Day 9 - Learning in Wartime

A few blog posts ago, I was discussing about C.S Lewis' love of learning and education. C.S Lewis believed that once a person had received a certain amount of education, he was able to pursue learning in area which he wished to study in.

Like this, C.S Lewis continues to talk about "learning" in his article "Learning in War-Time", but in a different context - during war. One may wonder why C.S Lewis would try to talk about learning and war together. But looking deeper into the article, we can see C.S Lewis' emphasis on the importance of learning. I'm guessing that one of C.S Lewis' main points was that whether we are immersed in wartime or not, learning is a crucial part in a person's growth. It might be a sad truth, but we humans are all bound to die eventually. War-Time simply helps us remember the proximity of death. One might say: "Well, outside of war-time, life would be a lot more normal because there are no visible threats to our lives." But C.S Lewis would probably disagree with that statement. "Life has never been normal," he states in the article.

What about doing the things we love doing? Our career jobs, hobbies.. activities? If learning is so important, then do we devote all our time to it?
Once again C.S Lewis answers that something you are passion about, for example, like learning to swim to save lives, is something "worth dying for, but not worth living for." Even learning itself, if nothing else is done and one spends his/her entire time studying away, they would become a "monomaniac", C.S Lewis would state.

With a basic balance between learning and other cherished values in your lives, you would help become a more "responsible" Christian. A scientist for example, C.S Lewis would state, recognizes certain common errors from experience in the past. Like this, through learning and experience, we Christians can learn from the past mistakes in the past and become a more "responsible" Christian. Whether we are in war or not, it is important learn, learn, and LEARN.