Mere Christianity - Book Two - The Shocking Alternative

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Book Two

 

WHAT CHRISTIANS BELIEVE

 

 

3. The Shocking Alternative

     Christians,  then, believe that an evil power  has made himself for the
present the Prince of this World.  And, of course, that  raises problems. Is
this state of affairs in  accordance with God's will or not? If it is, He is
a  strange God, you  will say: and if  it  is not, how can  anything  happen
contrary to the will of a being with absolute power?

     But  anyone who  has  been  in authority  knows how a thing  can  be in
accordance with  your will in  one  way and not  in another. It may be quite
sensible for a mother  to say to the children, "I'm not going to go and make
you tidy the schoolroom every night. You've got to learn to keep  it tidy on
your own." Then she goes up one  night  and finds the Teddy bear and the ink
and the French Grammar all lying in the grate. That is against her will. She
would prefer the children to be tidy. But on the  other hand, it is her will
which has left the children free to be untidy. The same thing  arises in any
regiment, or trade union, or  school. You make a  thing  voluntary  and then
half the people do not do it. That is not what you willed, but your will has
made it possible.

     It  is probably the same in the  universe. God created things which had
free  will. That means creatures  which can  go either  wrong or right. Some
people  think  they  can  imagine  a  creature which  was  free but  had  no
possibility of going wrong; I cannot. If a  thing is free to  be  good it is
also  free to  be bad. And free will  is  what  has made evil possible. Why,
then, did God give them free will?  Because  free  will though it makes evil
possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or
joy worth  having.  A  world  of  automata-of  creatures  that  worked  like
machines-would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for
His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to
Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight  compared with which
the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk
and water. And for that they must be free.

     Of  course God knew  what would happen if  they used their  freedom the
wrong way: apparently He thought it worth the risk. Perhaps we feel inclined
to disagree with Him. 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. If God thinks  this state of war in the universe a price
worth  paying  for  free  will-that  is, for making  a  live world in  which
creatures  can do real  good  or  harm  and something of real importance can
happen,  instead  of  a  toy  world  which  only moves  when  He  pulls  the
strings-then we may take it it is worth paying.

     When we have understood about free will,  we shall see  how silly it is
to ask, as somebody  once asked  me:  "Why  did  God make a creature of such
rotten stuff that it went wrong?" The better stuff a creature is made of-the
cleverer and stronger and freer it is-then  the better it will be if it goes
right, but also the worse it will be if it goes  wrong. A cow cannot be very
good or very  bad; a dog can be both better  and worse;  a  child better and
worse still; an ordinary man, still more so; a man of genius, still more so;
a superhuman spirit best-or worst-of all.

     How  did the Dark  Power go wrong? Here, no doubt, we ask a question to
which human  beings cannot give an answer with  any  certainty. A reasonable
(and traditional) guess, based on  our own experiences of  going wrong, can,
however, be  offered.  The  moment  you have a  self  at  all,  there  is  a
possibility of putting Yourself first-wanting to be the centre-wanting to be
God,  in fact. That was the sin of Satan: and that was the sin he taught the
human race. Some people think the fall of man had something to do with  sex,
but  that is a mistake. (The story in the Book  of Genesis  rather  suggests
that  some corruption in our  sexual nature  followed  the fall and  was its
result,  not  its  cause.)  What  Satan put  into  the  heads of  our remote
ancestors was the idea that they could  "be like gods"-could set up on their
own as if they had created  themselves-be their own masters-invent some sort
of happiness  for themselves outside  God, apart  from God.  And out of that
hopeless  attempt has  come nearly  all  that we  call  human history-money,
poverty, ambition, war,  prostitution,  classes, empires,  slavery-the  long
terrible story  of man trying to find something  other  than  God which will
make him happy.

     The reason why  it can never succeed  is this. God made us: invented us
as a man  invents an engine.  A car is made to run on gasoline, and it would
not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run
on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the
food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it
is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering
about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself,
because it is not there. There is no such thing.

     That is the key to  history.  Terrific energy is expended-civilisations
are  built up-excellent  institutions devised; but each time  something goes
wrong. Some fatal flaw always brings the selfish and cruel people to the top
and it all slides back  into misery and ruin. In fact, the machine conks. It
seems to start up  all right and runs a  Jew yards, and then it breaks down.
They are trying to run it on the wrong juice. That is what Satan has done to
us humans.

     And what  did God do? First  of all He left us conscience, the sense of
right and wrong: and all through history there have been people trying (some
of them very hard) to obey it. None of them ever  quite succeeded. Secondly,
He sent  the human race what I call good dreams: I mean those  queer stories
scattered all through the heathen religions  about a god who  dies and comes
to life again and, by his death, has somehow given new life to men. Thirdly,
He selected one particular people and spent several centuries hammering into
their  heads the sort of God He was -that there was only one of Him and that
He  cared about  right  conduct. Those  people  were the  Jews, and the  Old
Testament gives an account of the hammering process.

     Then comes  the real shock. Among these Jews there  suddenly turns up a
man  who goes about talking as if He was God. He claims to forgive sins.  He
says He has always existed. He says He is  coming to judge the world at  the
end of  time. Now let us get this clear. Among Pantheists, like the Indians,
anyone  might say that he was a part of God, or one with God: there would be
nothing  very odd about it. But this man, since He was a Jew, could not mean
that kind of God. God, in their language, meant the  Being outside the world
Who had made it and was  infinitely  different from anything else.  And when
you have  grasped that,  you will  see that what  this man  said was,  quite
simply, the most shocking thing that has ever been uttered by human lips.

     one  part  of the claim tends to slip past us unnoticed because we have
heard it so often that we no longer see what it amounts to. I mean the claim
to forgive sins: any sins. Now unless the speaker is God,  this is really so
preposterous as to  be  comic.  We can all  understand  how  a  man forgives
offences  against himself. You  tread on my toe and I forgive you, you steal
my  money  and  I forgive  you.  But  what should we make of a  man, himself
unrobbed and untrodden on, who announced that he forgave you for treading on
other  men's  toes and  stealing  other  men's money? Asinine fatuity is the
kindest description  we  should give  of his conduct. Yet this is what Jesus
did.  He  told people  that  their sins  were forgiven,  and never waited to
consult  all the other people  whom their sins had  undoubtedly injured.  He
unhesitatingly behaved as if He was  the party chiefly concerned, the person
chiefly offended in all offences. This makes sense only if He really was the
God  whose laws are broken and whose  love is wounded in  every sin. In  the
mouth of any speaker who is not God, these words would imply what I can only
regard as  a  silliness and  conceit unrivalled  by  any  other character in
history.

     Yet (and this is the strange, significant thing) even His enemies, when
they read  the Gospels, do not usually  get the impression  of silliness and
conceit. Still less do unprejudiced readers. Christ says that He  is "humble
and meek" and we  believe Him; not noticing that, if  He were merely  a man,
humility  and meekness are the very last characteristics we could  attribute
to some of His sayings.

     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 either be 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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lewis discusses what he calls Christianity-and-water.

1. There are many people who reject Christian doctrine because it is not simple. What is Lewis' answer to this criticism?
2. There are two views of good and evil that are discussed by Lewis, what are they?
3. Why does Lewis reject dualism?
4. According to Lewis' analogy of being in enemy territory, we go to church in order to...?

 

 

 

 

• Christians believe that "an evil power has made himself for the present the Prince of this World."
• Problem: Is this in accordance with God's will?
• "If it is, He is a strange God... and if it is not, how can anything happen contrary to the will of a being with absolute power?"
• God created things with free will
  • Free will means those things can go right or wrong
  • Free will makes evil possible

  • "... Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata -- of creatures that worked like machines -- would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water. And for that they must be free."

  • "Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently he thought it worth the risk. Perhaps we feel inclined to disagree with Him. 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 and 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. If God thinks this state of war in the universe a price worth paying for free will -- that is, for making a live world in which creatures can do real good or harm and something of real importance can happen, instead of a toy world which only moves when He pulls the strings -- then we may take it it is worth paying."

• The better stuff something is made of ("the cleverer and stronger and freer it is"), the better it is when it works right and the worse it is when things go wrong.
• "How did the Dark Power go wrong?"
  • having a 'self' gives us the opportunity to put ourselves first -- before God.
  • wanting to be the center -- wanting to be God.
  • Lucifer tried to become God
  • Satan (the fallen Lucifer) put the seed of "becoming like God" into Eve's (and presumably Adam's) ear.

  • "And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we cal human history -- money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery -- the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy."

  • [I call this The Sin. Because, really, there is only one sin -- putting ourselves before or in place of God. Any time we try to replace God with food or drugs or sex or relationships or money or perversions, we are ultimately trying to put ourselves in the place of God. Atheism is the perfect example of people who would rather worship themselves than to worship God.]
• Why it will never succeed

  • "God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on [gasoline], and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing."

  • This is the key to history -- civilizations grow up with good institutions, but always a fatal flaw brings the evil and corrupt people to power, and it crumbles, and the machines grinds down on itself. "They are trying to run it on the wrong juice. That is what Satan has done to us humans."
• So, what did God do about this?
  • He left us our conscience, telling us right from wrong.
  • He sent "good dreams": those "queer stories" about a God that comes to men and dies and returns to life -- a story that is scattered across all cultures and people.
  • He called out the Jews, and revealed Himself to them through history

The the shock!

• a man turns up among the Jews who "goes about talking as if He was God. He claims to forgive sins. He says He is has always existed. He says He is coming to judge the world at the end of time."
• This is particularly strange because, although this would be of no special account among pantheists, this is completely outside of Judaism.
• Coming from a Jew, the claim to be God cannot be dismissed as anything other than the Christian understanding of Jesus being the creator.

Special note -- the claim to forgive sins

• Sometimes we fail to grasp the power of Jesus' claim to forgive sins.
  

  "I mean the claim to forgive sins: any sins. Now unless the speaker is God, this is really so preposterous as to be comic. We can all understand how a man forgives offenses against himself. You tread on my toes and I forgive you, you steal my money and I forgive you. But what should we make of of a man, himself unrobbed and untrodden on, who announces that he forgave you for treading on other men's toes and stealing other men's money?"

• This is exactly what Jesus did!
• Jesus acted as if he were the party principally offended by all sins!
• How absurd!
• We are not given the impression that his enemies found him silly, conceited or comical or insane.
• He describes himself and "humble and meek," and yet this behavior is completely opposite of that...

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 either be 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 away with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://lib.ru/LEWISCL/mere_engl.txt 

http://www.opendiscipleship.org/Mere_Christianity_leaders_notes

http://www.gordy-stith.com/Mere%20Christianity/mere_christianity_study_guide.htm