"But he had not usually reached these beliefs by the same route as the savage." (p 1)
"Savage beliefs are thought to be the spontaneous response of a human group to its environment, a response made principally by the imagination." (p 1)
"What we should describe as political, military, and agricultural operations are not easily distinguished from rituals; ritual and belief beget and support one another." (p 1)
"Sometimes, when a community is comparatively homogeneous and comparatively undisturbed over a long period, such a system of belief can continue, of course with development, long after material culture has progressed far beyond the level of savagery." (p 1)
"The content of this belief is not unlike things we might find in savagery." (p 2)
"Savage beliefs tend to be dissipated by literacy and by contact with other cultures; these are the very things which have created Lazamon's belief." (p 3)
"They would have felt that the responsibility for their cosmological, or for their historical or religious beliefs rested on others." (p 17)
Lewis, C. S. The Discarded Image. London: Bentley House, 1964. Web.
C.S. Lewis' use of the words belief and beliefs is
very frequent within the first two pages of his text, The Discarded
Image. He uses it often when
referring to ‘savages’ and their ways. The
Oxford English Dictionary online defines the word belief simply as “mental
conviction” (Belief). This short
definition lacks much explanation or expansion.
Fortunately, under this
definition is another longer one that goes more into depth. This second definition defines belief as “the mental action,
condition, or habit of trusting to or having confidence in a person or thing;
trust, dependence, reliance, confidence, faith.” (Belief). These two definitions give a fairly specific
idea of what belief can be defined as.
This word gets thrown around a lot,
especially within the first few pages of the book. When I searched the word, it came up 33 times
within the entire text, 8 within the part of the reading we did. The fact that this word is used at least one
time in the first three sentences shows that this word is important to Lewis’
ideas. It’s used a total of five times
just on the first page. It also helps
Lewis explain his statements that though ‘savages’ and those in medieval times
believed in the same things, they came to these beliefs through different
means.
Lewis uses the word in various contexts, though many of them
pertain the ideas and faiths of ‘savages’.
The first use of the word brings together the beliefs of men in medieval
times and ‘savages’, which we can assume means a man who is rather barbaric or
ignorant. In this case, the use of the
word belief can mean truths held that pertain to faith, but I would argue that
it could also mean truths about concrete facts, such as biology or
mathematics. This brings me to the connotation
of the word belief.
Belief, which is a version of the
word believe, doesn’t necessarily have to do with faith or trust in
something. The more in depth definition
of belief uses words like trusting, confidence, and dependence, which leads you
to understand that belief is more emotional than it is intellectual or analytical. I think that belief can be a synonym of truth
at times. For example, someone could say
that it is of the belief that ___ is true. Although this seems to
fit the second definition of the word belief, I would go further to say that it
can also mean an idea that a vast majority or humanity as a whole accepts as true, a belief that can be
proven by fact, not faith. Not every use
of this words follows this connotation though, I think that the intellectual connotation
and emotional definition use of the word is used evenly by Lewis.
Overall,
Lewis’ use of the word belief follows the same definition and connotation that
we hold true today. Every time it’s used
within the first 21 pages of the book, it has relatively the same context, and
is used in the same subject matter almost every time.
"belief, n." OED Online.
Oxford University Press, December 2015. Web. 26 February 2016.
I never really realized how often belief was used in the text until reading this. I agree that with it being used so often in the beginning of the test implies that it is important to the book.
ReplyDeleteLove the way you explained the word belief, never really looked at it from the perspective of belief not being faith. Great explanation.
ReplyDelete