- Let's up the ante this time by grounding our discussion questions in the text. Using the commentary feature, please post a short quote from our chapter followed by your discussion question or concept.
Tonight we finish the book!
- Prepare for a similar post tomorrow. We will have a writing assignment on block day based on the text so bring your text and or notes/annotations etc...
Does pain reveal truth?
ReplyDelete“He has to be knocked silly before he comes to his senses. Only torture will bring out the truth. Only under torture does he discover it himself.“ pg 38
Delete“But is it credible that such extremities of torture should be necessary for us? Well, take your choice. The tortures occur. If they are unneces-
ReplyDeletesary, then there is no God or a bad one. If there is a good God, then these tortures are necessary. For no even moderately good Being could possibly inflict or permit them if they weren’t.”
So what’s the point of asking for mercy or help if it probably shouldn’t come?
what shift do we see in Lewis’ thought process? What do you think promoted this?
ReplyDelete“Still, there’s no denying that in some sense I ‘feel better,’ and with that comes at once a sort of shame, and a feeling that one is under a sort of obligation to cherish and foment and prolong one’s unhappiness”(53).
"Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not in imagination. Yes; but should it, for a sane man, make quite such a difference as this? "
ReplyDeleteIsn't it funny how sometimes we don't think we are human?
"As for the things themselves, why should the thoughts I had a week ago be any more trustworthy than the better thoughts I have now? I am surely, in general, a saner man than I was then."
ReplyDeleteHow can we trust ourselves?
And I can believe He is a vet when I think of my own suffering. It is harder when I think of hers. What is grief compared with physical pain? Whatever fools may say, the body can suffer twenty times more than the mind." Do you agree with Lewis here? Also, furthering this thought, should mental needs be a priority over physical ones?
ReplyDelete“Only torture will bring out the truth” (38). How much truth is there to this statement? Is there ever a time when the opposite is true? Can torture every be considered in a good light?
ReplyDelete"From the rational point of view, what new factor has H.’s death introduced into the problem of the universe?" (36). To what degree does personal experience influence the realization that comes when tragedy hits, when the knowledge of the tradgedy already existed?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete"You can’t see anything properly while your eyes are blurred with tears. You can’t, in most things, get what you want if you want it too desper- ately: anyway, you can’t get the best out of it,"(45).
ReplyDeleteIn what instance(s) would this not apply?
"‘He’s got over it. He’s for- gotten his wife,’ when the truth was, ‘He remembers her better because he has partly got over it.’"(45)
ReplyDeleteDo you ever misjudge someone else's grief? Does misunderstanding add to the pain of loss.