A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery.
I can promise you none of these things. No sphere of usefulness; you are not needed there at all. No scope of your talents; only forgiveness for having perverted them. No atmosphere of inquiry, for I will bring you to the land not of questions but of answers, and you shall see the face of God. (pg 40)
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that true understanding and connection with the divine comes not from exploring questions but from accepting answers and the reality of existence.
C. S. Lewis, in this quote, challenges the conventional pursuit of knowledge and usefulness, emphasizing instead the importance of faith and acceptance. He suggests that rather than seeking knowledge through inquiry and debate, one should embrace the certainty of divine presence and the certainty of truth as found in a relationship with God, indicating that the ultimate answers to life lie beyond human questioning in a spiritual realm.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
A speaker at a religious retreat might use this quote to inspire attendees about the importance of faith over inquiry.
More from C. S. Lewis
All quotes →I enjoyed my breakfast this morning, and I think that was a good thing and do not think it was condemned by God. But I do not think myself a good man for enjoying it.
Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.
Forgiving and being forgiven are two names for the same thing. The important thing is that a discord has been resolved.
I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. It doesn't change God - it changes me.
The instrument through which you see God is your whole self. And if a man's self is not kept clean and bright, his glimpse of God will be blurred
Similar quotes
Of course there are people who think of 'heaven' as a kind of pie-in-the-sky dream of an afterlife to make the thought of dying less awful. No doubt that's a problem as old as the human race.
Wine makes a man better pleased with himself. I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others. Sometimes it does. But the danger is, that while a man grows better pleased with himself, he may be growing less pleasing to others. Wine gives a man nothing. It neither gives him knowledge nor wit; it only animates a man, and enables him to bring out what a dread of the company has presented.
Jealousy is the greatest of all evils, and the one that arouses the least pity in the person who causes it.
It isn't those who are taken by force, put in chains, and sold as slaves who are the real slaves; it is those who will accept it, morally and physically.
The hallmark of our age is the tension between aspirations and sluggish institutions.
England is obsessed with where you came from, and they are determined to keep you in that place, be it in a drawing room or in the gutter.