An interesting observation grabbed me while reading through a wonderful analysis of the medieval scholarship of C. S. Lewis by Jason Baxter. Lewis, writing through the enlightened lens of medieval thought about our modern intellectual myopia, spoke of the “evil enchantment” of modernity.
This is the insistent denial of higher realities (like heaven), that results in the tearing of the spirit (the chest or “castra” in medieval theology) of mankind so consistently that it has reshaped even our language. It begins with the assumption that everything we experience is merely material. The resulting spiritless outlook paradoxically struggles to appreciate the things it encounters in the physical here and now.
Lewis writes of thinkers at the end of the medieval era (the 16th century) like this:
“High abstractions and rarified artifices jostled with the earthiest particulars. They would have found it very hard to understand the modern educated man who, though ‘interested in astronomy,’ knows neither who the Pleiades were nor where to look for them in the sky.”[1]
We are an age of people focused on “mid-level abstraction” (like running technology and bureaucratic politics) who have lost the ability to think through high abstraction (like moral and heavenly realities). I wonder how this type of thinking might have unconsciously affected me.
As a father, it makes me wonder how I can teach my children better ways of thinking so they avoid falling under the “evil enhancement” of our age. I want them to experience the wonder of physical life, in all its colorful sensations. Moreover, I want them to know it is brighter and better because it reflects an even more colorful heavenly reality.
How can I help my kids avoid being mentally trapped in mid-level abstraction?
Spiritual World. I should talk about the spiritual world as reality. Heaven should not be an imaginary place like fairy land. My kids need to realize that God and his angelic servants, and Satan and his demonic ones, are as substantive (if not solid) a thing as the house around them and the woods they walk in. I should avoid dealing with spiritual things in vague ways, limited to feelings and opinions. There is an objective, unseen reality. It should not be only existential, predicated on how we feel or experience it.
Scriptural Truths. I should encourage deep thinking about the implications of Scripture’s truths as the primary way to investigate the spiritual world. Starting our thinking in the God-breathed words of Scripture is practical and wise. It also helps keep us from straying into vague spiritualism or ancient heresies through rudderless philosophy. And it should be more than something interesting to think about: our philosophical investigations should bear practical fruit in our lives.
Physical World. I should encourage a “childlike” wonder of the world. This is a good way to help my children appreciate the physical world in light of the glories of heaven. Fostering curiosity as deeply as we can is good. I should lead them down rabbit trails of wonder, encouraging questions, and diving with them to investigate those questions. Wherever possible, point out how the answers we find in our physical world might reflect spiritual things in the “more real” spiritual world. Platonic forms of infinite truths might be helpful.
Medieval thinkers would often go beyond the facts in their writings about the physical world and encourage appropriate responses, such as wonder and humility, from their pupils. Baxter writes of Thomas Traherne as an example, who “makes the argument that the greatest gift given to mankind is the natural world, and the appropriate way to receive it is, first, to study it, but then to wonder at it, to treasure it within, until you come to revere it…”[2] I want to train my kids’ minds so that their response to subjects like Science and History is a feeling of awe and a more robust worship of the Author of those subjects.
Encourage Physical Fun and Work. The great medieval thinkers Lewis talked about grew their thinking out of dirty childhoods in forests and fields. They exercised practical skills on the world around them, which helped color their deep thoughts about the world they could not see. I should encourage rugged, hands-on fun. It’s good to learn skills, from wood carving and tracking to drawing and music. It is a way to fully experience this lovely life God has made. Getting kids off screens and into the woods will help wake their minds to the earth around them. Getting them out of the house and into the community will help wake them up to the world God made them to experience. Getting them to pursue projects with diligence and appreciation of a job well done will help leverage their appreciation of this life in light of heaven.
Chivalry. I should teach chivalry! Baxter astonished me in saying, “For all these reasons, Lewis thought that chivalry, far from being some outdated, ritualistic social practice, was urgent again.”[3] The code of chivalry was the medieval world’s answer to Francis Schaeffer’s famous question, “How should we then live?” How ought we to act considering the truths of God’s word, and the wonder we find in this world and the parallel spiritual world? Chivalry taught the rough, violently practical warrior how to love and honor higher things. And it taught head-in-the-clouds scholars how to get their hands dirty for the good of the people around them.
It is no coincidence that chivalry is “the ethical system it [the premodern] world created.” It is an ethical system meant to make a well-rounded man: a man who can be tough as nails but emotive as a poet. That’s why one 17th century courtier and chivalric expert could define the Code like this: “Chivalry is only the name for that general spirit or state of mind which disposes men to heroic and generous actions, and keeps them conversant with all that is beautiful and sublime in the intellectual and moral world.”[i]
This modern age insists that the stuff around us is all there is. How do we break this terrible enchantment? We do it one kid at a time, training minds in old truths we’ve all been forced to forget. If we can do that, we will make heroes, not by accident.
God help us shape minds and hearts again for the generation to come. Let them wonder at His world as it is, then go out and shape it gladly for His glory!
[1]C.S. Lewis, English Literature in the Sixteenth Century (oxford; Oxford University Press, 1954), p. 61
[2] Baxter, Jason M. The Medieval Mind of C.S. Lewis. Intervarsity Press. 2022. Downers Grove, IL. P. 83
[3] Baxter, Jason M. The Medieval Mind of C.S. Lewis. Intervarsity Press. 2022. Downers Grove, IL. P. 84
[i] Digby, Kenelm. Maxims of Christian Chivalry. Catholic Authors Press. Hartford, Ct. 2003
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