.I once read advice by CS Lewis to read one ancient book after reading a contemporary book. We wonder how people in the past thought the sun circled earth, or how they thought the world was flat.
There are, Lewis states, always mass mis-understandings, sometimes bridging cultures so it seems that everyone in a certain period of time thought a certain way. Our entire culture, or the entire known world seems to miss the obvious in some significant way. If this is true, then we have our own gaps in knowledge and wisdom today.
How do you find out what parts of your world view are baseless assumptions?
As part of your personal permanent presuppositions, you won't notice them on your own. As part of a contemporary cultural or global problem, no one speaking or writing or blogging today will be able to show them to you.
Thus, C.S. very strongly admonishes his readers to read ancient literature. If there are problems that we cannot see within our time or culture, they can only be spotted by someone outside of our time and culture. We have a way of viewing and interacting with the world view of someone else. You'll see it's flaws where we have strengths, but you will also find areas where they were right all along and your world view is challenged in ways it has never been challenged by anyone you've talked to or whose writings you've read.
I've been challenged over the last few days by Augustine. I'll post more details soon. Even if he's right on this, it will sound crazy if it indeed points to errors in our world view assumptions.
Very interesting post and idea... look forward to reading more.
So ... all that young adult lit I've been reading falls dismally short of C.S. Lewis' standards?
Great.
No, you've just got to read some ancient texts in your to-be-read-soon list. As if your list wasn't long enough, eh?