day no. 15,694: secondary things can safely dwell only in homes governed by first principles

"All through these talks I’ve been touching very lightly on a theme, which anyone who was treating the natural loves from a Christian point of view, would have emphasised far more strongly a few centuries ago. If the Victorians needed the reminder that natural love is not enough, the old theologians were always saying, very loudly and sternly, that natural love is

likely to be a great deal too much. The danger of loving our fellow-creatures too little was less present to their minds than that of loving them idolatrously. In every wife, mother, child and friend they saw a possible rival to God. And so, of course, does Our Lord (Luke 9:59-62, 14:26). There was therefore no question, in my mind of simple dissent from the older doctrine. There has been a difference of method. I have taken a roundabout way. In my critique of the loves, I have stressed their rivalry to God less than their failure without God to be completely, or remain securely, the sorts of love they profess to be. And this, I hoped, might make it easier for us to believe, and not merely to acknowledge verbally, that they are, after all, second things. Because to let us down, while legitimately attracting us, is the very characteristic of a second thing which has been treated as a first thing." -- C.S Lewis, The Four Loves

Colossians 3:5

Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

Inordinate affection presupposes a proper order of affections. The adjective is where the defect lies. In other words, priorities aren't the problem, but the order can be. Second things cannot be first things. If your priorities are out of proper order, they cannot help but produce disorder. It is in their nature to fall into place by the grace and gravity of God, who alone has enough sway to be the center of everything. When you try to make a satellite the center, it is not shocking to discover that the system feels off balance. It feels that way because it is that way -- off kilter.

"I know we have been told that ‘When half-gods go, the gods arrive’, but that seems to me a
very doubtful maxim. A heart ‘empty, swept and garnished’ (Matthew 12:44) of its half-gods
may expect, as we have been told, an in-rush of visitants anything but divine. And I think we
have seen it happen in our own generation. I would rather say, ‘When God arrives, and then
only, the half-gods can remain’." -- C.S Lewis, The Four Loves

Secondary things can safely dwell only in homes governed by first principles. A house that is out of order cannot endure the second things that are left to rule it. Disorder cannot tidy up. But an absence of secondary things is no assurance of clean, safe living. It is not the absence of secondary things that keeps a house in order, but the presence, rule, and reign of first things. Only a first thing can accommodate the presence of a secondary thing without it leading to the destruction of the entire structure.