Scenes in the Light

Men are good at observing small rays of light. It is a process called "reductionism".

By Wen Han-hui

The late C. S. Lewis, a professor at Great Britain's Cambridge and Oxford Universities, was also a well-known Christian writer. He wrote this parable:

Early one morning as he entered his still darkened room he noticed a ray of light filtering through the window. Specks of dust were suspended in its light. But as he stepped into the light and looked out of the window along the sunbeam he saw something quite different. No longer one dust-filled ray of light, but rich green leaves and trees dancing in the wind, and the sun itself over nine million miles away. The radiance of the light from the sun was far brighter than that one ray of dusty light in the room.

C. S. Lewis concluded: "So you see, it makes a great difference whether you are looking at a dust-filled ray of light from the outside, or whether you step out into the light and look out along the light." He also said, "Men are quite good at noticing the small sunbeams. It is a process called reductionism. We cleverly reduce human behavior into neurotransmitters or enzymes. We can reduce gorgeous butterflies into molecules of DNA and a beautiful twilight into light waves. We even reduce religion to a psychological reaction and world history into a process of necessary struggles in the history of evolution...

"We present-day people are so good at analyzing the little ray of light in the dark room from different angles, that we fail to enjoy the beauty of the sunlight of dawn or the blurred loveliness of a moonlight-lit landscape. And so we have gone on to lose the sense of awe our forefathers once had towards nature."

How true his words are!

The author is a pastor in Melbourne, Australia.