withallyourmind.net

One hundred ten years ago, a little girl asked the New York Sun a simple question and got a classic reply from editorial writer Francis P. Church. It was first published Sept. 21, 1897. Here is the reply:

We take pleasure in answering at once and this prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of the Sun:

Dear Editor: I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, “If you see it in The Sun, it’s so.” Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?

VIRGINIA O’HANLON

115 W. 95th Street

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except what they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world, there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

Just a hurried line… to tell a story which puts the contrast between our feast of the Nativity and all this ghastly “Xmas” racket at its lowest. My brother heard a woman on a bus say, as the bus passed a church with a Crib outside it, “Oh Lor’! They bring religion into everything. Look - they’re dragging it even into Christmas now!”

- C. S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady (29 Dec 1958), p. 80

Although I think I’ve gotten a pretty good education so far, I’ve always been a little insecure and a little upset about the fact that I never got to read so many of the classic texts that have influenced and shaped Western culture and the world. My belief in the general importance of this, and the deeper importance for my case since I hope to be a philosopher and an academic, has led me to compare various lists of the “great books” and compile my own, which I hope to read through over the next several years. Although I may add or subtract a few works, my list can be accessed here. I welcome anyone else to use it and read along with me.

This just in: UC Berkeley (where I’m currently studying) has opened their own YouTube page where professors can put up videos of course lectures for anyone to see. There aren’t too many available right now, but hopefully some more professors will take advantage of the technology and spread the knowledge around. One course I think I will start watching is called “Physics for Future Presidents.” Check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/ucberkeley

I recently became a contributor to the Florida Student Philosophy Blog, where I will cross-post some of my specifically philosophical thoughts, and my first post contained some of my thoughts on the graduate school application process, a very stressful thing for aspiring philosophers. You can check it out here.

After previously trying to read through Pascal’s ‘Pensées’ and then giving up, I decided to try again and have been very slowly (a couple pages per day in the morning) reading through it over the past few weeks. Although I don’t always find myself agreeing with him or fully understanding his arguments, I think there is a lot modern apologists can learn from his method and some of his thoughts. That being said, here are a few of my favorite so far (I’m not even yet halfway done):

12. Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true. The cure for this is first to show that religion is not contrary to reason, but worthy of reverence and respect. Next make it attractive, make good men wish it were true, and then show that it is. Worthy of reverence because it really understands human nature. Attractive because it promises true good.

108. What part of us feels pleasure? Is it our hand, our arm, our flesh, or our blood? It must obviously be something immaterial.

185. Faith certainly tells us what the senses do not, but not the contrary of what they see; it is above, not against them.

192. Knowing God without knowing our own wretchedness makes for pride. Knowing our own wretchedness without knowing God makes for despair. Knowing Jesus Christ strikes the balance because he shows us both God and our own wretchedness.

205. If all things have a single principle, a single end - all things by him, all things for him - true religion must then teach us to worship and to love him alone. But, as we find ourselves unable to worship what we do not know or to love anything but ourselves, the religion which teaches us these duties must also teach us about our inability and tell us the remedy as well. It teaches us that through one man all was lost and the bond broken between God and man, and that through one man the bond was restored.

219. Other religions, like those of the heathen, are more popular, for they consist in externals, but they are not for clever men. A purely intellectual religion would be more appropriate to the clever but would be no good for the people. The Christian religion alone is appropriate for all, being a blend of external and internal. It exalts the people inwardly, and humbles the proud outwardly, and is not perfect without both, for the people must understand the spirit of the letter while the clever must submit their spirit to the letter.

The latest issue of Salvo magazine is excellent. It examines the influence of the media on modern society. Bobby Maddex discusses how the film industry and the making of films impacts Christians and how Christians should be impacting the film industry. Maddex provides Hollywood screenwriter and devout Catholic Barbara Nicolosi’s criteria for an excellent film: It must be technically sound and provide a moral message. Nicolosi blogs at Church of the Masses. Maddex lists ten movies that he thinks makes the cut:

1. The Addiction (1995)
2. Thirteen Conversations About One Thing (2001)
3. Lilies of the Field (1963)
4. Tender Mercies (1983)
5. Andrei Rublev (1969)
6. A Man for All Seasons (1966)
7. Babette’s Feast (1987)
8. Sophie Scholl (2005)
9. The Ice Storm (1997)
10. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

On the other hand, Maddex also provides a list of movies which are the truly dangerous films - technical masterpieces which exhibit deceitful and depraved worldviews. Nicolosi considers them bad art because they fail to match the message with the means. These films can be very persuasive and harmful. Here’s a few dangerous films:

1. The Graduate (1967)
2. Pleasantville (1998)
3. The Big Chill (1983)
4. The Hours (2002)
5. American Beauty (1999)
6. Vera Drake (2004)
7. Million Dollar Baby (2004)
8. Boys Don’t Cry (1999)
9. Happiness (1998)
10. Thelma and Louise (1991)

The article is quite instructive and will enable one to be more discerning in evaluating modern cinema. I’d recommend reading the entire article.

I found this amusing quote about CS Lewis from Touchstone Magazine’s Blog “Mere Comments,” which I recommend and have just added to the blogroll.

The December 2006 issue of Harper’s magazine includes an excerpt from a January 28, 1951, letter by Hugh Trevor-Roper, Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford, to Wallace Notestein, Sterling Professor of English History at Yale, on the subject of C.S. Lewis.

Trevor-Roper wrote:

Do you know C.S. Lewis? In case you don’t, let me offer a brief character-sketch. Envisage (if you can) a man who combines the face and figure of a hog-reever or earth-stopper with the mind and thought of a Desert Father of the fifth century, preoccupied with meditations of inelegant theological obscenity; a powerful mind warped by erudite philistinism, blackened by systematic bigotry, and directed by a positive detestation of such profane frivolities as art, literature, and, of course, poetry; a purple-faced bachelor and misogynist, living alone in rooms of inconceivable hideousness, secretly consuming vast quantities of his favorite dish, beefsteak-and-kidney pudding; periodically trembling at the mere apprehension of a feminine footfall; and all the while distilling his morbid and illiberal thoughts into volumes of best-selling prurient religiosity and such reactionary nihilism as is indicated by the gleeful title, The Abolition of Man.

Meow comments, to be sure. But I think, if Lewis ever knew of this, he must have at least relished the comparison to the Desert Fathers, perhaps over a secret dish of beefsteak-and-kidney pudding.

Christian apologist and theologian Alister McGrath of Oxford has been writing about Richard Dawkins and his views of science and Christianity for years, including his most recent book, written with his wife, that is a direct response to Dawkins’ The God Illusion. When Dawkins filmed his documentary called ‘The Root of All Evil?’ last year, he ended up interviewing McGrath for a segment. Unfortunately (from what I hear - I haven’t seen the documentary), the interview never made it into the final cut. However, by going here, you can watch the whole unedited video online. I’m sure it is interesting.

(HT Manawatu Christian Apologetics Society)

After surveying some of the recent activity in the blogosphere, I came across three posts that I found so interesting that I feel compelled to point them out.

1. Ben Witherington has a positive (to say the least) review of the new Bourne movie with some worldview-oriented reflection. I look forward to seeing this one.

2. Justin Taylor points us to the newest episode of Stand to Reason which features a two hour interview with Francis Beckwith on his conversion to Catholicism.

3. John Mark Reynolds gives us seven reasons for cultural hope and argues that things are looking a lot better for the West and for Christianity than the media and our friends would have us believe. It almost seems overly optimistic to me, but very thought-provoking.