Pursuing Veritas

I recently re-encountered C.S. Lewis’s sermon on learning in war time, which he delivered to undergraduates at Oxford in the autumn of 1939. From my notes, it seems I first read this essay some ten years ago, so I figured it would be worth a re-read. The following are some reflections from my read through.

• Any quest for knowledge is necessarily partial. We will never reach the end of knowing in our lifetime. Therefore, study and reflection are necessary parts of human enterprise.
• All pursuits must be undertaken in light of the reality that life is inherently unstable, insofar as we are never promised tomorrow.
• “Life has never been normal.” There have always been—and will always continue to be—crises, difficulties, and emergencies. On both a personal and societal level, the only normalcy is the abnormal.
• No crisis is ever truly all-encompassing. Even during world wars, the normal stuff of life continues. All finite objects will fail to support the whole attention of every human soul.
• “If you don’t read good books you will read bad ones.”
• No subject of study can completely dominate life. Certain realms of inquiry and reflection can speak to all areas of life, but even these cannot fully occupy all of life.
• Certain goods are inherently valuable, as they advance our vision of God or help others to do so.
• “The intellectual life is not the only road to God, nor the safest, but we find it to be a road, and it may be the appointed road for us.”
• Perspective—academic or experiential—provides an important check on hubris.
• Every crisis presents three errors to be avoided: excitement, frustration, and fear.