Mere Christianity (Book I, II, III) - C. S. Lewis

Ricardo DIEGUE Lewis, C. S. Mere Christianity (Book I, II, III). New York: HarperOne, 1980. ___________Abolition of Man. New York: HarperOne, 1974. Book Reviews About the author Clive Staples Lewis is one of the most influential intellectual and prolific writers of his time. He was born in Belfast, Ireland in 1898 and died on November 22, 1963. He was a Fellow and Tutor at Oxford University. He was a Christian who adhered to atheism then reconverted to Christianity. He is the author of numerous books (more than thirty), among them Mere Christianity, The Abolition of Man, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Great Divorce, The Screwtape Letters, The Problem of Pain, Miracles, A Grief Observed. Primary thesis, purpose, and description of the book C. S. Lewis makes it clear that his intention is not to help readers decide between different Christian denominations. “You will not learn from me whether you ought to become an Anglican, a Methodist, a Presbyterian, or a Roman Catholic.”1 In other words, this is not a doctrinal book per se. His Mere Christianity is here put forward as an alternative to the creeds of the existing communions. (page 10)” The book presents the quintessence of Christianity. Throughout the lines of this book, the theme Christian morality is widely discussed. The author also defends the existence of God in a very apologetic way – as well as the Christian faith. Mere Christianity is a set of four books: “Right and Wrong as a Clue to the Meaning of the Universe”, “What Christians Believe”, “Christian Behaviour”, and “Beyond Personality: or First Steps in the Doctrine of the Trinity”. For the purpose of this assignment, only the first three books will be considered. In The Abolition of Man2, C. S. Lewis basically exposes the theory about the subjectivism of value of judgments. It contains three books based on a story from an English textbook where the authors create allusion from reality and personal emotions. Content In the first part of his book, C. S. Lewis covers the area of Human nature when it comes to right and wrong. In the second part, Lewis is addressing what he calls “Moral Law” or the Role of Decent Behavior. Moral Law, he says, is not a herd instinct (19). He also disagrees that it is not a social or human convention. It is rather what convinces us to do what we should instead of our desire to do or not to do something. In the third part, he establishes the reality of the law. In fact, he contrasts the law of 1 C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianityin The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics, (New York: HarperOne, 2002), 5. 2 C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man in The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics, (New York: HarperOne, 2002), 5. 1 2 gravity, which is for instance a law of nature, with the Law of Human Nature, the Law of Decent Behaviour. The law of nature tells us “what nature, in fact, does”; however, the Law of Human Nature means what human being ought to do and not do (25). He explains that human nature works in such way that they don’t only prove how they in fact behave but also how they ought to behave. The fourth part of the first book presents two views when it comes to the universe. The first one pretends that the universe would be the result of a hazardous event. It is the materialist view. This view is based the predominance of matter and space and is more scientifically explanative. The other view is called a “religious view” and implies that there is a purpose, a mind behind the existence of the universe. He also considers an inbetween view called Life-Force philosophy, Creative Evolution, or Emergent Evolution (31). Because some people would think that man is the result of the purposiveness of a Life-Force, Lewis questions if that should be something with a mind or not. If it has a mind, he calls it a God. If not, then he does not understand why something without a mind would have “purposes”. Finally, he attempts to explain morality as related to religion, especially Christianity with components such as unselfishness, courage, good faith, honesty… In the second book, he covers the Christian beliefs. He first approaches the different views about whether there is a God or not and admits that Christians join with the majority that believe God does exists. Further, he establishes a subdivision about the conceptions of God. Pantheists think the whole universe is actually God. On the other hand, Christians believe that God indeed created the universe and is maintaining it. Yet, some arguments go against injustice in the world while God is considered “just” (41). Lewis argues that having a sense of injustice is a means that justice is possible. In chapter two of the second book, he points the reality of good and bad in the world. He defends that Christianity believes that we are living in a world that has gone bad, but we know that it ought to have been going in a good manner. And, the Dualism view, believes that the world is the battlefield of two equal powers, good and bad, fighting endlessly (43). He argues – based on what he read on the NT – against Dualism and says that “Christianity thinks this Dark Power [the bad] was created by God, and was good when created, but went wrong. Christianity agrees with Dualism that this universe is at war (45).” In the next chapter, he discusses the problem of evil in the world, but advices not attempt to disagree with God who created man with free will instead of some sort of machines. Because man had free will, they could choose from good and bad even though God told them what they should not do. Yet, Satan put into “the heads of our remote ancestors the idea that they could be “like gods” (48). Then God would leave them conscience, the sense of right and wrong, then sent human race to what Lewis calls good dreams (giving new life to men from death), and finally choose a people to rescue mankind. Jesus is the final alternative. The fourth part reflects on the deity of Jesus. In Christianity, Jesus came to teach of course, but mostly “to suffer and be killed (52).” He further relates the formula for Christianity: “that Christ was killed for us, that his death was washed out our sins, and that by dying He disabled death itself.” The final chapter concludes with some applications: “Now if Christian belief is that if we somehow share the humility and suffering of Christ we shall also share in His conquest of death and find a new life after we have died and in it become perfect, and perfectly happy, creatures (57). He continues to suggest that the good from Christians is different to other religions (and other people who are trying to be good) in the sense that when they are well behaving it basically comes from the Christ-life inside them. The third book is titled “Christian Behaviour”. It is a set of twelve chapters. In the first chapter “The Three Parts of Morality”, he defines morality as “directions for running the human machine… to prevent a breakdown, or a strain, or a friction, in the running of that machine (65).” He explains two ways the human machine goes: colliding with one another and things that go wrong inside of individuals. Morality seems to be concerned with harmony between individuals, harmonizing things inside each individual and the general purpose of human life. Chapter two covers the four “Cardinal virtues”: 3 prudence, temperance, justice and fortitude. All civilized people recognize them. The three others are called “theological virtues” (70). In the next chapter, about social morality, he relates that “the real job of every moral teacher is to keep on bringing us back, time after time, to the old simple principles… (74)” The Golden Rule of the New Testament “Do as you would be done by” is universal in space and time. Chapter four, Lewis compares Christian morality to psychoanalysis. “Christian morality is a technique for putting the human machine right”, he says. Psychoanalysis, on the other hand, is medical theories and technique, and the general philosophical view of the world which Freud and others have gone on to add to his (78). About “Sexual Morality”, Lewis considers morality as a virtue of chastity, which is not to be confused with the social rule of modesty, propriety and decency. To Christians, chastity [about sex] means “marriage, faithfulness or abstinence” (84). Biologically speaking, sex’s purpose is procreation (children). He relates the perversion of the sex instinct and advices others to be willing to be cured from such disease. He cites three misunderstandings about sex: the warped natures is coercing that the desires are natural and reasonable, that chastity is impossible, that repressing sex is dangerous (which is not suppressing sexual feelings). In chapter six, he tends to address the morality issue in a more positive angle: Christian marriage. The Christian idea of marriage, he says, is based on Christ’s words that a man and wife are to be regarded as a single organism – one flesh (90). Marriage is therefore for life even though other churches admit divorce. Lewis sees marriage in the light of justice because he argues that it includes the keeping of promises. He cherishes “being in love” and praises it as a glorious state; yet he thinks that should not be more important than keeping the promises. He argues against “readjustments of partners”. He also pleads in favor of man as “head” or marriage. About “Forgiveness”, chapter seven, the Christian rule stipules “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” and neighbors includes “thy enemy”, recognizes Lewis. He explains that loving enemies does not mean that they are nice people. Although he might love an enemy, Lewis does not have any problem to let an enemy purge a punishment for justice. He is fine with army killing or a Christian judge sentence a man to death. He strongly argues: “All killing is not murder any more than all sexual intercourse is adultery (100).” The next chapter covers what he calls the “great sin”, a vice, “Pride or Self-Conceit”, opposite of Humility. The author states that pride is essentially competitive; yet, it can be only by accident. Pride also means enmity (between man and man, and to God). He says that pride is a spiritual cancer and can avoid love and contentment. In chapter nine to twelve, he completes the first four major virtues (Cardinal virtues) he spoke about in chapter two. The three theological virtues are Faith, Hope and Charity (109). Charity at first meant “giving to the poor”, but in the Christian sense it means “Love”. The Abolition of Man starts with this story of Gaius and Titius (authors of The Green Book)commenting on a man using “sublime” or “pretty” in such a personal way that the word itself doesn’t corroborate to reality anymore. C. S. Lewis criticizes this process because he thinks the authors did it because literary criticism is difficult, and that bad treatment of some basic human emotion is bad literature and therefore literacy criticism is a very hard thing to do3. Secondly, maybe the authors truly misunderstood the pressing educational need of the moment, and thirdly, they might be ready to admit that a good education should build some sentiments while destroying others. Many thinkers shared the tendency of the Chinese concept of Tao that is the reality beyond all predicates. This approach is based on the presupposition that certain attitudes are really true and others false. This is called doctrine of objective value (701). Such doctrine makes of man the realm of all values. 3 The Abolition of Man, page 699. 4 Problematic Ideas One of the problematic ideas that not only C. S. Lewis could not really “resolve” is about the free will in creation. Lewis agrees that the problem of evil (the Dark Power) is a result of man created with free will. Free will has been a tough topic when it comes to understanding that God had a foreknowledge of the Dark Power as eventual part of universe at certain part. He even strangely mentions that “He [God] apparently thought it worth the risk.”4This had been a dilemma in Calvinistic and the Armenian view of salvation. Their doctrine soteriology differs based on the fact that for one (Arminius) believes that we still have the free will to choose God at certain point in the order of salvation whereas the other (Calvin) does not and reinforces his view of predestination in the ordo salutis. Atheists often argue with the ideas that bad exist because God allows it to exist since He had the prescience (omniscience, foreknowledge) to see it and the omnipotence to avoid it. It is also true that otherwise it would be a world that would hardly be worth creating, says Lewis, because it would be considered as “a world of automata –of creatures that worked like machines.”5He apparently advices not to try to accuse God for letting it happens. However, that advice would not be coherent for an unbeliever who of course does not feel any “fear” for God. He continues: “But there is a difficulty about disagreeing with God. He is the source from which all your reasoning power comes: you could not be right and He wrong any more than a stream can rise higher than its own source. When you are arguing against Him you are arguing against the very power that makes you able to argue at all: it is like cutting off the branch you are sitting on.”(48) Such argument does not seem to be substantial enough for an atheist. Yet, I myself [a believer], by faith, accepts the power of God and agree on my incapacity of apprehending details about the creation, bad and evil in the world. I agree that my very nature had been deteriorated by sins. I agree that my human nature is not significant enough to grab all truth. Yet, it is not so for an atheist philosopher who indeed rejects the doctrine of hamartiology. Insights in this book that practically relate to life and ministry, the life of the church, and to moral life in America One the chapter about “sexual morality”, the Christian rule states: “Either marriage, with complete faithfulness to your partner, or else total abstinence” (84). Remember that “every moral rule is there to prevent a breakdown, or a strain, or a friction in the running of that machine (the human machine) (65). People tend to criticize Christian morality and promote “emancipation”. It is the church mission to stand firm on his belief that sexual act should be exclusive and an act reserved for marital union only, otherwise abstinence should be the option. However, both parents and the church should find ways to make it a positive experience, an enjoyable act of obedience. Lewis makes two remarkable statements about progress that can very helpful and inspiring for spiritual growth. “Progress means not just changing but changing for the better (22).” And “We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be (33).” It is clear that for any Christian, the biblical worldview is what should shape his mind and understanding. The conception of progress can really be destroyed for a Christian. In the secular world, progress can mean getting a degree, having paycheck or being promoted at a job, having children and other worldly things. Nothing is 4 5 Mere Christianity, 48. Ibidem. 5 wrong with any of these. However, the most important step in progress should be the step that brings a Christian closer to God. Spiritual growth is a sign of success. In fact, Lewis describes progress as “getting nearer to the place where you want to be”. That place should be God’s presence. Critiques C. S. Lewis seems to be very apologetic in his way of progressing with the content of his book. One of the great pleas made by Lewis in his first book is his “objections” about Moral Law, that he also calls the Rule of Decent Behaviour or the Law of Right and Wrong. He is convinced that even though one might think moral laws cannot be universal and that they are all social conventions based on culture, there is a sense in human beings that says the opposite. He says “though the difference between people’s ideas of Decent Behaviour often make you suspect that there is no real natural Law of Behaviour at all, yet the things we are bound to think about these differences really prove just the opposite (22). This approach is coherent to apostle Paul’s declaration to the Romans when he argues in regards to the Jews “They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them. (Rom. 2:15)” Ever since one might feel he might be above of what I could call a natural law that governed human nature, there is something in the very nature of human being that is telling that really exists “in human”. C. S. Lewis makes it clear: “The Law of Human Nature must be something above and beyond the actual facts [the way we do behave] of human behaviour (100).” In this case, he says, you have something else [different in the Laws of Nature] – a real law which we did not invent and which we know we ought to obey. This is to mean that moral law is intrinsic and that no one can ignore it. However, some of Lewis’s ideas in Mere Christianity are disputable, especially atheist philosopher. I have mentioned and discussed the idea of man created with free will. Let me report his idea about death of an enemy for instance: “Does loving your enemy mean not punishing him? No, for loving myself does not mean that I ought not to subject myself to punishment –even to death. If you had committed a murder, the right Christian thing to do would be to give yourself up to the police and be hanged. It is, therefore, in my opinion, perfectly right for a Christian judge to sentence a man to death or a Christian soldier to kill an enemy.” (100) These are very strong words when it comes to death penalty. I do have some problems with the boldness of his declaration (even I agree that he is being honest in his expressions).I understand Lewis’s society could have admitted death penalty. However, nowadays, the death penalty topic among Christian churches can be debated with no certainty that it is biblically supported (although we recognize that Paul himself recommends the submission to authority). Should now Christian support death penalty? Overall, this is a great resource about Christian morality and ethics and some Christian apologetics. The author discusses the topics in a very coherent and methodical manner. Both the content and process are fairly developed. I would recommend Mere Christianity and The Abolition of Man to theologians, Christian moralists, Christian philosophers and apologists.