It is no use either saying that if there is a God of that sort— an impersonal absolute goodness— then you do not like Him and are not going to bother about Him. For the trouble is that one part of you is on His side and really agrees with his disapproval of human greed and trickery and exploitation.
You may want Him to make an exception in your own case, to let you off this one time; but you know at bottom that unless the power behind the world really and unalterably detests that sort of behavior, then He cannot be good. On the other hand, we know that if their does not exist an absolute goodness it must hate most of what we do. This is a terrible fix we are in.
If the universe is not governed by an absolute goodness, then all of our efforts are in the long run hopeless. But, if it is, then we are making ourselves enemies to that goodness every day, and are not in the least likely to do any better tomorrow, and so our case is hopeless again. We cannot do without it, and we cannot do with it. God is the only comfort, He is also the supreme terror; the thing we most need and the thing we most want to hide from.
He is our only possible ally, and we have made ourselves His enemies. Some people talk as if meeting the gaze of absolute goodness would be fun. They need to think again. They are still only playing with religion.
Goodness is either the great safety or the great danger— according to the way you react to it. And we have reacted the wrong way…
C.S. Lewis – from Mere Christianity
1892 J.R.R Tolken, Lewis’s long time friend, colleauge, and fellow inkling (a group of friends who met regularly from about 1930 to 1963 to share writings, good conversation, and the odd pint), is born in Bloemfontein, South Africa
