Cryptic Guide to C. S. Lewis: Mere Christianity

Koot van Wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Visiting Professor

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus

South Korea

Conjoint Lecturer of Avondale College

Australia

5 January 2011

One of the most remarkable authors of the Twentieth century is C. S. Lewis. An Atheist who became a Christian he spent his life as philosopher to write apologetic books for God and Christianity. Any Buddhist who say that faith does not count only ethics, have more to reflect. Even some Protestants who say that ethics do not count, only faith, will have to do more homework. C. S. Lewis believes in the freedom of the will and its importance for a Christian and many other Adventist truths so dearly held. There are a number of aspects Seventh-day Adventists cannot agree with him and some are his view on wine (Lewis 76 and 102) and pacifism (Lewis 107). What we have below is a cryptic Guide to this book by C. S. Lewis hoping to help the busy reader in this modern age to have a glimpse of the ideas of Lewis hoping that they will benefit his/her Christian life. One thought that was very touching from Lewis and a contribution to my own thinking, was his last book dealing with the purpose of God for us in that He starts transforming us but cannot complete us before we die but will continue after we are resurrected again to build us up to be kings in Heaven for His glory. The role of pride and selfishness in the origin of evil in Lucifer or the Rebellion in Heaven, is a motif that Seventh-day Adventists can wholeheartedly agree with. What is of interest currently is that the director taking care of his house and museum in England this year [2011] is a Seventh-day Adventist professor from Southern Adventist University in Tennessee, USA.

C.S.Lewis. Mere Christianity

Born in Ireland in 1898, C. S. Lewis was educated at Malvern College for a year and then privately. He gained a triple first at Oxford and was a Fellow and Tutor at Magdalen College 1925-54. In 1954 he became Professor of Mediaeval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge. He was an outstanding and popular lecturer and had a lasting influence on his pupils.

C. S. Lewis was for many years an atheist, and described his conversion in Surprised by Joy: 'In the Trinity term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God ... perhaps the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.' It was this experience that helped him to understand not only apathy but active unwillingness to accept religion, and, as a Christian writer, gifted with an exceptionally brilliant and logical mind and a lucid, lively style, he was without peer. The Problem of Pain, The Screwtape Letters, Mere Christianity, The Four Loves and the Posthumous Prayer: Letters to Malcolm, are only a few of his best-selling works. He also wrote some delightful books for children and some science fiction, besides many works of literary criticism. His works are known to millions of people all over the world in translation. He died on 22nd November, 1963, at his home in Oxford.

Preface

The contents of this book were first given on the air, and then published in three separate parts as The Case for Christianity (1943), (*) Christian Behaviour (1943), and Beyond Personality (1945). In the printed versions I made a few additions to what I had said at the microphone, but otherwise left the text much as it had been. A "talk" on the radio should, I think, be as like real talk as possible, and should not sound like an essay being read aloud. In my talks I had therefore used all the contractions and colloquialisms I ordinarily use in conversation. In the printed version I reproduced this, putting don't and we've for do not and we have. And wherever, in the talks, I had made the importance of a word clear by the emphasis of my voice, I printed it in italics.

His view on pluralism: Spirit contra doctrine [8]

Kindness to other churches [12]

Book I. Right and Wrong as a Clue to the Meaning of the Universe

1. The Law of Human Nature

2. Some Objections

3. The Reality of the Law

Moral law is higher than mere anthropology or human behavior [30]

4. What Lies Behind the Law

Law must be objective not subjective [31]

Materialist universe view [31]

Religious universe view [32]

Origin is intelligent, conscious, has purposes and decides [32]

We know more about anthropology than anything else [33]

Objective analysis of man cannot reveal subjective aspects: Limits [33]

Discover Creator by science is impossible since Creator is not part of observed facts [33]

Observing outside and not inside: Fallacy of analogia entis [33]

Creationist and materialistic views of origin: intermediate view: Life-Force philosophy/creative evolution/emergent evolution (contra Shaw, Bergson) 34

5. We Have Cause to Be Uneasy

Law is necessary to talk about repetence and forgiveness [38]

What drips from the cross is not honey, it is blood (sermon words of dr. Gerhard van Wyk 1977) [39]

Book II. What Christians Believe

1. The Rival Conceptions Of God

2. The Invasion

Dualism places good and evil on equal position [48]

Dualism's good and bad is like beer and cider [49]

Third power necessary for Dualism = standard or rule of good [49]

van wyk notes: Edward Heppenstall said "First, law is God's standard of what is right and true; it is the standard of obedience to the Will of God" [E. Heppenstall, Our Firm Foundation, Vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1953), 461].

If Dualism is true then bad must like bad for its own sake [49]

Goodness is itself: badness is only spoiled goodness.[50]

In order to be bad he must want good and then pursue in a wrong way [50]

Existence, intelligence and will for the bad is derived from the Good Power [50]

Rebellion in Heaven Motif [50]

Dualism in a real sense will not work [51]

Real Christianity do go nearer to Dualism [51]

The dark power was created good but became bad [51]

War in heaven was a rebellion [51]

Satan controls this world through occupation but it belongs to God [51]

3. The Shocking Alternative

If Satan is according to God's plan what a strange God, if not according to His will, how can He allow him? [52]

Authoritative will give voluntary will and people do not do it because authoritative will made it possible [52]

Free will was given to creatures by God [52]

Why did God give people a free will? Joy is worth having [53]

God gave freedom so that free creatures can relate to Him and each other [53]

For God freedom was worth the risk of going wrong [53]

Disagree with God is like cutting off the branch on which you are sitting [53]

Why did God made people so bad that they went bad? A cow cannot be good or bad; a dog better or worse; a human more better and more worse but an angel best or worst of all [53]

Why did Lucifer go wrong? Self was placed first [53]

Fall of man does not have to do with sex but with self in control rather than God [54]

Car is invented to run on gasoline; humans are invented to run on God [54]

van wyk notes: Edward Heppenstall said the same thing when he said that God sent His Son "to provide an answer to the sin-and-death problem, and to win men back to fellowship with Him" (E. Heppenstall, "How God Works to Save Us," These Times, February 1973: 12). The key word is fellowship or relationship. Hans K. LaRondelle said the same when he explained the imago dei that "Israel's theocentricity does not exclude but include true anthropocentricity. God is no competitor of man's glory but upholds it" (H. K. LaRondelle, Perfection and Perfectionism [Berrien Springs, Michigan: Andrews University Press, 1971-1984]: 68). LaRondelle continues to say that the reality of imago Dei or image of God requires the imitatio Dei for the Sabbath rest "as son of the Creator man is bound to reflect the perfect work and rest of his Father in his own way of perfect rulership and rest in communion with his Creator. Moreover, without the divine communion and fellowship on the seventh day [Saturday], without man's entering into God's rest on that day, the whole creation would be cut off from the Maker and necessarily have to find its purpose and sense in itself" (H. K. LaRondelle, 1984: 72). The key word is communion with God.

Not my way in religion, but His way [54]

van wyk notes: Edward Heppenstall stated existentialism is wrong since it focus attention of the authority of man's being and existence over against the objective authority of God's written and revealed Word, Scripture [E. Heppenstall, "The Foundation of the Adventist Faith," The Ministry, Vol. 38, no. l 8, August 1965: 3-6, 13]. While a trustworthy approach is both objective and subjective in balance, any attempt by man to destroy that balance and to shatter faith in objective truth, moral absolutes and eternal principles revealed in the Holy Scriptures, is a problem [E. Heppenstall, "The Dangers of Existentialism," Part I and II, The Ministry, October 1968: 13, 14, 42 and November 1968: 28-30].

God gave us conscience [54]

He sent good dreams to the human race [54]

He selected a covenant people and gave them all they should know [54]

Jesus arrived and said He is God, forgave sins and talks about end of the world [55]

It is silly to take other people's problems on yourself but that is what Jesus did and therefore He is God [55]

Accepting Jesus as a mere human and not divine is a mistake [56]

van wyk notes: Ellen White could not talk about Jesus as human without talking about divine.

It was divinity clothed with humanity [EGW, Review and Herald, Oct 24, 1899]. It was a combo without giving up either the human nature nor the divine nature. Ellen White saw Christ as always with the Father, Ellet Joseph Waggoner saw Christ as proceeding from the Father meaning that Christ was not created but the Father was prior to Him [E.J. Waggoner, Christ and His Rigtheousness (Oakland, California: Pacific Press Publishing Company, 1890) 9, 19, 22]. Unfortunately, Waggoner lost the distinction between deity and human nature and thus got invested with the same parasite as that of J. H. Kellogg, namely, pantheism, in the period of his decline 1903-1916 [E. C. Webster, Crosscurrents in Adventist Christology (Berrien Springs, Michigan: Andrews University Press, 1984), 236-237 with footnotes]. Edward Heppenstall said "Any interpretation that would make Christ less than fully God is contrary to the Word of God" [E. Heppenstall, The Man Who is God. A study of the Person and Nature of Jesus, Son of God and the Atonement (Washington, D. C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association,1977) 70].

4. The Perfect Penitent

Jesus was either just or a lunatic: therefore Lewis accepted Jesus to be God [57]

Why did Christ come? Many theories but theories are not Christianity. [57]

Theological theories are mental pictures of reality and not reality itself [58]

The mental pictures are only there to help you understand the reality and are not reality itself [58]

Death of Christ is something strange that is shown through in our world and we will not be fully able to understand this [58]

One can accept what Christ did without understanding how He did it [59]

Main point for Lewis is that Christ was killed, the death washed away our sins and the dying disabled death itself [59]

Theories of the atonement are only diagrams or plans that are to be used or left aside and not confused with the reality itself [59]

Fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement, he is a rebel who must lay down his arms [59]

Only a bad person needs to repent and only a good person can repent perfectly [60]

The same badness that makes us need salvation makes us unable to do it [60]

The road for which we need God's help, He has never walked [60]

If God became a man that could suffer and die then He has walked our road [60]

We can only share in God's dying to have eternal life and we cannot share it unless God dies and He cannot die unless He becomes human [61]

Some said that Jesus was completely man and divine and thus it was easy for Him [61]

Perfect submission was easier because He was divine but possible only because He was God [61]

If I am drowning and someone offer me a hand should I say you have an advantage over me, it is unfair [61]

5. The Practical Conclusion

When does eternity start? Already says Lewis [62]

How we got the "old man" or our sinful nature with the propensities to sin [62]

The same God who arranged the "sin process" also arranges the new life in Christ (Lewis)

Everything is odd for Lewis [62]

Christian life distributors: baptism, belief and Lord's Supper [63]

Lewis is not sure if there are more ways in which the Christian life is distributed beside the three [63]

Lewis felt that eventually Christians support all three [63]

Lewis says that it is not easy for him to see how a particular physical pleasure and a new man can be connected meaning how a sacrament [in his church] and a new man can be linked [63]

Lewis cannot explain it but he believes the reality of it: Christ said it and on that authority Lewis believes [63]

We should not be scared of the word "authority" since everything is accepted by authority, science, history etc [63]

If you reject authority in your personal life you will lack knowledge for a long time [64]

Lewis does not want to minimize example of Christ with the sacraments [64]

We are the custodian and caretakers of our lives that are given to us and not made by us [64]

Why is a good Christian different from a pure humanist? [64]

The Christian does not believe God will love him because he is good but that God make him good because He loves him [64]

Lewis explains and reasons transubstantiation why Christian become different [64]

Just like Paul in Rom 2, also Lewis wonder what about non-Christians and salvation [65]

Cutting off a man's fingers is an odd way of getting him to work more [65]

Why did God chose to land in the enemy-occupied world and work with a secret church society and not with His total force? [65]

Eschatology means God is going to come with force, but we must prepare now [65]

Book III. Christian Behaviour

1. The Three Parts Of Morality

Wrong idea of morality as something interfering preventing us from having a good time [69]

Morality as reality [obedience] in contrast to morality as idealism [69]

Even though you cannot attain perfection it is not a bad idea to try to attain perfection [70]

Every moral failure will harm yourself and others [70]

Purpose is necessary for perfection to work properly [71]

Morality consists of three things: harmony, harmonising the things inside the individual and purpose [71]

Modern people think only of (1) harmony but not (2) individual harmonising nor (3) purpose [71]

When you stick to the first thing (1) there is little disagreement between people [72]

If we only desire harmony without harmonising ourselves we might as well stop [72]

What is the point in making rules if no-one is going to keep it? [72]

You cannot make men good by law and without good men you cannot have a good society [72]

It is different when I am the landlord of my own mind or only a tenant for the One who made me [73]

Lewis on immortality: individual is more important than state or civilisation since individual lives forever [73]

The vertical aspect (3) of morality or the purpose aspect is where Christians and non-Christians differ most [3]

2. The "Cardinal Virtues"

Seven virtues: four cardinal virtues and three theological virtues [74]

Cardinal virtues: prudence, temperance, justice and fortitude [74]

Prudence [74]

If you think of becoming a Christian, it is going to take all of you, brain and all [75]

You do not need to be educated to be a Christian since Christianity is an education in itself [75]

Temperance [75]

Lewis weak on total abstinency of alcohol and defending occasional alcohol consumption [76]

Intemperance can also be clothes, card playing, pets which is the same as excessive alcohol [76]

Justice [76]

Fortitude [76]

Lewis on the difference between action and being [78]

Right actions for the wrong reason do not build a virtue [78]

God wants obedience to a set of rule and a resultant quality of a particular sort [78]

If you do not have certain qualities you need to have the beginning of those qualities [78]

3. Social Morality

1. Christ did not come to preach a new social morality, it was what everyone knew already [79]

Real great teachers do not instruct but reminds [79]

2. Christianity does not have a program for politics for the program is to apply to all times and all circumstances [79]

When you are told to feed the hungry you are not given cooking lessons [79]

When it tells you to read the Scriptures it does not teach you Greek and Hebrew [80]

Scripture was never intended to supersede the ordinary sciences and it is a director and source of energy for the willing [80]

Clergy of the church are trained to prepare people for eternal life not for political temporary life [80]

The application of Christian principles to trade unionism or education should come from the laymen not the clergy [80]

New Testament tells us that if someone does not work he should not eat: no passengers or parasites [80]

Firstly. Lewis view the ideal Christian society to be leftist [80]

Secondly. Lewis feels that the ideal Christian society teaches obedience to authority, state, family [81]

Thirdly. Lewis feels that the ideal Christian society should be cheerful, courteous and not "busybodies" [81]

Most people do not want that ideal, only bits and pieces of it [81]

Christianity is the total plan but we have all departed from the total plan [81]

Anything that is Christian is an attempt to be attracted by bits of the plan and leave out the rest of it [81]

That is why Christians are factional and even fighting in opposites [81]

Ancient Greeks, Jews in the Old Testament and Christian teachers of the Middle Ages advised not to lend money with interest [81]

Purpose of New Testament command that all should work is not to enrich himself but to be able to contribute to charity [82]

Some say that one should not focus on charity but making society void of poverty [82]

If you stop contributing to charity you are no longer a Christian [82]

How much for charity? If the total of our luxuries, comforts, amusements is the same as the standard with those of the same income as us, we are giving too little [82]

There ought to be luxuries forfeited because we donated to charity [82]

Distress among relatives, friends, neighbours, employees may cripple you or endanger your own position [82]

Obstacle (1) to non-giving to charity lies in fear of insecurity [82]

Obstacle (2) to non-giving to charity lies in pride (showy forms of giving rather than those who really need help) [82]

A Christian society will not be until all of us want it and we fill not want it until we become full Christians [83]

4. Morality and Psychoanalysis

There will be never a Christian society unless all become Christian individuals [84]

The Christian idea of a "good" man [84]

Christian morality is a technique to improve the human machine and so is psycho-analysis [84]

Distinguish between actual medical theories and techniques of psychoanalysts and the philosophical worldview of Freud [84]

Siegmund Freud is in direct contradiction to Christianity and Carl Jung [84]

When Freud talks about techniques he is a great psychologists but when he is talking about philosophy he is an amateur [85]

Psychoanalysis is not against Christianity but supports it but not all of it [85]

Moral choice means two things: (1) choosing (2) feelings, impulses which affect choosing [85]

Feelings can be either natural (common to all men) or unnatural (subconscious) [85]

Fear of real danger, or desire of a man for a woman is an example of natural and homosexuality is an example of the unnatural [85]

Psychoanalysis removes the abnormal feelings and give a better option [85]

The Christian is the same person but now with a free choice and that is what morality gives man [86]

Bad psychology sees bad material in humans as a disease not sin [86]

Humans judge humans by external actions but God judges by moral choices [86]

Sometimes people who used their heredity are better than normal people who do not utilize their good upbringing [86]

We only see results of bad raw material but God judge not the raw material but the choices we made with the defective material [86]

Since Lewis believes in the immortality of the soul, therefore he thinks that when man dies all psychological make-up falls off [87]

God does not say keep as many rules as you can but let your innumerable choices make you different from before in harmony with Him [87]

All of us change and either progress or degenerate [87]

Each person, good and bad can get the twist in him/herself straightened again if he turns to God [88]

The external bigness or smallness of the good deed is not important [88]

The right direction leads to peace and knowledge [88]

Getting better means understanding more [88]

Getting worse a man understands himself less and less [88]

A moderately bad man knows he is wrong and a thoroughly bad man thinks he is right [88]

You understand sleep when you are awake not while you are sleeping [88]

Good people know about good and evil, bad people do not know either [88]

5. Sexual Morality

Christian morality and sex or the virtue of chastity [89]

Christian chastity is not equal with the social rule of propriety and decency [89]

The Christian rule of chastity is always the same the social rule of propriety changes in each context [89]

When people break the rule of propriety intentionally to excite others to lust they break the rule of chastity [89]

When people break the rule ignorantly it is only bad manners [89]

Lewis does not think propriety rules are that important because people of different ages and times had different standards [90]

Setting new standards the old should not call names to the young and the young should not call names to the old for not accepting it [90]

Solution to generation gap? A real desire to believe all the good you can of others [90].

Chastity is the most unpopular of the Christian virtues: either Christianity is wrong or instinct has gone wrong [90]

Lewis thinks that sexual starvation is the origin of striptease [91]

Sexual appetite grows by indulgence just like other appetites [91]

Perversions of food appetite are rare but perversions of the sex appetite are numerous and hard to cure [91]

The problem in Lewis day is that they were told not to cover up the topic of sex [92]

If Adam has never fallen then sexual pleasure would be greater [92]

Some Christians thought that sex is bad but they are wrong [92]

Christianity is almost the only religion that see the body as good and some of it will be taken into eternity [92]

Deviations in sexual instinct is wrong [92]

There is nothing wrong with food but to spent hours looking at food and licking lips is wrong [92]

We are what our ancestors handed to us plus present deviating propaganda in favor of unchastity [93]

Someone with an obsession has little sales resistance [93]

What is important for God is the sincerity and perseverance of our will to overcome errors in our make-up [93]

Lord please change me but not yet [93]

Three reasons why it is difficult to desire or achieve complete chastity

a. Our defective nature plus devils plus propaganda for lust combine to lead us astray [93]

Lie is that any sexual act to which you are tempted to is healthy and normal [93]

In this world, happiness expects restraint [93]

There has to be principles: Christian, hygiene, social to choose or reject [94]

The real conflict is not between Christianity and nature but between Christian principles and other principles in control of nature [94]

b. Some do not want to try Christian chastity since they think it is impossible [94]

Faced with a compulsary question one has to do the best one can [94]

People are faced with impossible situation but they do it [94]

Perfect chastity and perfect charity can only come from God's help [94]

Sometimes it feels as if there is no help or less help or delayed help but ask forgiveness and try again [94]

Sometimes God first helps us to try again and again before He adds power [94]

Process of constantly trying teaches us curing of our illusions and to depend on God [94]

It is fatal to sit down content with anything that is less than perfection [94]

c. People misunderstand the word repression It does not mean suppressed, denied or resisted [94]

Those who are seriously attempting chastity are well aware of their own weaknesses [95]

Those who know their desires come to know themselves as Wellington knew Napoleon [95]

Virtue and even attempted virtue brings light but indulgence brings fog [95]

The center of Christian morality is not in sex and unchastity is not the supreme vice [95]

There is an animal self and a diabolical self inside us and the diabolical self is the worse and a self-righteous person who is cold is nearer to hell than a prostitute [95]

6. Christian Marriage

Talking about the wrong working of the sexual impulse, one should now talk about the right working of the sexual impulse [96]

Lewis does not want to talk about marriage since he was not married himself and also the topic is unpopular [96]

They will be one like a lock and a key, a violin and a bow [96]

The Inventor of the human machine tells us that they are two halves that are to be combined in pairs [96]

One cannot isolate one kind of union from the total union in marriage [96]

One should not try to isolate sexual pleasure and try to get it by itself [97]

Some churches do not admit divorce, others allow it reluctantly in special cases [97]

Divorce is like cutting up a living body, a surgical operation [97]

Justice means keeping promises [97]

Moderns are saying that sexual impulse is the same as ohter impulses but Lewis says it is not and we have to be careful that it does not mislead us [97]

Some say the promise in church is just formality and that he did not plan to keep it [97]

Most of the times couples marry although they cheated before [98]

If wedding couples are still contended cheaters Lewis has nothing to say for them [98]

If people do not believe in permanent marriage they should live together unmarried and be guilty of fornication [98]

One fault is not mended by adding another [98]

In love does not leave room for contracts or promises in marraige [98]

If love is all then a promise should not be made since it cannot add anything [98]

Those who love have a natural inclination to bind themselves by promises [98]

Promise made because a person is in love to be true commits him to be true even if he cease to be in love [98]

Promise is about things you can do. You cannot promise to continue feeling the same [98]

But why kept together if there is no love? To prevent one from being dropped whenever the other one is tired of his or her spouse [98]

Being in love is a good thing but not the best because C is better than B but there is A which is far better than B [99]

Knowledge, principles, habits last but feelings come and go [99]

Ceasing to be "in love" does not mean to cease to love [100]

Deep unity maintained by will and strengthened by habit and reinforced by grace [100]

Love can be there even though they do not like each other as you love yourself but do not like yourself [100]

People think that the honeymoon should never stop and if it does they want change but do not realize that in change the honeymoon also stop [100]

A thrill you have of going to stay at a place dies away when you actually go there and stay there [100]

Something will not really live unless it dies [101]

Do not try to keep a thrill. Let it die and go on with quieter happiness and it becomes new thrills [101]

If you make thrill your regular diet they will go weaker and weaker and fewer and you will be bored [101]

It is better to go on swimming than to try to get the feeling when you were paddling as a small boy [101]

Novels are saying that falling in love is irresistible happening only once, like measles. [101]

Irresistible passions of falling in love is very rare in grown ups [101

If your brain is full of novels or sentimental songs or alcohol then we turn any kind of love we feel into that kind of love if you wear blue glasses you will just see blue [101]

Lewis is against total abstinency of alochol [102]

Man is the head of the house [102]

a. Why not equal? [102]

b. Why the man is head? [102]

a. A head is needed [102]

Husband and wife cannot decide by majority vote since with two there cannot be a majority [102]

Solutions: separate or one has a casting vote [102]

A permanent association must have a constitution [102]

b. A head there must be, but must it be the man? [102]

Women despise the men they are ruling [103]

The woman has a natural patriotism for the family and the husband protects outsiders against this natural patriotism [103]

If your dog bit the child next door or when your child hurt the dog who should you deal with. Master or mistress? [103]

7. Forgiveness [104]

Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea until they have something to forgive [104]

Christianity asks us not to deny our faith even unto the point of death [104]

It is made clear that if we do not forgive we shall not be forgiven [105]

If you want to learn how to forgive, do it to your wife, husband, children and those near you [105]

We need to know exactly what loving your neighbour as yourself means [105]

Loving yourself does not mean finding yourself attractive or be fond of yourself [105]

My selflove makes me think I am nice but thinking myself nice is not why I love myself [105]

Loving your enemies does not mean that you think they are nice [105]

Loving your enemies does not mean that you have to say that you enemies are not that bad after all [105]

Christian teachers taught me that I must love the sinner but hate sin [105]

Lewis thought it was not possible for a long time but then realized that is what he does to himself [105]

I hate the things but I love the man [106]

What you have to say about bad things done need not be unsaid [106]

Hating what he did, we should feel sorry he did it and hope that he can be cured and made human again [106]

If you hear someone did something bad but then hear it is not true, are you happy it is not that bad or are you disappointed? If disappointed then you have turned into a devil [106]

If you develop the thought that black should be blacker then you will make grey also black and later white will also be black to you [106]

Hating someone grows to hate of God and get fixed [106]

Does loving mean no punishment? No [106]

Lewis and the issue of "Thou shall not kill" [106]

One Greek word means kill and another means murder [106]

In Matthew, Mark and Luke Christ is citing the Greek word for murder not killing [106]

Lewis is against pacifism [107]

Lewis postulated that if two enemies kill each other they see each other after death and laugh about it [107]

Lewis is misguided to think that Christians think that man lives forever [107]

Lewis thinks that one may kill if necessary but one must not hate and enjoy it [107]

We may punish if necessary but may not enjoy it [107]

When we kill [as soldiers] or punish we must hope that the one will be changed in future [after death] [107]

We must love people who have nothing lovable about them [108]

God does not love us for the nice attractive qualities we think we have but just because we are ourselves [108]

Hatred is such a pleasure like tobacco or beer [108]

8. The Great Sin

Lewis thinks that the greatest sin is pride or self-conceit as opposed to humility [109]

The center of Christian morals is not sexual morality but humility [109]

Pride is the root of Lucifer's problem and leads to an anti-God state of mind [109]

Pride testing can be done by asking how much I dislike others doing this and that against me [110]

Our pride is always in competition with other people's pride [110]

Pride does not get pleasure in getting something, only in getting more than others [110]

What makes people proud is the comparison and pleasure to be above the rest [110]

Nearly all the evils of the world is a result of pride [110]

Pride enjoys to be able to move people like toy soldiers around [111]

Pride always means enmity against man and man and between man and God [111]

A proud man always looks down on people around him and cannot look up [111]

How can proud people say they believe in God and appear very religious? [111]

Test is that when you feel that your religion makes you better than someone else then you may know you are wrong [112]

Lewis endorses the EGW principle that the closer you come to God the smaller you see yourself [112]

Pride does not come through our animal nature but directly from hell [112]

Satan is eager that you should feel you are brave and selfcontrolled so that you set up a dictatorship of pride [112]

Pride is spiritual cancer: it eats up every possibility of love, or contentment or even common sense [112]

Firstly) Pride misunderstandings: Pleasure in being praised is not pride [112]

Problem is: "I have pleased him all is well" to "what a fine person I must be to have done it" [112]

A vain person always wants to be praised and this pride is childlike error [112]

Black diabolical pride is to look down on others that you do not care what they think of you [113]

Secondly) Misunderstanding: Warmhearted admiration is not sin [113]

Thirdly) God is not worried about His own dignity, he wants us to know him [113]

Fourthly) Misunderstanding: a humble person may not look what one expected from the outside [114]

9. Charity

There are four cardinal virtues and three theological virtues: charity [115]

Theological virtues are faith, hope and charity [115]

Meaning of charity: alms given to poor = love in the Christian sense, a state of the will not feelings [115]

Do not waste time bothering whether you "love" our neighbour, act as if you do [116]

People do not like people who give in order to receive (showing off or patronage) [116]

If you do good to others because they are also Children made by God we love more [116]

The worldly man treats certain people kind because he likes them but the Christian treats more and more people kind because he includes more and more [117]

The more cruel you are the more you hated people because you are cruel to them [117]

Good and evil increase at compound interest [117]

The smallest good act today is a victory later that you have never dreamed off [117]

An apparently trivial indulgence in lust is a bridge for the enemy to attack later [117]

Charity describes Christian love between humans but also God's love for humans and humans love for God [117]

Our feelings come and go but his love for us is constant [117]

God is not wearied by our sins or indifference since He is determined [118]

10. Hope

Hope is not escapism or wishful thinking but a necessity of Christianity [119]

In history the ones who thought most of the next world were the ones who did most for the present [119]

We shall never save civilization as long as civilization is our main object, we need more [119]

There is something in the first moment of longing that just fades away in the reality [120]

Two wrong ways and one right one to deal with the evading reality [120]

Fool blames the thing itself [120]

Disillusioned "sensible man" is excited at first but then gives up [120]

Christian man says that creatures are not born with desires unless there is satisfaction for those desires [121]

People say: I do not want to spend eternity playing a harp. Says Lewis: if you cannot read books written by grownups do not talk about them [121]

When Christ said that we should be like doves He did not mean that we should lay eggs [122]

11. Faith

Firstly: Faith accepting is doctrine accepting [123]

Lewis thinks that faith is based on reason on the one side which is in battle with imagination and emotions on the other [123]

Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted in spite of your changing moods [125]

When Lewis was an atheist there were moods that Christianity looks terribly probable but now that he is a Christian there are moods that the whole thing looks very improbable [125]

I Moods change [125]

1. Keep some main doctrines deliberately in front of you every day [125]

2. Prayers, church going and religious reading cultivates necessary parts of Christian life [125]

3. Doctrinal belief will not automatically remain alive in the mind. It must be fed [125]

II Realize that you are bad. No man knows how bad he is until he tries to be very good [125]

Only those trying to resist temptation know how strong it is [126]

If you quickly give in to temptation you do not know what bad is since you know bad only by fighting it for hours and days. Chirst is the only complete realist [126]

People who think God gives us an exam or bargain has a vague idea of belief in God [126]

If you devoted every moment of your life exclusively to His servive you could not give Him anything that was not His already [126]

"Daddy give me money to buy you a birthday present" Rule: Realize your bankruptcy [127]

12. Faith

Lewis realize that his analysis of Christianity may not be totally correct [128]

God is not interested in our actions but in the guality of relating to Him [129]

You have to keep God's law but you can't so you come to the point of saying: "You must do it, I can't" [129]

We need to move from confience to despair in our Christian efforts [130]

If you really handed yourself over to Him you must try to obey Him [131]

What is more important: faith or obedience? It is like asking what which blade in a pair of scissors is most necessary [131]

It is a parody to say that "obedience is all that matters" [131]

It is a parody to say that "faith is all that matters" [131]

Work out your own faith with fear and trembling + For it is God who works in you [131]

Book IV: Beyond Personality: Our first steps in the doctrine of the Trinity

1. Making and Begetting

Map analogy to Theology: the beach and a map of the beach [135]

Doctrines are not God they are a kind of map but if you want to progress you need a map [136]

Feeling God in nature is all thrills no work. It is a vague religion [136]

Popular idea of Christianity is that Jesus in a moral teacher and if we follow His advice we can set up a better social order: Lewis rejects this thinking since it tells you nothing about practical Christianity [137]

If Christianity only means one more bit of good advice then Christianity is of no importance [137]

When you make you make something different than yourself but when you beget you make someone similar to yourself [138]

What God begets is God but what He creates is not God [138]

Bios will be changed to Zoe at the endtime and statue to real man. We are statues in a great sculptor's shop but will come to life one day [140]

2. The Three-Personal God

Christianity is the only religion that speaks of a personal God. All other religions think of their gods as impersonal. [141]

Some religions consider man as a drop in the ocean that cease to exist but Christianity sees man absorbed by God but continuing to remain [142]

A cube consists of six squares yet it is one cube so the trinity consists of three persons yet one being [142]

God inside man prompts him to pray, God is the one he prays towards but Jesus is the bridge to God whom he is praying. [143]

The human is pulled into God by God [encouraged by God to do so] while remaining himself [143]

A geologist has to find rock, they will not come to him [144]

A zoologist has to find animals, but he has to be quiet, they will run away [144]

Someone finding a human will have to win his/her friendship [144]

When you want to know God the initiative lies on His side to show Himself but only to some since others condition are not proper [144]

Horrible nations have horrible religions since they have been looking at God through dirty lenses [144]

Adequate instrument for learning about God is the whole Christian community and new movements are criticized by Lewis [145]

3. Time and Beyond Time

We tend to think that God and the whole universe move in time as we do [147]

God is not in Time [147]

If you picture Time as a straight line along which we travel then you must picture God as the whole page on which the line is drawn: God contains the whole line and sees it all [148]

God does not foresee you doing things but simply sees you doing them [149]

4. Good Infection

God is a Being with three persons but as soon as I try to explain I use words that make it sounds as if one was before the other [150]

If God was a single person before the world was made He was not love [152]

God is an active pulsating drama [152]

God somewhere out there, Jesus next to Him and the Holy Spirit inside us [153]

We get only Bios from God but must also get Zoe to live eternally [154]

5. The Obstinate Toy Soldiers

Bios is self-centered which look for admiration, wants to keep away from anthing that makes it feel small, afraid of the light and air of spiritual life [155]

People who are brought up as dirty is afraid to bath [155]

Humanity is saved in principle but individuals have to appropriate that salvation [157]

Do not quarrel with people if they use different formulae to express Christ love for them [158]

6. Two Notes

God gave humans a free will because a world of mere automata could never love [159]

Do not try to make people like yourself [161]

To forget that people are of the same organism as yourself is to become an individualist and to forget that someone is a different organ from you and want to suppress differences, one is a totalitarian. A Christian is not an individualist nor a totalitarian [161]

The devil always send errors in pair of opposites, he wants you to dislike one error to be drawn into the opposite one [161]

7. Let's Pretend

Our Father: you are dressing up as Christ but different [163]

Honor people who helped you but see the real Giver behind them [165]

We allow God to do everything in us [166]

8. Is Christianity hard or easy?

"I do not want half of you I want all of you" [169]

"Take up my cross - My yoke is easy" [169]

If I am a field that has only grass-seed I cannot produce wheat [170]

In the morning all your wishes and hopes rush at you like wild animals but put them aside and focus on quiet time [170]

"Be perfect": we cannot remain eggs, we must become birds and we must fly [170]

The Bible says the whole universe was made for Christ [171]

Christ did not say that He will only help the perfect [173]

When you bring one problem to the Lord, He wants all [174]

God is easy to please but hard to satisfy [174]

Each time you fall God will not mind picking you up but you need to realize that He wants to take you to absolute perfection [174]

9. Counting the Cost

I want to be a simple Christian but this is a mistake since God has greater plans [175]

God is the inventor, we are only the machine, God is the painter, we are only the picture [175]

To shrink back from God's plan for us is not humility, it is laziness and cowardice [175]

To dream great according to God's plan is not megalomania, it is not conceit, it is obedience [175]

Holiness or heroism of the greatest saints is what He has in mind for us [175]

His plan for us may not be completed in this life but He will get us a long way towards that before we die [175]

George MacDonald's parable of you as a house. God knocks out rooms from the cottage and shock you. But He is building a palace and wants to come and live in it Himself [176]

Be ye perfect is not idealistic gas [176]

The process [of perfection] will be long and in parts very painful, but that is what are in for nothing less [176]

10. Nice People or New Men

God's work with us cannot be completed in this life since death is an important part of the treatment [177]

Feeling fine is useless unless the thermometer goes down [177]

The proof of a pudding is in the eating thereof [178]

Careless talk costs lives but also careless lives costs talk [178]

It is not a good idea to make judgments about Christians and non-Christians in the mass [178]

Some people are slowly ceasing to be Christians but still call themselves Christians [178]

Some people are slowly becoming Christians but do not yet call themselves that [178]

Some people do not accept the full Christian doctrine about Christ but is attracted by Him [178]

Some people in other religions are led by God's secret influence to focus on those parts in their religion that compares well with Christianity and belong to Christ without knowing it [178].

Some people are confused in mind and have a lot of inconsistent beliefs jumbled up together [178]

Contrary to Peter Kreeft, Lewis does not encourage us to compare a bad Christian with a good Atheist [179]

Christians will not necessarily be nicer than non-Christians just as toothpaste will not necessarily make your teeth white [179]

It is a mistake to think that Christianity is for nasty people and nice ones can stay without it as if niceness is all God requires [180]

Niceness is the God's gift to the Christian not the Christian's gift to God [180]

God can help a needle of a compass to settle on Him but he wants it to be free [180]

Niceness is part of a good nature but nature will pass away in the end [181]

Paradox is that niceness becomes your own when you realize it is a gift of God and not your own [181]

The only things we can keep are the things we freely give to God [181]

The lost sheep are the little, low, timid, warped, thin-blooded, lonely, passionate, sensual, unbalanced people [182]

If you are a nice person or if virtue comes easy for you: beware [182]

Lucifer's natural gifts were above ours as ours are above a chimpanzee [183]

Do not suppose that when you succeeded in making everyone nice you have saved their souls [183]

Mere improvement is not redemption [183]

God became man to turn creatures into sons of God not merely better sons of men of the old kind but a new kind of man [183]

You cannot know other people's souls but one you can, your own who was placed in your care [184]

Bios is the anaesthetic fog we call nature or the real world and it fades away so that the Presence in which you always stood become immediate, unavoidable, palpable [184]

11. New Men

New man is not only improvement but transformation [185]

Get out of ourselves into Christ [189]

When you turn to Christ and give yourself up to His personality that you have a real personality of your own [190]

Sameness is found among natural men not among those who surrender to Christ [190-191]

Look for yourself and your will find only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin and decay. Look for Christ and you will find Him and everything else [191]

Source:

http://lib.ru/LEWISCL/mere_engl.txt