C.S. Lewis on Human Desire, Eternal Joy, and the Weight of Glory

C.S. Lewis’ thought life continues to amaze me. He was decades ahead of his time in many ways by addressing issues that are the center of the theologically competent mind today.

In his letter “The Weight of Glory”, Lewis addresses the the specific issue of human desire situated in the Christian worldview. He first points out that modern notions of virtue err on the side of negativity – virtue means self-depravation of some sort. Lewis brilliantly points out that from the Christian worldview virtue is a positive thing in that it’s centered in love – it is centered in interest for the “other”. He highlights that acting as an agent in bringing satisfaction to “other” – or loved ones – is not a deprivation, but of utmost satisfaction. I would add to this that this is precisely because of the nature of a Trinitarian reality.

Lewis goes on in the discourse to point out that human desire, from the Christian worldview, is a good thing, it is something instilled in humanity by God for purposes of God. He says that to settle for the fulfillment of selfish (carnal) desires is to diminish profound, others-centered desire that God has created into humanity (as a result of being created in the imago Dei. Lewis says this:

“Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds out desires not too strong but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant childe who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased” (“The Weight of Glory” in Weight of Glory: Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis (HarperCollins e-books), page 26; emphasis mine).

Lewis goes on to build the case for the promise of glory being directly connected to our deep human desire. He brings to the center of the discourse the reality of those moments of deep joy that always seem to escape us (Lewis often makes this reality the center of this thought; cf. Surprised by Joy especially). Lewis explains why it is that have glimpses of that joy, moments of bliss, but can never seem to grasp it. He says, “We usually notice it just as the moment of vision dies away, as the music ends, or as the landscape loses the celestial light” (Lewis, “Weight”, 39). He reasons the fleeting, ungraspable reality by explaining that it is because we are unable to become a part of “dance” that it flees from us; that we fail to enter into it and it fails to enter us. What Lewis means is this, “The sense that in this universe we are treated as strangers, the longing to be acknowledged, to meet with some response, to bridge some chasm that yawns between us and reality, is part of our inconsolable secret” (Lewis, “Weight”, 40).

Then bridges this reality with the reality of the “Weight of Glory”. He first defines “glory” as “good report with God, acceptance by God, response, acknowledgement, and welcome into the heart of things. The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last” (Lewis, “Weight”, 40). While Lewis goes on to say a great deal more, the bottom line of “The Weight of Glory” is this: that the eternal joy of humanity is rooted in being a pleasure to the Being for whom we were created to glorify.  He compares this to  a child who finds the greatest satisfaction in the pleasure and applaud of a parent.  Lewis says this: “To please God…to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness…to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a son–it seems impossible, a weight of burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.” (Lewis, “Weight”, 38; emphasis mine)..