"The minimum condition of self-consciousness and freedom, then, would be that the creature should apprehend God and, therefore, itself as distinct from God. It is possible that such creature exist, aware of God and themselves, but of no fellow creatures. If so, their freedom is simply that of making a single naked choice -- of loving God more than the self or the self more than God. But a life so reduced to essentials is not imaginable to us. As soon as we attempt to introduce mutual knowledge of fellow creatures we run up against the necessity of 'Nature'" (Problem of Pain p. 30)
To think, to only know God. To not know anyone else or of anything else. My first thought is wow that would be lonely, but then I thought more. It's hanging out with just you and God. How awesome is that? What would life be like though? What would cause you to make that 'naked' choice of loving self more than God? Would God kind of sway your thoughts and your feelings by his power? Would that truly be your choice then? If this was so, would he chose certain people to make that decision? Would pre-desitination come into play? I have been contemplating the thought of if you were aware of just yourself and God, would there be nature around? To me when Lewis mentions creature, I do not only think of humans but also the animals. I imagine a big white room of just hanging out with God, which would seem to be pretty intimidating.
So as Lewis is saying, once you throw all other things in, that is when people's mind start getting distracted from choosing God. Other humans distract us, school distracts us, computers distract us, books distract us. It is true. Our lives become so busy and so encapsulated with other things that we forget about God and putting him in our lives. We so easily pull up our buckets with rocks and everything else and then put God in, after. Trying to fit Him in where we can. But why? Is this maybe why we feel pain? Is it not God causing us pain, as some may feel, however, it is because we create our own pain due to not placing God in the place that He belongs?
