Making and Begetting

Big idea

Summary

Lewis opens Book IV by defending the value of doctrine against the objection, voiced by an officer who felt God's presence powerfully in the desert, that formal theology is petty compared to direct religious experience. Lewis grants that firsthand experience is real and valuable, but argues it is like standing on a beach looking at real waves, whereas theology is like a map: less thrilling, but compiled from the navigational experience of many people and indispensable if you actually want to get somewhere rather than simply enjoy the shore.

He extends this into a broader claim that theology is unavoidably practical: a modern, educated person who refuses formal doctrine does not thereby avoid having ideas about God, but ends up with unexamined, often already-discredited ones. He then dismantles the popular reduction of Christianity to 'Jesus as a great moral teacher,' pointing out that humanity has never managed to follow even its best moral teachers, which makes it strange to expect that adding one more (however excellent) would finally succeed where all others failed.

The chapter's central move is explaining the creedal phrase that Christ is 'begotten, not created... before all worlds.' Lewis distinguishes begetting, which produces something of the same kind as the source (a human father begets a human child), from making, which produces something of a lesser, different kind (a carver makes a statue that merely resembles a man). On this basis, Christ is of the same nature as the Father, while human beings, however God-like in certain respects, are only made—more like statues or reflections of God than sons in the fullest sense.

Lewis then traces an ascending scale of resemblance to God running from space, matter, and plant life up through animal instinct and finally human reason and love, arguing that each level offers a fainter or fuller symbol of God's own life without being identical to it. He coins the terms Bios, for the decaying biological life common to all of nature, and Zoe, for the uncreated spiritual life proper to God alone, and closes with the arresting image of the world as a sculptor's workshop full of statues rumored to be capable of coming alive.

Key points

• Defends theology as a 'map' compiled from many people's real encounters with God, more useful for actually 'getting somewhere' than any single vivid religious feeling.
• Argues that rejecting formal doctrine does not leave a person without theology, only with worse, already-discarded ideas about God.
• Rejects the popular notion of Christianity as merely 'good moral advice,' since humanity has consistently failed to follow even its best teachers.
• Distinguishes begetting (producing something of the same kind, as a father does) from making (producing something of a different, lesser kind, as a craftsman does).
• Explains that Christ is begotten of the Father's own nature, while human beings are made by God and therefore only resemble Him, as a statue resembles a man.
• Introduces Bios (natural, decaying biological life) and Zoe (God's eternal spiritual life) as the key vocabulary for the rest of Book IV.

Illustrations & analogies

• Lewis compares an officer's mystical desert experience of God to standing on a beach and looking at real ocean waves, and compares formal doctrine to a navigational map of that same ocean.
• He compares a carved statue that looks like a man but cannot breathe or think to human beings, who resemble God in certain ways without sharing God's own kind of life.
• He traces a ladder of increasing resemblance to God through space's hugeness, matter's energy, plants' vitality, animal instinct and affection, and finally human reason and love.
• He closes with the image of the world as 'a great sculptor's shop,' filled with statues among which there is a rumor that some will one day come alive.

Notable lines

Theology is like the map.

C. S. Lewis Book IV, Ch. 1 — Making and Begetting

This world is a great sculptor's shop.

C. S. Lewis Book IV, Ch. 1 — Making and Begetting

you will not get eternal life by simply feeling the presence of God in flowers or music

C. S. Lewis Book IV, Ch. 1 — Making and Begetting

For reflection and discussion

1. Do you find the beach-versus-map comparison persuasive as a defense of doctrine over raw religious feeling? Why or why not?
2. How does the distinction between 'begetting' and 'making' change the way you think about being made in God's image?
3. What do you make of Lewis's claim that refusing theology doesn't leave you with no ideas about God, just bad or outdated ones?