in the army in WWI that Lewis said:

It was here that I first read a volume of Chesterton's essays. I had never heard of him and had no idea of what he stood for; nor can I quite understand why he made such an immediate conquest of me. It might have been expected that my pessimism, my atheism, and my hatred of sentiment would have made him to me the least congenial of all authors. It would almost seem that Providence, or some "second cause" of a very obscure kind, quite over-rules our previous tastes when It decides to bring two minds together. Liking an author may be as involuntary and improbable as falling in love. I was by now a sufficiently experienced reader to distinguish liking from agreement. I did not need to accept what Chesterton said in order to enjoy it.... For the critics who think Chesterton frivolous or "paradoxical" I have to work hard to feel even pity; sympathy is out of the question. Moreover, strange as it may seem, I liked him for his goodness. I can attribute this taste to myself freely (even at that age) because it was a liking for goodness which had nothing to do with any attempt to be good myself. I have never felt the dislike of goodness which seems to be quite common in better men than me.... It was a matter of taste: I felt the "charm" of goodness as a man feels the charm of a woman he has no intention of marrying. It is, indeed, at that distance that its "charm" is most apparent.

It seems as though Lewis himself took up this "charm" when he wrote the Chronicles of Narnia years later, introducing the real-world content of the Gospel message in a digestible form for those who might not wish to taste it full strength, and thus avoiding the censor.

In reading Chesterton, as in reading MacDonald, I did not know what I was letting myself in for. A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. There are traps everywhere--"Bibles laid open, millions of surprises," as Herbert says, "fine nets and stratagems." God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous.

This is a point that motivates ALL of our work here on Simple Gifts ... ALL of God's creation, and thus all of man's best creative efforts, when properly understood point us to the Creator. For Lewis, one work in particular was the proverbial "straw":

Then I read Chesterton's Everlasting Man and for the first time saw the whole Christian outline of history set out in a form that seemed to me to make sense. Somehow I contrived not to be too badly shaken. You will remember that I already thought Chesterton the most sensible man alive "apart from his Christianity". Now, I veritably believe, I thought--I didn't of course say; words would have revealed the nonsense--that Christianity itself was very sensible "apart from its Christianity".

We present here this text with the hope that the effect might be reproduced in others, too.

Enjoy!

#christianapologetics #gkchesterton #chesterton #orthodoxy #westerncivilisation #theeverlastingman #poem #poetry #verse #literature #aestheticliterature #aesthetic #history #historical #philosophy #religion #christianity #bible #god #jesus #science #culture #society #humanities #wisdomofthepast #wisdom #classics #faith