# “We shall live to remember the galaxies as an old tale” by C.S. Lewis

- Link: https://tollelege.net/2008/11/18/we-shall-live-to-remember-the-galaxies-as-an-old-tale-by-cs-lewis/
- Published: 2008-11-18T14:54:28-06:00
- Author: tollelege

“We shall live forever. There will come a time when every culture, every institution,
every nation, the human race, all biological life is extinct and every one of us
is still alive. Immortality is promised to us, not to these generalities. It was
not for societies or states that Christ died, but for men.

In that sense Christianity must seem to secular collectivists to involve an almost
frantic assertion of individuality. But then it is not the individual as such who
will share Christ’s victory over death. We shall share the victory by being in the
Victor. A rejection, or in Scripture’s strong language, a crucifixion of the natural
self is the passport to everlasting life.

Nothing that has not died will be resurrected. That is just how Christianity cuts
across the antithesis between individualism and collectivism. There lies the maddening
ambiguity of our faith as it must appear to outsiders. It sets its face relentlessly
against our natural individualism; on the other hand, it gives back to those who
abandon individualism an eternal possession of their own personal being, even of
their bodies.

As mere biological entities, each with its separate will to live to expand, we are
apparently of no account; we are cross-fodder. But as organs in the Body of Christ,
as stones and pillars in the temple, we are assured of our eternal self-identity
and shall live to remember the galaxies as an old tale.”

-–C. S. Lewis, “Membership” in _The Weight of Glory: And Other Addresses_ (New York:
HarperCollins, 1949/2001), 172-3.

More quotes from [C.S. Lewis](https://tollelege.net/category/cs-lewis/)