1934
TO BEDE GRIFFITHS: On the eternal fate of the virtuous unbeliever; on Lewis’s resolution never to discuss differences between Christian denominations; on the devotional value of reading difficult theological books; and on two of the essential problems of prayer—on prayer as illusion and on God’s role in every prayer.
4 APRIL 1934
The question of ‘generality’ in prayer is not so simple. The doctrine held by your own Church about the position of the virtuous heretic or pagan…is, you will find, far from crude. Is it not held that many who have lived and died outside the visible Church are finally saved, because Divine Grace has guided them to concentrate solely on the true elements in their own religions? And if so, must one not admit that it was the mysterious will of God that these persons should be saved in that peculiar way? I use this argument to point out that even such a comparatively general prayer as that for a man’s conversion, may yet be too particular.
And while I am on the subject, I had better say once and for all that I do not intend to discuss with you in future, if I can help it, any of the questions at issue between our respective churches. It would have the same unreality as those absurd conversations in which we are invited to speak frankly to a woman about some indelicate matter—which means that she can say what she likes and we can’t. I could not, now that you are a monk, use that freedom in attacking your position which you undoubtedly would use in attacking mine. I do not think there is any thing distressing for either of us in agreeing to be silent on this matter: I have had a Catholic among my most intimate friends for many years [ Tolkien] and a great deal of our conversation has been religious. When all is said (and truly said) about the divisions of Christendom, there remains, by God’s mercy, an enormous common ground. It is abstaining from one tree in the whole garden.
I should rather like to attend your Greek class, for it is a perpetual puzzle to me how New Testament Greek got the reputation of being easy. St. Luke I find particularly difficult. As regards matter—leaving the question of language—you will be glad to hear that I am at last beginning to get some small understanding of St. Paul: hitherto an author quite opaque to me. I am speaking now, of course, of the general drift of whole epistles: short passages, treated devotionally, are of course another matter. And yet the distinction is not, for me, quite a happy one. Devotion is best raised when we intend something else. At least that is my experience. Sit down to meditate devotionally on a single verse, and nothing happens. Hammer your way through a continued argument, just as you would in a profane writer, and the heart will sometimes sing unbidden….
P. S. This has some relevance both to the questions of Prayer and Idealism. I wrote it over a year ago.
They tell me, Lord, that when I seem
To be in speech with You,
Since You make no replies, it’s all a dream
—One talker aping two.
And so it is, but not as they
Falsely believe. For I
Seek in myself the things I meant to say,
And lo!, the wells are dry.
Then, seeing me empty, You forsake
The listener’s part, and through
My dumb limps breathe and into utterance wake
The thoughts I never knew.
Therefore You neither need reply
Nor can: for while we seem
Two talking, Thou art one forever; and I
No dreamer, but Thy dream.