Plea for help understanding this bit:
(Page 95, top) This is connected to the life of faith as a kind of “second immediacy” or another naivete, for in the negative space of irony we create room (again) for the possibility of faith.
This is one of several passages that Penner is relying heavily on to support an important point, but that I am just not getting it (after many goes over). Like at the top of the next paragraph:
Irony is the only way to express the kind of truth prophets wish to communicate—the kind of understanding that produces self-understanding and expresses actual Christianity.
In spite of my desire to believe Penner, its hard to believe or trust what I can’t understand. I’d value the group members’ thoughts on these. Thanks.
Also, here is the full poem from Lewis (referenced on pg 94).
Footnote to All Prayers
He whom I bow to only knows to whom I bow
When I attempt the ineffable Name, murmuring Thou,
And dream of Pheidian fancies and embrace in heart
Symbols (I know) which cannot be the thing Thou art.
Thus always, taken at their word, all prayers blaspheme
Worshipping with frail images a folk-lore dream,
And all men in their praying, self-deceived, address
The coinage of their own unquiet thoughts, unless
Thou in magnetic mercy to Thyself divert
Our arrows, aimed unskilfully, beyond desert;
And all men are idolators, crying unheard
To a deaf idol, if Thou take them at their word.
Take not, oh Lord, our literal sense. Lord, in Thy great,
Unbroken speech our limping metaphor translate
I was unaware of Lewis’ poetry. This one is worth reading and thinking over. It does well, reminding me of the ease with which we confuse our object of belief with our expression of belief. Penner’s choice to include it is fitting as it bridges well the challenge for Christians to understand in a practical way what theology and doctries actually are and are not, and the critical theory of semiotics, with which Lewis seemed to be familiar:
“ Semiotics (also called semiotic studies ) is the systematic study of sign processes and meaning making. Semiosis is any activity, conduct, or process that involve signs, where a sign is defined as anything that communicates something, usually called a meaning, to the sign’s interpreter.
Lewis expresses briefly here the most basic concept of semiotics and makes valuable application of it in the life of a Christian— another Christian brother, who is taking to heart some of the valuable, practical challenges that critical theory offers Chrisitans, who are willing to consider it. This poem is an unusually beautiful poetic and clear statements of one small aspect of critical theory. It’s no surprise Penner used it.