Sunday 4 May 2008

FAITH

'The moment one asks onself "Do I believe?" all belief seems to go. I think this is because one is trying to turn round and look at something which is there to be used and work from - trying to take out one's eyes instead of keeping them in the right place and seeing with them. I find that it happens about other matters as well as faith. In my experience only v.robust pleasures will stand the question, "Am I really enjoying this?" Or attention - the moment I begin thinking about my attention (to a book or a lecture) I have ipso facto ceased attending. St. Paul speaks of "Faith actualised in Love". And "the heart is deceitful"; you know better than I how very unreliable introspection is.'
CS Lewis in Walter Hooper (ed.), The Collected Letters of CS Lewis Vol II, p.983.