Download Notes on Mere Christianity

Notes on Mere Christianity
04/25/96
Notes on C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity, Macmillan Publishing Company, NY, NY, ISBN
0-02-086940-1, by Tim Chambers, 02/19/96.
Here I offer a sample of Lewis' wisdom, but I must emphasize that every page made me
think and clarified my understanding of God's design. It's not a very long book (175
pages), but it's a book just the same. There are many insights that I don't mention here. I
cannot even mention all of the important insights here. Read the book for yourself!
BOOK I. RIGHT AND WRONG AS A CLUE TO THE MEANING OF THE
UNIVERSE
Lewis argues that there is a universal human conception about right and wrong. The
simplest example is what humans regard to be "fair." We have a built-in sense of justice.
We have a universal sense of the type of behavior we admire, and that which we despise.
We can tell virtues from vices. This leads to a concept of Law and an Author of the Law
that governs human behavior.
[My pastor preached about "torah" being imperfectly translated as "law." It is more like
"instruction." God instructs us in the Way that he designed us to live.]
The Law isn't the same as the law of gravity because in the latter case, we have no choice
but to obey physical laws. The Law that governs human conduct is distinct, then, from
the "way the universe works."
We know what we ought to do, but we don't do it. We are not animals who are always
and exclusively driven by desire. We do things that contradict our personal desires all the
time. Sometimes we give in to our desires and then feel guilty when our conscience tells
us that we behaved contrary to the Law.
"It is after you have realised that there is a real Moral Law, and a Power behind the law,
and that you have broken that law and put yourself wrong with that Power--it is after all
this, and not a moment sooner, that Christianity begins to talk." (p. 24)
BOOK II. WHAT CHRISTIANS BELIEVE
Lewis states his case for why he believes Jesus to be God Incarnate on pp. 40-41:
"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say
about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His
claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man
and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would be
either a lunatic--on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg--or else he would
be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of
God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit
at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God.
But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human
teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
BOOK III. CHRISTIAN BEHAVIOUR
"[M]oral rules are directions for running the human machine. Every moral rule is there to
prevent a breakdown, or a strain, or a friction, in the running of that machine...When you
are being taught how to use any machine, the instructor keeps on saying, 'No, don't do it
like that,' because, of course, there are all sorts of things that look all right and seem to
you the natural way of treating the machine, but do not really work." (p. 55)
Like a fleet of ships, humanity must keep the ships together so they don't bump into one
another. Each ship must also be kept in working order. Then there is the question of what
course the fleet is on--"what man was made for." (pp. 56-57)
About personal morality, Lewis writes, "Does it not make a great difference whether I
am, so to speak, the landlord of my own mind and body, or only a tenant, responsible to
the real landlord? If somebody else made me, for his own purposes, then I shall have a lot
of duties which I should not have if I simply belonged to myself." (pp. 58-59)
Next Lewis covers morality from a different, expanded perspective by describing seven
essential virtues. There are four that are "Cardinal" (that is to say "pivotal"), and three
"Theological." (p. 60)
First he explains what is meant by Prudence (using your faculties to the best of your
ability--"The fact that you are giving money to a charity does not mean that you need not
try to find out whether that charity is a fraud or not."--p. 61), Temperance ("A man who
makes his golf or his motor-bicycle the centre of his life, or a woman who devotes all her
thoughts to clothes or bridge or her dog, is being just as 'intemperate' as someone who
gets drunk every evening.'--p. 62), Justice ("the old name for everything we should now
call 'fairness'"--ibid.), and Fortitude ("both kinds of courage--the kind that faces danger as
well as the kind that 'sticks it' under pain"--ibid.).
Lewis argues for the importance of training your soul [my term, not his] by exercising
virtues just as you train your body for physical stamina.
Lewis has some fun tweaking both political conservatives and liberals on pp. 64-68 by
describing his interpretation of a completely Christian society. He shows how both
liberals and conservatives tend to pick what they like about Christian social morality
while ignoring the parts they don't like.
On pp. 69-73 Lewis addresses the relationship between Christianity and psychoanalysis.
Like the rest of the book, the concepts cannot be condensed without losing their power,
but consider one insight Lewis gives: "Most of man's psychological make-up is probably
due to his body: when his body dies all that will fall off him, and the real central man, the
thing that chose, that made the best or worst out of this material, will stand naked. All
sorts of things which we thought our own, but which were really due to a good digestion,
will fall off some of us: all sorts of nasty things which were due to complexes or bad
health will fall off others. We shall then, for the first time, see every one as he really was.
There will be surprises." (pp. 71-72)
Modern troubles with sexual morality are, in Lewis' estimation, due to our having been
"gorged" with the pleasures of too much sex, much like a glutton who eats after he stops
feeling hungry. "There is nothing to be ashamed of in enjoying your food: there would be
everything to be ashamed of if half the world made food the main interest of their lives
and spent their time looking at pictures of food and dribbling and smacking their lips." (p.
77)
Lewis' chapter on Christian marriage (pp. 81-88) is classic and is very much what
Christian leaders today are saying: marriage must last beyond feelings of "being in love"
by making a conscious choice and using an act of will. Husband and wife can love each
other even when feelings are absent. Lewis also gives good reasons for structuring a
marriage on the unpopular tenet that the husband is the "head" of the two. As one
argument for the latter, Lewis relays his own observations that women themselves don't
respect men who shirk this obligation.
The theme of moral behavior not being enslaved by emotions continues in Lewis'
treatment of Forgiveness on pp. 89-93. He observes that Christians are called to forgive
their enemies, not to have undeserved good feelings about them. His best argument is
based on inarguable experience: how does he love and forgive himself? He does it by an
act of will, even when he is neither fond of himself nor finds himself attractive in the
least.
Lewis said in his chapter on sexuality that it is not the center of Christian morality. On
pp. 94-99 he reveals the center: the virtue of Humility to overcome the vice of Pride.
Pride is at the root of many other symptomatic sins.
Charity, says Lewis on pp. 100-103, is Christian Love. As such, it is not ruled by
emotions. It is a conscious choice to act as if you love someone. "When you are behaving
as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him." (p. 101) That goes for our
love of God, too. (p. 102)
Lewis nex addresses the virtue of Hope. "[A]im for Heaven and you will get earth
'thrown in': aim at earth and you will get neither." (p. 104) One profound point he makes
is that "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most
probable explanation is that I was made for another world." (p. 106) We were made for
the Life to Come, and we should nurture our hope for the time when we will be perfectly
fulfilled in the presence of God.
On Faith: "Now that I am a Christian I do have moods in which the whole thing looks
improbable: but when I was an atheist I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly
probable." (p. 109) "No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good.
A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an
obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is." (pp. 109-110)
In several places, including on p. 110, Lewis refutes the fallacy that Christianity is about
us performing to God's specifications that He has set down in the Moral Law. Our
obedience to the Law does not bring about salvation. Our behavior is neither an exam on
which we will be graded to gain entrance to Heaven, nor is it a bargain between us and
God that, if we keep our end (obey His Law) then He will keep His end (granting us
eternal life). "Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably
wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside
you." (p. 114-115)
BOOK IV. BEYOND PERSONALITY: or FIRST STEPS IN THE DOCTRINE OF THE
TRINITY
"Theology is practical: especially now. In the old days, when there was less education
and discussion, perhaps it was possible to get on with a very few simple ideas about God.
But it is not so now. Everyone reads, everyone hears things discussed. Consequently, if
you do not listen to Theology, that will not mean that you have no ideas about God. It
will mean that you have a lot of wrong ones...." (p. 120) "For when you get down to it, is
not the popular idea of Christianity simply this: that Jesus Christ was a great moral
teacher and that if only we took his advice we might be able to establish a better social
order and avoid another war?" (p. 121)
A teaser about Lewis' treatment of our becoming Sons of God: "This 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." (p. 124)
About God as three persons, I do not dare to simplify Lewis' chapter, but I can say that he
gives a good, understandable explanation of the same approach which I personally take.
That the Trinity is three distinct views of one being just as a cube is the same cube
regardless of which of the six sides you are viewing. Read pp. 125-129 for some solid,
practical Trinitarian Theology.
About Time: "It was the Theologians who first started the idea that some things are not in
Time at all: later the Philosophers took it over: and now some of the scientists are doing
the same." (p. 131) Lewis makes a lucid case for how God exists in a way that every
instant of Time--past, present, and future--is Now for Him. (pp. 130-133)
Lewis explains a way of understanding the relationships among Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit that is very deep, beautiful, moving, and compelling. It explains why three is
exactly enough. Eternal love exists between Father and Son, and the Spirit of love is the
dynamic of their perfect, loving relationship. (pp. 135-137) Lewis calls that dynamic a
"dance," and he concludes his concise chapter by explaining how Christ came to show us
all how to dance--how we can live eternally with God. (pp. 137-138)
On p. 139, Lewis theorizes what we would be like without original sin. Here I elaborate
on his ideas to make a supposition. Perhaps that is, in some sense, what the new heaven
and new earth are all about. Perhaps we will, after all, live with Jacob and Moses and
David and Elijah and the Apostles and all the subsequent saints in a new Eden. Then Hell
is God's way of purging His original creation of all sin. That way he does not have to
destroy anything he has made. Instead, in the Fullness of Time those who make the Final
Choice to live apart from Him will live in eternal torment; the lives of His loyal creatures
will be lives of eternal joy.
Christians believe we are part of an organism--a body--in which we all have a part to
play. (pp. 143-145)
On p. 148 Lewis writes, "You might say that when two Christians are following Christ
together there is not twice as much Christianity as when they are apart, but sixteen times
as much." I think he should have said there is an infinite amount more than when there is
only one believer, by virtue of Jesus' own promise that he will be in the midst of two or
three gathered in His name.
pp. 152-158: Christianity doesn't demand that you be good; it demands that you give your
life to Jesus Christ so that He can be good through you. Surrender yourself to Him, and
He will replace the selfish sinner with a Son of God. It doesn't happen instantly anymore
than a toddler learns to walk in a day, but Christ doesn't stop working on you until you
become perfect. "As a great Christian writer (George MacDonald) pointed out, every
father is pleased at the baby's first attempt to walk: no father would be satisfied with
anything less than a firm, free, manly walk in a grown-up son. In the same way, he said,
'God is easy to please, but hard to satisfy.'" (p. 158)
On p. 166, Lewis gives a very helpful explanation of why the poor are blessed and why it
is so difficult for the rich to enter God's kingdom. "Often people who have all these
natural kinds of goodness cannot be brought to recognise their need for Christ at all until,
one day, the natural goodness lets them down and their self-satisfaction is shattered."
People who already have behavior problems "learn, in double quick time, that they need
help."
"[M]ere improvement is not redemption, though redemption always improves people...."
(p. 167)
True personality--true individuality--comes from God alone. "How monotonously alike
all the great tyrants and conquerors have been: how gloriously different are the saints."
(p. 175)
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