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In teaching through Lewis this semester, I've been reminded that the story that we tell ourselves about ourselves is rarely (if ever) wholly accurate. We are masters of self-deceit. And we can typically find enough events in our lives to justify our self-narrative. God help us.
In fact, Brit lit is filled with exposing this sort of thing: Shakespeare, Milton, Austen, Lewis--all of them are deeply aware of our capacity for self-deceit (and therefore self-righteousness). We think we are angels at precisely the moment when we are acting most like devils.
What we call love can be 9/10's hatred. What we call justice can be shot thru with envy. Our natural loves--of family or friend, of lover or of nation, of the weak & the hurting--become demoniac the moment we set them up as a god. And we are very prone to set them up as gods.
Again, Lewis is brilliant on this. Read Four Loves. Read Till We Have Faces. Read the Great Divorce. Read That Hideous Strength. And don't let yourself off the hook. Always ask Dr. Dimble's question: Could it be that there is a Belbury inside me too?
(On which, read my Lewis on the Christian Life): https://www.amazon.com/Lewis-Christian-Life-Becoming-Theologians/dp/1433550555
Or read my articles on compassion & empathy (which may be the most important things I've written in the last two years):
1) https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/killing-them-softly
2) https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-enticing-sin-of-empathy
3) https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/dangerous-compassion
4) https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/do-you-feel-my-pain
1) https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/killing-them-softly
2) https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-enticing-sin-of-empathy
3) https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/dangerous-compassion
4) https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/do-you-feel-my-pain
Same with Austen: Pride & Prejudice. Sense & Sensibility. Emma. All of them contain a central character who will have an apocalyptic moment of self-realization in which they realize the story they've told themselves isn't the full story, or the only story, or the true story.
And so with Milton. Blake famously said, based on Milton's heroic depiction of Satan, that Milton was of the devil's party without knowing it. But Milton did know that he was, by nature, of the devil's party, and he wrote the devil that way to hold up a mirror for his readers.
And time would fail me to talk about Shakespeare and what he knows of our capacity for self-delusion. Merchant of Venice. Much Ado About Nothing. Othello. Cymbeline. The Winter's Tale. (Read those last four as a unit and see what you can see).
And, if this resonates with you, and you see the need for a kind of true self-knowledge which, as Calvin taught us, comes from knowing the living God, then point the high school graduates in your life in the direction of Bethlehem College & Seminary ( @BCS_MN).
We read the Great Books in light of the Greatest Book for the Sake of the Great Commission. We teach students to truly know themselves by truly knowing God and deeply delighting in God, so that they can pursue wisdom & wonder for the rest of their lives.
