C.S. Lewis on The Zoweh and the Bios Life

Few people have had as much impact on Christianity in the last 100 years as C. S. Lewis. His books continue to take readers much further into Christianity than just the facts, truths or theology of the faith, no Lewis takes us into much more, themes like longing, desire and the invitation to experience, feel and truly observe Life. It is the difference between looking at the mathematical formulas that would enable a bi-plane to fly verses actually setting in the two-seater with an experienced pilot , wind and sun in your face, thousands of feet in the air, punching holes in the clouds and chasing a sunset. Which would you believe to be more impacting?

Here is a section from the timeless work of Lewis’s, “Mere Christianity”. We found this after God had already taken us several miles into our mission and the Greek word for life, “zoweh”. When we read it, the thought occurred, “Oh my goodness, C. S. Lewis stole our stuff.” We believe God was affirming our steps and whispering, “see, your on the right trail.” It is our hope that it captures you as it has us and invites you above the formulas and equations and into the seat with the clouds.

“In reality, the difference between Biological life and Spiritual life is so important that I am going to give them two distinct names. The Biological sort which comes to us through nature, and which (like everything else in nature ) is always tending to run down and decay so that it can only be dept up by incessant subsidies from nature inf the form of air, water, food, etc., is Bios. The Spiritual life which is in God from all eternity, and which made the whole natural universe, is Zoweh. Bios, has to be sure, a certain shadowy or symbolic resemblance to Zoweh; but only the sort of resemblance there is between a photo and a place, or a statue and a man. A man who changed from having Bios to having Zoweh would have gone through as big a change as a statue which changed from being carved stone to being a real man. And that is precisely what Christianity is about. The world is a great sculptor’s shop. We are the statues and there is a rumour going round the shop that some of us are some day going to come to LIFE (Zoweh)”. C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity