That Monsignor Ronald Knox is at least the equal to these men, if not superior in some respects as far as Apologetics goes.

I "discovered" these two authors just as you describe, and now pretty much read them every day. Mere Christianity I can say changed my life. I would recommend it to every christian. It explains in homely and persuasive ways, all the old truths in the catechism. Totally convincing and compelling.
I also love his short story about the man who has a dream about purgatory, I forget the name.
Thanks for this great essay. I will read more Chesterton, since I haven't tried his fiction...

While certainly popular and seemingly much loved, The Screwtape Letters define for me the word "overrated". Would suggest The Great Divorce as a much better study of Heaven/Hell/Sin.

Lewis' space trilogy has its moments, but should not be on the list... That Hideous Strength is such a horribly muddled book it ought not belong on any reading list, much less a Lewis best of... and I say that with love.

The Chesterton list is solid, might suggest substituting The Napoleon of Notting Hill for The Flying Inn, TFI is very uneven and does not compare in importance to the core values enumerated in NNH.

Might also suggest choice of St. Thomas or St. Francis as well as a choice of virtually any of his literary biographies... depending on the reader's preferences... Though Dickens is a safe bet vs., say, Browning or Cobbett, for American readers.

Fun lists.

I would leave Manalive off the Chesterton list. Four Faultless Felons has somewhat the same ideas of how to really see things, but better written and without the, imo, rather immature outlook of the main character in Manalive.

For the Lewis list, Perelandra is so much better than That Hideous Strength. Lewis' presentation of an unfallen world is outstanding in the former book; most of the latter book is quite good, but the end falls apart and is just bizarre, as well as not really working with a logical, consistent, and human moral law. However, it is rather scary to see how the N.I.C.E. works in That Hideous Strength and then note that Britain does have an actual NICE now, though not strictly identical to the one Lewis writes about.

Can't help but love virtually everything both Chesterton and Lewis wrote. The list at the last is an incredible collection of wit and understanding (not to mention "Inklings"). While certainly "led" by the Holy Spirit into Holy Mother Church I was ever so attracted by 2000 years of literature. I would also suggest John Henry Cardinal Newman's "Apologia Pro Vita Sua". For a reader, the writing of and about the Church is a smorgasbord... Great fun... thanks

Thank you all for the responses. Two responses of my own:

1) Lewis readers are sharply divided over the Space Trilogy, with some liking the first two and not the third and others liking the third but not the first two, and a few disliking or liking the whole series. I've never enjoyed the first two, perhaps partly bec. with all the funny names and funny creatures they read too much like fantasy, which I dislike intensely. But taste for that kind of thing aside, I'd commend THS for its insight into many things, not just the kind of mind seen in the N.I.C.E., like the young sociologist's carefully described descent into wickedness through his vanity (that should hit home with many of us).

2) I've never heard anyone describe The Screwtape Letters as "over-rated." That seems to me just wrong. It is filled with insights into the spiritual life, of the sort that make you (or made me, anyway) say "Oh!" and see something abt yourself you hadn't seen. I like The Great Divorce, and have used when teaching adult ed classes, but it's to some extent a kind of one trick pony. Once you've gotten the point all the examples are just variations on the theme -- helpful and insightful variations, but still variations.

One other thing. I also think Knox is their equal, though far less read these days, alas. My son, who's between his first and second years of college, is abt to find that The Belief of Catholics is on his father-paying-the-tuition mandated summer reading list. I'd be interested in hearing D.B.'s list of seven books of his for the beginner to read.

Good list and good post, as always. I would recommend reading all three books making up Lewis' Space Trilogy in the order written. While Lewis himself believed That Hideous Strength could stand alone, there are aspect of that book that are better understood, in my opinion, if Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra have been read first.

The Man Who Was Thursday was praised by one writer as having given the kind of help that as an adolescent he did not know he needed.

I believe C.S. Lewis is too much Christianity and water. But his book on Elizabethan poetry is a splendid introduction to some of our finest poets.

Gabriel:

Whew! Some folks would be astonished by that accusation, but perhaps the primary work you have in mind is Mere Christianity, or just his apologetics-directed-at-skeptics, in general?

In that case, I think Lewis himself might agree. Lewis was trying to offer in Mere Christianity was a bit like Christianity-and-water: But I think he customized that uninteresting-sounding drink for an audience whose diet had previously been nothing but water-and-water, or sludge-and-water, or just nothing at all.

At the end of a weeks-long fast from all food, one can't suddenly take in a steak dinner. A little watery juice, to start, is a good warm-up.

But someone raised in an atheist household with no familiarity with the gospel or even anything outside pop culture is someone who has been on a life-long fast from all that could nourish the soul.

So I think much of Lewis' apologetics are written to be easy-to-digest for the malnourished soul, and none more so than Mere Christianity.

His thesis is that the Christian faith is something profound, solid, pungent, even after one has taken the Highest Common Factor (in the British phrase; the American for this is Lowest Common Denominator) of all the forms of Christianity. (If that is the case, how much more meaty must it be when presented in its most robust form! How much harder to digest, for a spiritual infant who hasn't yet the teeth for it!)

In Mere Christianity Lewis had to introduce many ideas essential to Christian belief which are uncongenial to the modernist mind, and present them in a form comprehensible to the "trousered ape" who hasn't the slightest prior experience with the transcendent, and needs in fact to have the transcendent placed right in front of his face in the most obvious way for him even to see it.

And he as much as says so; he claims that in the great war for souls, this was the part of the line where our (Christians') ranks were thinnest. Accordingly, that was where he took his helmet and rifle and pitched in best he could.

But as St. Paul suggests, there's a time to get past the milk and proceed to learning the meat. I have great affection for Mere Christianity because it was what I needed at a time in my life when all the atheists sounded smart to me and most of the Christians I knew seemed too stupid. But having got past that, there are meatier things to read, now.

Without writing a longish comment, I commend my favorites of GKC and CSL:

The Flying Inn is the best of Chesterton's fiction, and it is coming true. Of his nonfiction, hats off to The Everlasting Man.

Lewis' best fiction work is Till We Have Faces, for sure. The most prescient one is That Hideous Strength. The most charming: of course, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (can't be beat).

I am surprised, David, that you did not list The Discarded Image of Lewis' nonfiction catalog. Because of this omission, I am nominating it for best of show to even out the odds.

Now, for the part that will surely elicit catcalls and aeronautical vegetables: I think that the best writer of the authors you listed is neither GKC nor CSL. It is not Charles Williams (even though All Hallows Eve is masterful).

Hands down, the best writer is Hilaire Belloc, and his best is The Four Men (which is ignominiously out of print).

David:

I can't recommend an order, but think it good to examine a list of what the books are about, selecting first readings according to the topics one finds most interesting, and moving on from there. I CAN say which of the books I have found most useful and engaging, and to which I most frequently return, in order of their importance.

Lewis: (1) The Space Trilogy, particularly That Hideous Strength, (2) Pilgrim's Regress, (3) The Great Divorce

Chesterton: (1) The Everlasting Man, (2) Orthodoxy. The latter provided the the final paragraph of my dissertation.

The first of Lewis's books I read were Screwtape Letters and Mere Christianity, because they were in my father's library. I didn't get to the Chronicles of Narnia until sometime in my early thirties. The only book of Lewis's I actually disliked was his own favorite, 'Til We Have Faces. (I have read Phantastes and Lilith, and perhaps a dozen of George McDonald's other novels, including the Curdie books, and disliked them all. Lewis had very different literary tastes than mine.)

One of my disappointments has been the surprising discovery that most of my recommendations of that little masterpiece Mere Christianity have fallen upon stony ground. How many people with college degrees have told me they find it "just too difficult"?


Best wishes,

Steve

As much as I love Lewis, am I the only one that is deeply troubled by two very short paragraphs in The Last Battle? I was troubled that Susan was "no longer a friend of Narnia" and the paragraph where Aslan tells Emeth, a servant of Tash, that in reality he had been serving Aslan all along. troublesome, bad theology, and unnecessary to the plot.

Actually, Peter Kreeft did a wonderful job, in his The Snakebite Letters, imitating The Screwtape Letters.

I'd like to put in a plug for reading some selections in the order in which they were written. One obvious application of this rule of thumb is to Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, which are now frequently boxed in the order of the stories' chronology, beginning with Magician's Nephew and ending with the Last Battle. I think it's much easier for a child to understand the stories in the traditional order (where MN comes 6th of the 7). For adults, such an order is good training for a Christian reading of the OT.

My most fruitful application of this rule was with Sayers. I read her murder mystery novels with an eye to their original publication date. I feel I was richly rewarded with deeper insights into how Sayers was growing in her understanding of love. Especially in relation to the slowly developing relationship between Lord Peter and Harriet, each novel reflects the insights of the earlier novels, criticizes them and transcends them. From Clouds of Witness, at the end of which Lord Peter drowns his misery in whiskey, to Busman's Holiday, at the end of which he finally discloses to Harriet his vulnerability, there is marvelous progress, so incremental it might otherwise escape notice.

I must disagree with David's decision not to include *Mere Christianity* in his list of essential Lewis reading on the basis that it is not particularly revelatory of man and writer. On the contrary, I think it tells us something very important about Lewis. Whatever his churchmanship may have privately been, publicly he consistently presented a mere Christian posture. He studiously avoided the party wrangling within the Church of England and refused to become a denominational partisan. Does this not tell us something important about Lewis the Christian believer and theologian?

I also disagree with the judgment that *The Great Divorce* is a one pony show. Of course the individual stories are but variations on a theme. That is because damnation is but one simple, irreducible theme. Lewis's reflections on damnation, hell, and purgatory have been remarkably influential not just in Protestant circles but also in Catholic circles--and I'm not just thinking here about Peter Kreeft. Do we not see Lewis's presence, no matter how faintly, in von Balthasar's *Dare We Hope* and Ratzinger's *Eschatology*? The tale is whimsical and playful, yet isn't it so profoundly true that once read and comprehended we can no longer talk about purgatorial punishment and eternal damnation in the same way that earlier generations of Catholics popularly did?

I love the Space Trilogy. I suspect that *Perelandra* may be the better work, but *That Hideous Strength* remains my favorite. Maybe I'm just a sucker for Merlin. :)

Ray:

I was surprised to see you state the following:
What part of that is bad theology?

As I understand it, these are intended to be examples of, respectively:

(1.) The possibility of a saved person losing salvation through the gospel being "choked" by the concern and cares of this world (see the Parable of the Sower). Unless one holds to the Baptist/Calvinist notions of "Once Saved, Always Saved," this is not problematic theology.

(2.) Emeth, as I understand it, had always been told that Aslan was a devil and that Tash rewarded the good and the just. Would this not be an example of "invincible ignorance?" Jesus said, "Had I not spoken to them, they would have an excuse and their sin would not be held against them, but because I have spoken to them, their sin remains." (Or some words to that effect, I'm in a rush finishing this note.) And what about St. Paul saying that the Gentiles, even without the Law, were a "law unto themselves," et cetera?

Don't misunderstand me; I'm no universalist. I believe no man comes to the Father but by Jesus Christ the son. But I also trust in God's justice and mercy, hence my willingness to allow for the salvation of Emeth, under conditions of invincible ignorance about who Aslan and Tash, respectively, were.

I agree with the reader that said The Great Divorce should be included on any Lewis list. Another book of Lewis' that I don't see mentioned is An Experiment in Criticism. For anyone who loves literature or for someone like myself who has the privilege of teaching literature, this work is indispensable. Oh and I just thought of another book, how could I forgetThe Weight of Glory. This is a compilation of sermons and essays that I think exceeds God in the Dock for its' readability and accessibility to new Lewis readers. The Weight of Glory, Transposition, and The Inner Circle , three addresses in this book are all life-changing!

Am I the only one who finds it somewhat difficult to read Lewis? I love the man and his messages .. but often find I have to work overly hard to get through his writings.

I just read Space Trilogy as a senior in college. I thought the first book was great. The second book, I struggled with reading- it was a little too real in some parts, I felt I was suffering along with the character and I am a whimp about suffering- but that is what made it the most spiritually valuable of the series for me. The third, I found difficult to follow in places because I felt I didn't have the proper background knowledge of Merlin and such. Still, what I did understand made it worth reading.

Overall, my advice is this- if you absolutely love Lewis and like fantasy/sci-fi, you may have the patience to read the Space Trilogy and get a lot out of it. If not, or if you are impatient generally, then steer clear.

You're not the only one. Oddly, however, there are also others who find it difficult to read those whose manner of thinking is too far removed from Lewis'.

As I am one of the latter, I should probably try to clarify. I think Lewis' writing is organized in a specific way which parallels a very linear and hierarchical mode of thinking. Read something like "Transposition" or "The Weight of Glory" or "Religion and Rocketry," or most especially "Why I Am Not A Pacifist," and you'll see it: He has a premise, he knows exactly where he's aiming; he will deal with the various supporting points in a sequential way; underneath each point there will be anticipated objections, and his answers to those anticipated objections.

One might think this organized thinking would make Lewis easier to follow, but I think for some folks the reverse is true. For of course if Point 1 contains three Sub-Points, the last of which contains two Sub-Sub-Points, then Lewis will be discussing Sub-Sub-Point #2 under Sub-Point #3 under Point 1, and when he is finished, he'll leap straight on to Point 2, which is entirely different from Point 1.

Now if you followed all that, you saw that this "leap" was no leap at all: He was merely covering the topics "in order." Having exhausted all the permutations available under Point 1, it was time to move on to Point 2. But it can be startling for those with less hierarchical and categorical modes of thinking, for they may have lost track of where they were in the structure and didn't remember how many levels deep they were in Point 1, and didn't realize they were almost done with Point 1 and ready to move on to Point 2.

For some, this mode of thinking is reflexive. Most of my income comes from software development: I am a "coder." Therefore (as a survival mechanism) I have developed my already innate tendency to think in procedures with sub-procedures; loops with nested loops; if-clauses, else-if-clauses, and else-clauses with nested decision blocks therein.

(And, yes, my compact disk collection is alphabetized by artist, and within each artist, it's arranged in order of release date. And furthermore, yes, my wife is a very patient woman and I'm lucky she puts up with me.)

So to me, C.S.Lewis' writing is mother's milk -- and Chesterton is similar tho' more prone to flights of absurdity -- and I actually find it hard to read other folk who don't think in the same structured, hierarchical way. Some of the most popular Christian "devotional" and "inspirational" writings, books which intelligent friends told me were insightful and well-written, turned out to bore or frustrate me when I finally sat down with them. I think it is because I anticipated that crisp, almost crunchy sense of structured thinking, and for lack of it, a book will feel mushy even if its overall thesis is entirely true.

Meanwhile these same (quite intelligent and mature) friends of mine find Lewis difficult to read. And because Lewis is generally more concerned with apologetics than with, say, advanced spiritual disciplines for the long-time believer, they may find what Lewis is saying not particularly relevant to where they are. So he leaves them cold.

One other thing: Lewis can't help but make side-references out of comfortable familiarity to works which, for many of us, are not particularly familiar and make us feel awkwardly uneducated. He isn't doing it to show off -- one doesn't show off one's workaday equipment, and that's what it is for him! -- but when he refers casually to a passage from Boethius the way you and I might quote Ghostbusters, well! It can leave anyone (except, I suspect, another brilliant and well-read academic) feeling a bit daunted.

All of this is to say: No, you're not the only one.

But I don't think it's because he's a bad writer, and I certainly wouldn't attribute it to you and so many other people I know being bad thinkers! I think it's just that God wires us all a little differently, and for some, Lewis brain is a perfect match, and for others, less so.

The Weight of Glory (the sermon itself) is absolutely stunning. It really ought to be on this list.

The whole collection called The Weight of Glory is rather good, too.

My gratitude for a helpful discussion. A few comments.

General: This was only a suggested list for beginners, remember, limited to the number of books it seemed likely someone might actually read. That a book wasn't on the list does not mean it should not be read. Several of my personal favorites aren't on the list.

I didn't include The Discarded Image bec. I was creating a list for beginners. I have suggested it to people I thought would eat it up and found them telling me they couldn't get through the first chapter. It feels academic, I think, which feeling triggers an inner alarm in some very smart people that tells them "OVER YOUR HEAD! OVER YOUR HEAD!" This is a loss bec. Lewis explained most clearly in this book, or the even more academic-feeling history of sixteenth century English literature, the medieval and Renaissance mind that so formed his own mind.

But Belloc as the greater writer. Oh, hmm, no, I don't think so, but why I don't think so will take some thought. If Fr. Jonathan sees this, would he provide a beginner's list?

I went back and forth abt leaving out Mere Christianity, but I think it less instructive in the sense I wanted than the seven I mentioned. It does tell us something about Lewis's work, but the knowledge I had in mind was more . . . what . . . of the imaginaton or mind or shape of his mind or . . . something. The exposition was uniquely his, but so limited by the task and form and subject given him that it does not reveal as much they way he saw and engaged the world than many other works.xxxxxx xxA

Peter Kreeft's Snakebite Letters are clever and insightful (as you would expect), but they are not as deep or insightful as The Screwtape Letters. In the first, you always know that the demon is a mouthpiece for the author, but in the second, you almost feel that you could actually be reading a demon's correspondence. Lewis managed that reversal of perspective he discussed in the preface (I'm away from home or I'd quote it) much, much better than anyone who has tried to imitate him. And the first deals directly with culture war issues, while the second deals with culture at a deeper level, at the level at which the individual's spiritual choices formed and is formed by the culture. If this isn't deeper, it is, I think, more needed.

I may have to reconsider my comment on The Great Divorce. It seems a stretch to think it actually influenced von Balthasar or Ratzinger, though.

The Narnia Chronicles should definitely be read in the order in which they were written, I think. Those of you with access to The Pilgrim's Guide, the book of essays on Lewis I edited, will find an interesting essay by Doris Myers giving one argument for why you should do so.

The Weight of Glory is a wonderful book, and the title sermon a wonderful sermon. (When I teach writing I have my students read "Learning in War Time" as one of their first assignments, and a lot of them find he has said exactly what they needed to hear.) It is a "must read," but for purposes of a list limited to seven books I thought the spiritual side of Lewis's writing captured in Screwtape and so chose a collection of apologetic and critical essays as an example of another side of his thought.

I write this thought an iffy wife connection and apologize for not being able to refine and condense. Thank you all again.

Gosh. I'm sitting outside and just looked down to see a baby racoon sitting a couple feet away looking at me. He's soooooooo key-ute! as my daughters would say. Unfortunately he'll grow up. And more unfortunately mama may be nearby.

I am so pleased to see The Abolition of Man on the list. I think it is amazing that Lewis could take a simple grammar lesson error, connect it to a philosophical error and faithfully predict how the error will work itself out to its end. Really unbelievable, truly prophetic, and in my opinion still right on track.

Aeeiii - cannot believe you left out some of the 3 best books Lewis ever wrote. "That Hideous Strength" is not muddled - it does make sense and is quite profound. The ending, where the angels descend, is simply magnificent. And the "Te Deum" portion of Perelandra after the brilliance of the Un-Man/Satan's arguments is superb.
And you left out "A Grief Observed." Pourquoi?
I consider myself quite the Lewis addict but you chose some of his worst stuff. "The Problem with Pain" and "Miracles" were both awful - boring - zzzzzzzz.
And leaving out "The Screwtape Letters" and "Mere Christianity;" the 2 books that have probably converted more people than we can imagine? I am perplexed. Of all the books, MC is by far the most quoted from because it too is brilliant.

I stumbled upon the Screwtape Letters a few years ago. After reading them gem I was hooked on Mr. Lewis. I have raided my pastors rather extensive library of these books and have read all of them that I could. While I favor his works that read more casually than like a theology PhD paper I have read the latter never the less. My favorite so far would have to be Mere Christianity and Screwtape Letters. I have not yet read his space trilogy but I also love his Narnia series. True genius.

As for Chesterton, I have sought after his works online and have yet to find success in finding a source that allows you to download a work in its entirety. If anyone can suggest a good location to find these I am all ears.

I would like to reassure my friend the gifted journalist Julia Duin that I did include Screwtape and That Hideous Strength. (For readers who do not recognize the name, she is an editor at the Washington Times and recently wrote a very interesting bok calld Quitting Church.)

A Grief Observed is a marvelous book, and one I've often given to people who have lost a loved one (if I thought they would not be upset or harmed by his pen sharing of his doubts). But I was only giving a beginner's list limited to seven books. Seven is just . . . seven. I explained above while I left out MC.

In summary, Lewis wrote a lot of really, really good books. You will not go wrong reading any of them, though some of them may not appeal to you and a few of them may be too specialized or academic for many readers. A beginner's list assumes that the beginner will keep going.

I love all of Lewis' writings but it is The Great Divorce and Mere Christianity I return to every time.

The Great Divorce, along with the trilogy, make me wonder if Jack Lewis was a mystic. One could almost believe he had visited eternity.

If I had one book I could take on a desert island (along with Sacred Scripture, of course) it would be Mere Christianity. Each time I read it, I find yet another layer.

Did you notice that Lewis was smoking a pipe, which tells us that he was essentially addicted to tobacco and was therefore a drug addict.

And like all drug addicts diminishing his health and effectively (slowly) killing himself via his addiction.

Would any human being who was/is consciously aware of the Divine Spirit (Pneuma or breath) even want to smoke?

Would a truly adult human being who has accepted full responsibility for the health of his body, and was able to take deep strong breaths, smoke at all?

After all it is a disgusting smelly and filthy habit/addiction.

I have read Chesterton's "Orthrodoxy" and "St. Francis of Assisi." I've also read Lewis' "Surprised by Joy" and "Mere Christianity." I think both authors are vastly overrated.

Well, I don't know. Maybe it's because I am from a different culture and don't see why English authors are regarded superior than those of other nationalities.

At least that's how I felt. Until...until I discovered Robert Hugh Benson! I think Benson is the best. Had he not died so young, you would probably be writing this article on Benson instead of Chesterton and Lewis.

Marie, who in the world ever suggested that English writers were superior to writers from other cultures?

Thank you for mentioning Benson. I should have included him on the list, along with a priest, now almost forgotten, Herbert Thurston, S.J., who wrote apologetic andd analytical works on such subjects as spiritualism and mysticism. Some of his shorter writings are available on the EWTN website. He had the same gifts for writing clear English prose and for penetrating insights into the subjects that the writers on the list.

Your rationale for the lists was convincing and clear. So I don't argue with why one title and not another. But were I constructing a list for those who want fruitful reading, I would include everything each wrote. Then I would add other authors:Tolkien and Sayers, Belloc and Benson, Flannery O'Connor and Walker Percy, Undset and Mauriac, Bernanos and Knox, Newman and Dr. Johnson. And, of course, poets would march in: Hopkins, Eliot, Pope, and Herbert among the first brigade. Best, Sue

R.C.

please forgive me for taking so long to respond. I appreciate the thoughtfulness of your response, and would like to address the points you raised:



R.C. with regard to (1.), yes, i do hold to the Baptist/Calvinist doctrine of the perseverance of the Saints. In a nutshell, this doctrine says that those who truly believe will persevere to the end and will not lose their salvation. That doctrine should never be construed to give Christians license to live sinful lives. The true Christian should not desire to practice sin or to live in a continually sinful lifestyle. St. Augustine said, I think appropriately, "Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind; and sin all you please." If we truly love God with all our heart soul and mind, we won't desire to live in a perpetually sinful lifestyle or to practice sin.

(2.) The exclusivity of the Gospel underscores the reason that Christ gave us the Great Commission and explains the importance that Paul placed on the preaching of the Gospel. In the 14th chapter of John's Gospel, Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also." He does not allow for invincibly ignorant people to come to the Father through some other way. For this reason, in Romans, Paul places great importance on the preaching of the Word: "For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!" But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?" So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ." Romans 10:13-17. If you interpret the teachings of Christ as you suggest, then isn't the giving of the Great Commission, extremely cruel? wouldn't it be better for them to die in their ignorance? Please indulge me one final point, I do not believe that Scripture, properly understood, allows for the existence of anyone that is truly invincibly ignorant. Romans 1:18-20 says, "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. "

again, thanks for your response, and for any consideration that you may have given my thoughts above. Soli Deo Gloria!

Ray:

Sorry, I didn't know you'd replied here, otherwise I'd have read what you wrote and replied in turn!

(This is the danger of thinking a thread is "dead" after a day or so, and going on to other things!)

Let me read your note carefully, and I'll then reply, if you're still around and "listening."

Regards,

R.C.