Mere Christianity - Book Two - The Perfect Penitent

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

Book Two

 

WHAT CHRISTIANS BELIEVE

 

 

4. The Perfect Penitent

     We are faced, then, with  a  frightening alternative. This  man  we are
talking  about either  was (and  is) just what He said or else a lunatic, or
something worse. Now it seems to me  obvious  that He was neither a  lunatic
nor a fiend:  and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it
may seem, I have  to accept the view  that He was and is God. God has landed
on this enemy-occupied world in human form.

     And now, what was the purpose of  it all? What did He come to do? Well,
to teach, of  course; but as soon as you look into the  New Testament or any
other  Christian writing  you  will  find they are constantly  talking about
something different-about  His  death and  His coming  to life  again. It is
obvious  that  Christians think the chief point of the story lies here. They
think the main thing He came to earth to do was to suffer and be killed.

     Now before  I  became a Christian I was  under  the impression that the
first thing Christians had  to believe was one particular theory as  to what
the point of this  dying was. According to that  theory God wanted to punish
men for having  deserted and  joined the Great Rebel, but Christ volunteered
to be punished instead, and so  God let us off.  Now  I admit that even this
theory  does not seem to me quite so immoral and so silly as it used to; but
that is not the point  I want  to make. What I came to see later on was that
neither  this theory  nor any  other  is Christianity. The central Christian
belief is that Christ's death has somehow put us right with God and given us
a fresh start Theories as to how it did this are another matter. A good many
different theories have  been held as to  how it  works; what all Christians
are agreed on is that it does work. I will tell you what I think it is like.
All sensible people know that if you are tired and hungry a meal will do you
good. But  the  modern theory  of  nourishment-all  about  the  vitamins and
proteins-is a different thing. People ate their dinners and felt better long
before  the theory  of  vitamins was ever  heard of:  and  if the  theory of
vitamins is some day abandoned they will go on eating their dinners just the
same.  Theories  about   Christ's  death  are  not  Christianity:  they  are
explanations  about how it works.  Christians would not all agree as  to how
important these theories  are. My own  church-the Church of England-does not
lay down any one of  them as  the right one.  The Church  of Rome goes a bit
further. But I think they will all agree that the thing itself is infinitely
more important than any explanations that theologians have produced. I think
they would probably admit that no explanation will ever be quite adequate to
the reality. But as I said in the preface  to this book, I am only a layman,
and at  this point we are getting into  deep water. I can only tell you, for
what it is worth, how I, personally, look at the matter.

     on  my view the theories are not themselves the thing  you are asked to
accept. Many of you no doubt have read Jeans or Eddington. What they do when
they want to explain the atom,  or something of that sort, is  to give you a
description  out of which you can make a mental picture. But then  they warn
you that this picture is  not what the scientists actually believe. What the
scientists believe is a mathematical formula. The pictures are there only to
help you to understand the formula. They are not  really true in the way the
formula is; they  do not give you the real thing but only something more  or
less like it. They are  only meant to help, and if they do  not help you can
drop them. The thing itself  cannot  be pictured, it  can only  be expressed
mathematically. We are in  the same boat here. We believe that the  death of
Christ  is  just  that  point  in  history  at  which  something  absolutely
unimaginable from outside shows through into our own world. And if we cannot
picture even the atoms of which our own world is built, of course we are not
going to be able to picture this. Indeed, if  we  found that  we could fully
understand  it,  that  very fact would show it was not what it professes  to
be-the inconceivable, the uncreated, the thing from  beyond nature, striking
down into nature  like lightning. You  may ask what good will it be to us if
we  do not understand  it.  But that  is easily answered. A man  can eat his
dinner without  understanding  exactly  how  food  nourishes  him. A man can
accept what  Christ  has  done without  knowing  how  it  works: indeed,  he
certainly would not know how it works until he has accepted it.

     We  are told that Christ was  killed for us, that His death  has washed
out  our sins,  and  that by  dying  He  disabled  death itself. That is the
formula. That is Christianity. That is what has to be believed. Any theories
we build up as  to how  Christ's death did all  this are, in my view,  quite
secondary: mere  plans or diagrams to  be left alone if they do not help us,
and, even if they do help us, not to  be confused with the thing itself. All
the same, some of these theories are worth looking at.

     The one most people have  heard is the one I mentioned before -the  one
about our being let  off because Christ had volunteered to bear a punishment
instead of us. Now on the face of it that is a very silly theory. If God was
prepared  to  let us off,  why on earth did He not do so? And what  possible
point  could there be  in punishing an innocent person instead? None  at all
that I can see, if you are thinking of punishment in the police-court sense.
On  the other hand, if you think  of a debt,  there is plenty of  point in a
person who has some assets paying it on behalf of someone who has not. Or if
you take "paying the penalty," not in the  sense of  being punished, but  in
the more general sense of "standing the racket" or "footing the bill," then,
of course, it is a matter of common experience that, when one person has got
himself into a  hole, the trouble of getting him out usually falls on a kind
friend. Now what  was the sort  of "hole" man had  got  himself into? He had
tried to set up on his own, to behave as if he belonged to himself. In other
words, fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement:
he  is  a  rebel  who  must lay  down  his  arms.  Laying  down  your  arms,
surrendering, saying you  are  sorry,  realising  that you have  been on the
wrong track  and  getting ready to  start  life  over again from the  ground
floor-that is the only  way out of a  "hole." This process of surrender-this
movement  full  speed  astern-is   what   Christians  call  repentance.  Now
repentance is  no fun at all. It is something much harder than merely eating
humble  pie. It means unlearning  all the self-conceit and self-will that we
have been training ourselves into for thousands  of years. It means  killing
part of yourself, undergoing a kind of death. In fact, it needs  a good  man
to repent. And here comes the catch. only a bad person needs to repent: only
a good person  can repent perfectly.  The worse you are the more you need it
and the less you can  do it. The only person who could do it perfectly would
be a perfect person-and he would not need it.

     Remember, this repentance, this willing submission to humiliation and a
kind  of death, is not something God demands of you  before He will take you
back and which He could let  you off if He chose: it is simply a description
of what going back to Him is  like. If you ask God to take you  back without
it, you are really  asking  Him  to let you go  back without going back.  It
cannot hap pen. Very well,  then,  we  must go through with it. But the same
badness which makes us need  it, makes us unable to do it. Can we  do it  if
God helps us? Yes, but what do we mean  when  we talk of God helping us?  We
mean God putting into us a bit of Himself, so to speak. He lends us a little
of His reasoning powers and that  is how we think: He puts  a little  of His
love  into  us and that is how  we  love one another. When you teach a child
writing, you hold its hand while it forms the letters: that is, it forms the
letters  because you are forming them. We love  and reason because God loves
and  reasons and holds  our hand while we  do it.  Now if we had not fallen,
that would be all plain sailing. But unfortunately we now need God's help in
order to do  something which God, in His own  nature,  never does  at all-to
surrender, to suffer, to submit, to die. Nothing in God's nature corresponds
to this  process at  all.  So that the one road for  which we now need God's
leadership most of  all is a  road God, in His own nature, has never walked.
God can share only what He has: this thing, in His own nature, He has not.
     But supposing God became  a  man-suppose  our  human  nature which  can
suffer and  die  was amalgamated  with God's  nature in one person-then that
person  could help us. He could surrender  His  will, and  suffer  and  die,
because He was man; and He could do it perfectly because He was God. You and
I can go through this process only if  God does it in us; but  God can do it
only if He becomes  man. Our attempts at this dying  will succeed only if we
men  share in God's dying, just as our thinking can  succeed only because it
is a drop out of  the ocean of His  intelligence: but we cannot share  God's
dying unless God dies; and He cannot die  except by being a man. That is the
sense in which He pays our debt, and suffers for us what He Himself need not
suffer at all.

     I have heard some people complain that if Jesus was God as well as man,
then His sufferings and death lose all value in their eyes, "because it must
have been so easy for him." Others may (very rightly) rebuke the ingratitude
and   ungraciousness   of   this   objection;  what   staggers   me  is  the
misunderstanding it betrays. In one sense, of  course, those who make it are
right.  They  have even understated their own  case. The perfect submission,
the  perfect  suffering, the perfect  death  were not  only  easier to Jesus
because He was God,  but were  possible only because He  was God. But surely
that is  a very odd reason for not  accepting them?  The  teacher is able to
form the letters for the child because the teacher is grown-up and knows how
to write. That, of course, makes it easier for the teacher, and only because
it is easier for him can he help the child. If it rejected him because "it's
easy for grown-ups" and waited to learn writing from another child who could
not write  itself (and so  had  no "unfair" advantage), it would not get  on
very  quickly. If I am  drowning in a rapid  river,  a man who still has one
foot on the bank may give me  a hand which saves my  life. Ought  I to shout
back  (between my gasps) "No, it's not  fair! You have  an advantage! You're
keeping one  foot  on  the bank"? That  advantage-call  it "unfair"  if  you
like-is the  only reason  why  he can be of any use to me. To what  will you
look for help if you will not look to that which is stronger than yourself?

     Such  is my own way of looking at  what Christians call the  Atonement.
But remember this is only one more picture. Do not  mistake it for the thing
itself: and if it does not help you, drop it

 

 

 

 

 

 

A theory is proposed as to how the Atonement of Christ works.

1. Christians believe the main thing that Christ came to earth to do was...?
2. If God was willing to forgive us, why didn't he do so without having an innocent man killed?
3. How does Lewis define repentance?
4. Are humans capable of perfect repentance? How does God help us achieve repentance?
5. Many people say that it was easy for Christ to live a perfect life, suffer, and be crucified since he was God. Why does Lewis think this is a silly reason for criticizing Christianity?

 

 

 

 

I have said that we should never get a Christian society unless most of us became Christian individuals. That does not mean, of course, that we can put off doing anything about society until some imaginary date in the far future. It means that we must begin both jobs at once --(1) the job of seeing how 'Do as you would be done by' can be applied in detail to modern society, and (2) the job of becoming the sort of people who really would apply it if we saw how. I now want to begin considering what the Christian idea of a good man is--the Christian specification for the human machine.

Christian morality claims it is able to '[put] the human machine right.' Advocates of psychoanalysis also make this claim.

psychoanalysis

1. The method of psychological therapy originated by Sigmund Freud in which free association, dream interpretation, and analysis of resistance and transference are used to explore repressed or unconscious impulses, anxieties, and internal conflicts, in order to free psychic energy for mature love and work.

2. The theory of personality developed by Freud that focuses on repression and unconscious forces and includes the concepts of infantile sexuality, resistance, transference, and division of the psyche into the id, ego, and superego.

We need to take care to distinguish between the medical theories of psychoanalysis and Freud's ideas. The medical theories are good and useful. Freud often misapplied them. When a man makes a moral choice two things are involved: the act, and the feelings and impulses inside him

• The act of choosing
• The individual's 'psychological outfit,' or 'raw material
  • The person could have a normal, healthy makeup, or
  • He could be interally 'broken,' with unnatural fears, or damaging history.
    • overblown fears of natural dangers
    • perversions of desire, fear or whatever

Now what psychoanalysis undertakes to do is to remove the abnormal feelings, that is, to give the man better raw material for his acts of choice; morality is concerned with the acts of choice themselves.

Example: Three men go to war.

• The first man is afraid, but healthy, overcomes his fears, and goes on.
• The other two are unable to grapple with their fears, and so a psychoanalyst 'fixes' them. At this point, the psychoanalytical problem is over, and the moral problem begins. These men might now act in one of two ways:
  • The first goes to war, and faces his natural fears in a normal, healthy way.
  • The second might take his new ability to face fears rationally, but use it selfishly to take advantage of others, and avoid his moral obligations.

Now this difference is a purely moral one and psychoanalysis cannot do anything about it. However much you improve the man's raw material, you have still got something else: the real, free choice of the man, on the material presented to him, either to put his own advantage first or to put it last. And this free choice is the only thing that morality is concerned with.

The bad psychological material is not a sin but a disease. It does not need to be repented of, but to be cured. And by the way, that is very important. Human beings judge one another by their external actions. God judges there by their moral choices. When a neurotic who has a pathological horror of cats forces himself to pick up a cat for some good reason, it is quite possible that in God's eyes he has shown more courage than a healthy man may have shown in winning the V.C. (Victorian Cross... similar to a Congressional Medal of Honor.) When a man who has been perverted from his youth and taught that cruelty is the right thing, does some tiny little kindness, or refrains from some cruelty he might have committed, and thereby, perhaps, risks being sneered at by his companions, he may, in God's eyes, be doing more than you and I would do if we gave up life itself for a friend.

Lewis points out that if we are emotionally and mentally healthy, the beneficiaries of good homes and upbringings, but do nothing with it, we could be worse than people we consider fiends.

That is why Christians are told not to judge. We see only the results which a man's choices make out of his raw material. But God does not judge him on the raw material at all, but on what he has done with it. Most of the man's psychological makeup 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 the worst out of this material, will stand naked. All sorts of nice 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.

Good and evil are not marks on a scale, but the action of choosing toward God or away from him. Each choice moves us in the direction we choose. Each choice makes us a little more or less godly. Throughout our lives, we are shaping our 'inner man' into something by the choices we make.

One last point. Remember that, as I said, the right direction leads not only to peace but to knowledge. When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse he understands his own badness less and less. A moderately bad man knows he is not very good: a thoroughly bad man thinks he is all right. This is common sense, really. You understand sleep when you are awake, not while you are sleeping. You can see mistakes in arithmetic when your mind is working properly: while you are making them you cannot see them. You can understand the nature of drunkenness when you are sober, not when you are drunk. Good people know about both good and evil: bad people do not know about either.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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