Mere Christianity - Book Four - Two Notes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Book Four

 

 

Beyond Personality:

Or First Steps In The Doctrine Of The Trinity

 

 

 

6. Two Notes

     In order  to avoid  misunderstanding I  here add  notes  on  two points
arising out of the last chapter.

     (1) one sensible critic wrote asking me why, if God wanted sons instead
of "toy soldiers," He did not beget many sons at the outset instead of first
making toy soldiers and  then bringing them to life by such a difficult  and
painful process. one part of the answer to this question is fairly easy: the
other  part is probably beyond all human  knowledge. The easy  part is this.
The process of being turned from a creature into a  son  would not have been
difficult  or  painful if  the  human  race  had  not turned  away  from God
centuries ago. They  were able to do this because He gave them free will: He
gave them free will because  a world of mere  automata could never  love and
therefore never know infinite happiness. The  difficult part  is  this.  All
Christians are  agreed  that there  is, in the full and original sense, only
one "Son  of God."  If we insist on asking "But could there have been many?"
we find ourselves in very deep  water. Have the  words "Could have been" any
sense at  all when  applied to  God? You can say that one  particular finite
thing "could have been" different from  what it  is,  because it  would have
been different if something else had been  different, and the something else
would have been different if some third thing had been different, and so on.
(The letters on this page would have  been red  if the printer  had used red
ink, and  he would have used red ink  if he had been instructed  to, and  so
on.) But  when you  are  talking  about  God-i.e.  about  the  rock  bottom,
irreducible Fact on  which all other facts depend- it is nonsensical  to ask
if  It  could  have been otherwise. It is what It is, and there is an end of
the matter. But quite apart  from  this, I find a  difficulty about the very
idea of  the  Father begetting  many sons from all eternity.  In order to be
many they would have  to be somehow different  from one another. Two pennies
have  the  same shape. How are  they two? By  occupying different places and
containing different atoms.  In other words, to think of them  as different,
we have had  to  bring in space and matter; in fact we have  had to bring in
"Nature"  or the  created universe. I can understand the distinction between
the Father and the Son without bringing in space or matter, because the  one
begets  and the other is begotten.  The  Father's relation to the Son is not
the same as the Son's relation to the Father. But if there were several sons
they would all be related to one another and to the Father in  the same way.
How would they differ from one another? one  does  not notice the difficulty
at first, of course. one thinks one can form the idea of several "sons." But
when  I think closely, I find that the  idea seemed possible only because  I
was vaguely imagining  them as human forms standing  about together  in some
kind of space.  In  other words, though I  pretended  to  be  thinking about
something that exists  before any universe was made,  I was really smuggling
in the picture of a universe  and putting  that something inside  it. When I
stop doing that and still  try to think of  the Father begetting  many  sons
"before all worlds" I find  I am not really  thinking of anything. The  idea
fades away into mere words. (Was Nature-space  and  time and  matter-created
precisely in order to make manyness possible? Is there perhaps no  other way
of  getting many  eternal  spirits  except  by  first  making  many  natural
creatures, in a universe,  and then spiritualising them?  But  of course all
this is guesswork.)

     (2) The idea that  the whole human race is,  in a sense, one thing -one
huge organism,  like  a  tree-must  not  be  confused  with  the  idea  that
individual differences do not matter or that real people,  Tom and Nobby and
Kate, are somehow less important than collective things like classes, races,
and so forth. Indeed the two ideas are opposites. Things  which are parts of
a single organism  may be very different  from one another: things which are
not, may be very alike. Six pennies are  quite  separate and very alike:  my
nose and my lungs  are very different but they are only alive at all because
they are parts of my  body and share its common life. Christianity thinks of
human individuals not as mere members of a group  or items in a list, but as
organs  in  a body-different from one  another and each contributing what no
other  could.  When  you  find  yourself wanting to  turn your children,  or
pupils, or even your neighbours, into people exactly like yourself, remember
that God probably  never meant them to be that.  You  and they are different
organs, intended  to do different things.  on the  other hand, when  you are
tempted not  to bother about someone else's  troubles because  they are  "no
business of yours," remember that though he is different from you he is part
of the same  organism  as you.  If you forget that he  belongs  to  the same
organism as yourself you will become an Individualist. If you forget that he
is a different organ from you, if you want to  suppress differences and make
people all alike, you will  become a Totalitarian. But a Christian must  not
be either a Totalitarian or an Individualist.

     I feel  a  strong desire to  tell you-and I  expect  you  feel a strong
desire to tell me-which of these two  errors is the worse. That is the devil
getting at  us.  He always  sends  errors into  the  world in pairs-pairs of
opposites. And he always encourages us to spend a lot of time thinking which
is the worse. You see why, of course? He relies on your extra dislike of the
one  error to draw you gradually into the opposite one. But do not let us be
fooled. We have to keep our eyes on the goal and go straight through between
both errors. We have no other concern than that with either of them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two explanations on ideas from chapter V.

1. Lewis refers to one of his critics who asked why God did not beget many sons at the outset instead of using the method of transformation described by Christianity. What are the answers which are given to these questions?
2. Lewis describes Christian doctrine as teaching that human beings are like organs in a body. Trying to make people all the same is called ? Trying to make people forget that they are part of an organism is called?
3. Which is worse, Totalitarian thinking or Individualist thinking? (trick question!)

 

 

 

 

 

Lewis felt compelled to append, as it were, two notes following the previous chaper:

1) If God wanted many sons instead of toy soldiers, why didn't he just beget many sons? This would have skipped the difficult and painful process of transforming the 'toy soldiers' into sons.

• The first part of the answer is fairly easy - the transformation from creature to son would not have been painful had not mankind rebelled against God. The rebellion was the fruit of Free Will. Free Will was the only way to have creatures capable of infinite love and hapiness.
• The second part is complicated by the way we see things from within creation. Two identical pennies, which are identical, but not the same vs. two organs of a body which are not alike, but part of the same organ. In the same way, people are organs, part of the organism of humanity.

2) The whole human race is one organism.

• individuals are unique, but not unrelated
  • it is wrong when we try to make others identical to ourselves.
  • it is equally wrong to dismiss others' problems because they are not our own.

I feel a strong desire to tell you - and I expect you feel a strong desire to tell me-which of these two errors is the worse. That is the devil getting at us. He always sends errors into the world in pairs-pairs of opposites. And he always encourages us to spend a lot of time thinking which is the worse. You see why, of course? He relies on your extra dislike of the one error to draw you gradually into the opposite one. But do not let us be fooled. We have to keep our eyes on the goal and go straight through between both errors. We have no other concern than that with either of them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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