You can look at my more detailed notes, but this is an overview of the content of Book II of “Mere Christianity”…
Chapter 1 – “Rival Conceptions of God”
Quotations
Truth in other religions
If you are Christian you do not have to believe that all the other religions are simply wrong all through. If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake. If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all those religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of the truth…[However,] as in arithmetic – there is only one right answer to a sum…but some of the wrong answers are much nearer being right than others
Pantheism
…these people think that long before you got anywhere near the divine point of view the distinction [between good and evil] would have disappeared altogether…
Pantheists usually believe that God, so to speak, animates the universe as you animate your body: that the universe almost is God, so that if it did not exist He would not exist either, and anything you find in the universe is a part of God…
If you do not take the distinction between good an bad very seriously, then it is easy to say that anything you find in this world is a part of God
Non-Pantheists
…[these people believe in] a God who takes sides, who loves love and hates hatred, who wants us to behave in one way and not in another…
…God invented and made the universe – like a man making a picture or composing a tune. A painter is not a picture, and he does not die if his picture is destroyed
…if you think some things really bad, and God really good, then you cannot talk like that. You must believe that God is separate from the world and that some of the things we see in it are contrary to His will…a great many things have gone wrong with the world that God made and that God insists, and insists very loudly, on putting them right again
Evil and God
My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line…I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that then my argument against God collapsed too – for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies
Questions
1. Why does Jack say that when he became a Christian he adopted the more “liberal” view?
2. Is it possible to affirm the truth of other religions while still holding to the absolute truth claims of Christianity?
3. Can you think of any religion completely devoid of ALL truth?
4. Into what two central conceptions of God does Jack say people hold? Do you think we could divide it up in a different way?
5. In what way do these conceptions of God and our attitudes towards the Moral Law and the Universe relate to each other?
6. Why does the very question of asking about evil in the world presuppose the existence of God?
Picking back up my notes for C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity”…
Notes & Quotes
1. Many people think of morality as something which interferes, particularly with our enjoyment.
(a) However, morality is there for our own good.
“…moral rules are directions for running the human machine. Every moral rule is there to prevent a breakdown, or a strain, or a friction, in the running of that machine”
(b) What might initially seem right to us will cause problems.
“When you are being taught how to use any machine, the instructor keeps on saying, ‘No, don’t do it like that,’ because, of course, there are all sorts of things that look all right and seem to you the natural way of treating the machine, but do not really work”
2. Some people prefer to talk about “ideals” and “idealism” rather than “rules” and “obedience”.
(a) However, it is misleading to call moral perfection an ideal because it implies that it’s a private taste and therefore not binding on all
“When a man says that a certain woman…is ‘his ideal’ he does not mean…that everyone else ought to have the same ideal. In such matters we are entitled to have different tastes and, therefore, different ideals”
(b) It could lead to pride…
“It might lead you to become a prig and to think you were rather a special person who deserved to be congratulated on his ‘idealism'”
(c) …and this is as foolish as being congratulated in trying to not make a mistake in your arithmetic
“…you might just as well expect to be congratulated because, whenever you do a sum, you try to get it quite right. To be sure, perfect arithmetic is ‘an ideal’; you will certainly make some mistakes in some calculations. But there is nothing very fine about trying to be quite accurate at each step in each sum.
It would be idiotic not to try; for every mistake is going to cause you trouble later on. In the same way every moral failure is going to cause trouble, probably to others and certainly to yourself. By talking about rules and obedience instead of “ideals” and ‘idealism’ we help to remind ourselves of these facts”
3. Morality can be expressed in the metaphor of a fleet of ships
(a) The ships must have internal integrity and external integrity in relation to one another
“The voyage will be a success only, in the first place, if the ships do not collide and get in one another’s way; and, secondly, if each ship is seaworthy and has her engines in good order
…you cannot have either of these two things without the other. If the ships keep on having collisions they will not remain seaworthy very long. On the other hand, if their steering gears are out of order they will not be able to avoid collisions”
(c) Additionally, the final destination is fundamentally important
“…however well the fleet sailed, its voyage would be a failure if it were meant to reach New York and actually arrived at Calcutta”
4. An alternative metaphor is that of a musical band
“…think of humanity as a band playing a tune. To get a good result, you need two things. Each player’s individual instrument must be in tune and also each must come in at the right moment so as to combine with all the others.
…The instruments might be all in tune and might all come in at the right moment, but even so the performance would not be a success if they had been engaged to provide dance music and actually played nothing but Dead Marches”
5. We may therefore conclude that morality concerns three things:
(a) Exterior: Social relations with other humans
(b) Interior: The harmonising of the interior life
(c) Teleological: In relation to the purpose of man and his creator
6. When speaking about morality, modernity tends to ignore the last two
“When people say in the newspapers that we are striving for Christian moral standards, they usually mean that we are striving for kindness and fair play between nations, and classes, and individuals; that is, they are thinking only of the first thing”
(a) It is quite natural to focus on the first one because its effects are obvious and there is general agreement
“…the results of bad morality in that sphere are so obvious and press on us every day: war and poverty and graft and lies and shoddy work. And also, as long as you stick to the first thing, there is very little disagreement about morality”
(b) However, we can’t stop there…
“Unless we go on to the second thing-the tidying up inside each human being-we are only deceiving ourselves.
What is the good of telling the ships how to steer so as to avoid collisions if, in fact, they are such crazy old tubs that they cannot be steered at all? What is the good of drawing up, on paper, rules for social behaviour, if we know that, in fact, our greed, cowardice, ill temper, and self-conceit are going to prevent us from keeping them?”
(c) We must consider the individual’s morality (the “second thing”) because we rely upon it
“…nothing but the courage and unselfishness of individuals is ever going to make any system work properly
It is easy enough to remove the particular kinds of graft or bullying that go on under the present system: but as long as men are twisters or bullies they will find some new way of carrying on the old game under the new system. You cannot make men good by law: and without good men you cannot have a good society. That is why we must go on to think of the second thing: of morality inside the individual”
(d) We must also consider our purpose (the “third thing”)…
“…religion involves a series of statements about facts, which must be either true or false. If they are true, one set of conclusions will follow about the right sailing of the human fleet: if they are false, quite a different set”
(i) …because the answer to this question may reveal responsibilities
“…If somebody else made me, for his own purposes, then I shall have a lot of duties which I should not have if I simply belonged to myself”
(ii) …and because it makes a difference whether we live forever
“…there are a good many things which would not be worth bothering about if I were going to live only seventy years, but which I had better bother about very seriously if I am going to live for ever”
(A) Moral Trajectory
“Perhaps my bad temper or my jealousy are gradually getting worse – so gradually that the increase in seventy years will not be very noticeable. But it might be absolute hell in a million years: in fact, if Christianity is true, Hell is the precisely correct technical term for what it would be”
(B) The individual and society
“If individuals live only seventy years, then a state, or a nation, or a civilisation, which may last for a thousand years, is more important than an individual. But if Christianity is true, then the individual is not only more important but incomparably more important, for he is everlasting and the life of a state or a civilisation, compared with his, is only a moment”
7. Jack is going to assume the Christian point of view moving forward
“For the rest of this book I am going to assume the Christian point of view, and look at the whole picture as it will be if Christianity is true”
Discussion Questions
1. How do many people view morality? How does Jack present it?
2. Why should we not be surprised when we find that morality “interferes”?
3. What is the problem with talking about morals as “ideals”?
4. What are the two metaphors Jack uses to explain the different components of morality?
5. What are these three parts of morality? Around which parts are there consensus?
6. What can we not just stop at inter-personal morality? Why does interior morality matter? What are the consequences for society?
Picking back up my notes for C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity”…
Notes & Quotes
1. We may speak of Christian morality in terms of the seven virtues
(b) Three are called “Theological” virtues
“…as a rule, only Christians know about [these]…”
(a) Four are called “Cardinal” virtues
“…all civilised people recognise [these]… It comes from a Latin word meaning “the hinge of a door…they are, as we should say, ‘pivotal'”
(i) Prudence
“Prudence means practical common sense, taking the trouble to think out what you are doing and what is likely to come of it”
Some think that prudence isn’t really a virtue and that it’s okay to be a foolish and childish, but…
(a) Christ wants us to grow
“Christ never meant that we were to remain children in intelligence… He wants us to be simple, single-minded, affectionate, and teachable, as good children are; but He also wants every bit of intelligence we have to be alert at its job, and in first-class fighting trim.
He has room for people with very little sense, but He wants every one to use what sense they have”
(b) Christianity is an education in itself
“Anyone who is honestly trying to be a Christian will soon find his intelligence being sharpened: one of the reasons why it needs no special education to be a Christian is that Christianity is an education itself. That is why an uneducated believer like Bunyan* was able to write a book that has astonished the whole world”
* John Bunyan, the author of “The Pilgrim’s Progress”.
(ii) Temperance
“Temperance referred not specially to drink, but to all pleasures; and it meant not abstaining, but going the right length and no further”
(a) Temperance, or even abstinence, does not mean the thing is bad in and of itself
“…An individual Christian may see fit to give up all sorts of things for special reasons-marriage, or meat, or beer, or the cinema; but the moment he starts saying the things are bad in themselves, or looking down his nose at other people who do use them, he has taken the wrong turning”
(b) We should not think that temperance is restricted to drink
“One great piece of mischief has been done by the modern restriction of the word Temperance to the question of drink. It helps people to forget that you can be just as intemperate about lots of other things. A man who makes his golf or his motor-bicycle the centre of his life, or a woman who devotes all her thoughts to clothes or bridge or her dog, is being just as “intemperate” as someone who gets drunk every evening. Of course, it does not show on the outside so easily: bridge-mania or golf-mania do not make you fall down in the middle of the road. But God is not deceived by externals”
(iii) Justice
“It is the old name for everything we should now call “fairness”; it includes honesty, give and take, truthfulness, keeping promises, and all that side of life”
(iv) Fortitude
“And Fortitude includes both kinds of courage-the kind that faces danger as well as the kind that “sticks it” under pain. “Guts” is perhaps the nearest modern English. You will notice, of course, that you cannot practise any of the other virtues very long without bringing this one into play”
2. There is a difference between an individual act and a character
“Someone who is not a good tennis player may now and then make a good shot. What you mean by a good player is the man whose eye and muscles and nerves have been so trained by making innumerable good shots that they can now be relied on… In the same way a man who perseveres in doing just actions gets in the end a certain quality of character. Now it is that quality rather than the particular actions which we mean when we talk of ‘virtue'”
If we think only of particular actions, embrace three wrong ideas:
(a) How and why don’t matter
“…whether you did it willingly or unwillingly, sulkily or cheerfully, through fear of public opinion or for its own sake. But the truth is that right actions done for the wrong reason do not help to build the internal quality or character called a “virtue,” and it is this quality or character that really matters”
(b) God cares more about rules
“We might think that God wanted simply obedience to a set of rules: whereas He really wants people of a particular sort”
(c) Virtues are only for this life
“Now it is quite true that there will probably be no occasion for just or courageous acts in the next world, but there will be every occasion for being the sort of people that we can become only as the result of doing such acts here… if people have not got at least the beginnings of those qualities inside them, then no possible external conditions could make a “Heaven” for them…”
Discussion Questions
1. What are the “Cardinal Virtues”?
2. What is the difference between the “Cardinal” and “Theological” virtues?
3. Why might some Christians not think that prudence is a virtue?
4. Why is it dangerous to restrict “temperance” to “drink” and “teetotalism”?
5. What is the difference between acts and character? How might we go wrong if we think more about acts than character?
Picking back up my notes for C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity”…
Notes & Quotes
1. Christ did not preach a brand new morality
“The Golden Rule of the New Testament (Do as you would be done by) is a summing up of what everyone, at bottom, had always known to be right… As Dr. Johnson said, ‘People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed'”
2. Christianity is not a political programme
(a) It is not a detailed set of rules
“…Christianity has not, and does not profess to have, a detailed political programme for applying “Do as you would be done by” to a particular society at a particular moment”
(b) It is, instead, meant to act as a guide
“It was never intended to replace or supersede the ordinary human arts and sciences: it is rather a director which will set them all to the right jobs, and a source of energy which will give them all new life…”
4. It is up to every Christian to bring the Golden Rule to his/her domain of responsibility and excellence
“…when they say that the Church should give us a lead, they ought to mean that some Christians – those who happen to have the right talents – should be economists and statesmen…[and] be directed to putting “Do as you would be done by” into action.
…Christian literature comes from Christian novelists and dramatists – not from the bench of bishops getting together and trying to write plays and novels in their spare time”
5. The New Testament hints at what a fully Christian society would be like
(a) It seems to be an odd mix
“We should feel that its economic life was very socialistic and, in that sense, ‘advanced,’ but that its family life and its code of manners were rather old-fashioned-perhaps even ceremonious and aristocratic”
(b) Few of us would like everything
“Each of us would like some bits of it, but I am afraid very few of us would like the whole thing… every one is attracted by bits of it and wants to pick out those bits and leave the rest. That is why we do not get much further: and that is why people who are fighting for quite opposite things can both say they are fighting for Christianity”
6. Greek, Jewish and Early Christian communities rejected usury
“…the ancient heathen Greeks, and by the Jews in the Old Testament, and by the great Christian teachers of the Middle Ages… told us not to lend money at interest: and lending money at interest – what we call investment – is the basis of our whole system. Now it may not absolutely follow that we are wrong…”
7. Charity is essential
“Charity – giving to the poor – is an essential part of Christian morality: in the frightening parable of the sheep and the goats it seems to be the point on which everything turns”
(a) Some may advocate for producing a society which doesn’t need charity
“They may be quite right in saying that we ought to produce that kind of society. But if anyone thinks that, as a consequence, you can stop giving in the meantime, then he has parted company with all Christian morality”
(b) We should probably give more than we do
“I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare… If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small”
(c) Fear of insecurity is our greatest obstacle
“…the great obstacle to charity lies not in our luxurious living or desire for more money, but in our fear-fear of insecurity… Sometimes…we are tempted to spend more than we ought on the showy forms of generosity (tipping, hospitality) and less than we ought on those who really need our help”
8. We approach this question badly
(a) Some thing it is too far to the left, some to the right
“My guess is that there are some Leftist people among them who are very angry that it has not gone further in that direction, and some people of an opposite sort who are angry because they think it has gone much too far”
(b) We’re seeking validation, not understanding
“Most of us are not really approaching the subject in order to find out what Christianity says: we are approaching it in the hope of finding support from Christianity for the views of our own party”
(c) It begins with me
“I may repeat ‘Do as you would be done by’ till I am black in the face, but I cannot really carry it out till I love my neighbour as myself: and I cannot learn to love my neighbour as myself till I learn to love God: and I cannot learn to love God except by learning to obey Him. And so, as I warned you, we are driven on to something more inward -driven on from social matters to religious matters. For the longest way round is the shortest way home”
Discussion Questions
1. Did Christ teach a new morality?
2. How does Christianity relate to politics? What does Christianity give us and what does it not give us?
3. How does Jack envisage the making of a Christian society?
4. What hints does the New Testament give us about a Christian society?
Picking back up my notes for C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity”…
Notes & Quotes
1. Building a Christian society requires a multi-pronged approach
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.
2. Christian morality claims to fix the human machine, but so does psychoanalysis
(a) We must distinguish between psychoanalysis and the philosophical views added to them by men such as Freud
“…when Freud is talking about how to cure neurotics he is speaking as a specialist on his own subject, but when he goes on to talk general philosophy he is speaking as an amateur”
(b) Psychoanalysis is not contrary to Christianity and, in fact, has some overlap, albeit different ends
“…psychoanalysis itself…is not in the least contradictory to Christianity. Its technique overlaps with Christian morality at some points…but it does not run the same course all the way, for the two techniques are doing rather different things”
3. A moral choice involves two different things:
(a) The raw materials involved in choosing
“…the various feelings, impulses and so on which his psychological outfit presents him with”
These raw materials may be:
(i) Normal
“…the sort of feelings that are common to all men”
(ii) Unnatural
“…unnatural feelings due to things that have gone wrong in his subconscious”
The job of psychoanalysis is to make these raw materials better:
“…psychoanalysis undertakes to do is to remove the abnormal feelings…to give the man better raw material for his acts of choice…bad psychological material is not a sin but a disease. It does not need to be repented of, but to be cured…morality is concerned with the acts of choice themselves“
(b) The act of choosing itself
“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”
4. Human judgements and Divine judgement are very different
(a) We judge by actions, God judges by moral choices
“Human beings judge one another by their external actions. God judges them 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.* 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…
* Victor Cross, a medal awarded in the military
(b) At death, all will become clear
Some of us who seem quite nice people may, in fact, have made so little use of a good heredity and a good upbringing that we are really worse than those whom we regard as fiends…
Most of the man’s psychological make-up 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.”
5. Our choices matter
(a) They prepare us for Heaven or Hell
“…every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature… Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other”
(b) This is why Christian writers seem so strict one moment and easy at another
“They talk about mere sins of thought as if they were immensely important: and then they talk about the most frightful murders and treacheries as if you had only got to repent and all would be forgiven… What they are always thinking of is the mark which the action leaves on that tiny central self which no one sees in this life but which each of us will have to endure-or enjoy-for ever. One man may be so placed that his anger sheds the blood of thousands, and another so placed that however angry he gets he will only be laughed at. But the little mark on the soul may be much the same in both. Each has done something to himself which, unless he repents, will make it harder for him to keep out of the rage next time he is tempted, and will make the rage worse when he does fall into it. Each of them, if he seriously turns to God, can have that twist in the central man straightened out again: each is, in the long run, doomed if he will not. The bigness or smallness of the thing, seen from the outside, is not what really matters”
(c) These choices change our sensitivity to good and evil
“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… Good people know about both good and evil: bad people do not know about either”
Discussion Questions
1. What is Jack’s opinion regarding psychoanalysis?
2. What are the two different different components of a moral choice? Which one benefits from psychoanalysis
3. What is the difference between man’s judgements and God’s judgements? How will death make the truth clearer?
4. In what way do our choices prepare us for Heaven and Hell? How do they affect our sensitivity to good and evil?
Picking back up my notes for C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity”…
Notes & Quotes
1. The virtue related to sex is called “chastity”
2. “Chastity” is not the same as “modesty” or “proprietary”
(a) “modesty” is a social convention
“The social rule of propriety lays down how much of the human body should be displayed and what subjects can be referred to, and in what words, according to the customs of a given social circle. Thus, while the rule of chastity is the same for all Christians at all times, the rule of propriety changes”
“A girl in the Pacific islands wearing hardly any clothes and a Victorian lady completely covered in clothes might both be equally “modest,” proper, or decent, according to the standards of their own societies: and both, for all we could tell by their dress, might be equally chaste (or equally unchaste)”
(c) Language is in a state of flux
“While this confusion lasts I think that old, or old-fashioned, people should be very careful not to assume that young or “emancipated” people are corrupt whenever they are (by the old standard) improper; and, in return, that young people should not call their elders prudes or puritans because they do not easily adopt the new standard. A real desire to believe all the good you can of others and to make others as comfortable as you can will solve most of the problems”
3. Chastity is the most unpopular of the Christian virtues
(a) It makes people think that Christianity is wrong
“Now this is so difficult and so contrary to our instincts, that obviously either Christianity is wrong or our sexual instinct, as it now is, has gone wrong. One or the other. Of course, being a Christian, I think it is the instinct which has gone wrong”
(b) But it looks like the sex instinct is the one which is out of kilter
“…if a healthy young man indulged his sexual appetite whenever he felt inclined, and if each act produced a baby, then in ten years he might easily populate a small village. This appetite is in ludicrous and preposterous excess of its function”
4. If we treated food in the same way we treated sex, we would think it preposterous
(a) We don’t have food strip-tease acts
“You can get a large audience together for a strip-tease act-that is, to watch a girl undress on the stage. Now suppose you came to a country where you could fill a theatre by simply bringing a covered plate on to the stage and then slowly lifting the cover so as to let every one see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon, would you not think that in that country something had gone wrong with the appetite for food?”
(b) Some might respond that this is a sign of starvation
“One critic said that if he found a country in which such striptease acts with food were popular, he would conclude that the people of that country were starving…”
(i) But we’d then need to see if much food was actually consumed…
“But the next step would be to test our hypothesis by finding out whether, in fact, much or little food was being consumed in that country. If the evidence showed that a good deal was being eaten, then of course we should have to abandon the hypothesis of starvation and try to think of another one”
(ii) …and compare to previous generations
“…we should have to look for evidence that there is in fact more sexual abstinence in our age than in those ages when things like the strip-tease were unknown. But surely there is no such evidence. Contraceptives have made sexual indulgence far less costly within marriage and far safer outside it than ever before, and public opinion is less hostile to illicit unions and even to perversion than it has been since Pagan times”
(iii) Besides, we know that appetites grow by indulgence
“Starving men may think much about food, but so do gluttons; the gorged, as well as the famished, like titillations”
5. We have been lied to about sex
“…for the last twenty years, have been fed all day long on good solid lies about sex”
(i) We have been told that sex became a mess because it was hushed up
But for the last twenty years it has not been hushed up. It has been chattered about all day long. Yet it is still in a mess. If hushing up had been the cause of the trouble, ventilation would have set it right. But it has not.
(ii) We have been told that “Sex is nothing to be ashamed of.”
(A) If they are referring to sex itself, they are right
“Christianity says the same… Christianity is almost the only one of the great religions which thoroughly approves of the body… Christianity has glorified marriage more than any other religion… If anyone says that sex, in itself, is bad, Christianity contradicts him at once”
(B) But if they are talking about the current state of the sexual instinct, they are wrong
“I think it is everything to be ashamed of. There is nothing to be ashamed of in enjoying your food: there would be everything to be ashamed of if half the world made food the main interest of their lives and spent their time looking at pictures of food and dribbling and smacking their lips… we grow up surrounded by propaganda in favour of unchastity. There are people who want to keep our sex instinct inflamed in order to make money out of us. Because, of course, a man with an obsession is a man who has very little sales-resistance”
6. We can be cured
(a) But this first requires that we desire to be cured
Those who really wish for help will get it; but for many modern people even the wish is difficult. It is easy to think that we want something when we do not really want it. A famous Christian* long ago told us that when he was a young man he prayed constantly for chastity; but years later he realised that while his lips had been saying, “Oh Lord, make me chaste,” his heart had been secretly adding, “But please don’t do it just yet.”
* St. Augustine of Hippo (4th/5th Century)
However, three reasons make this difficult:
(i) We think it “unhealthy”
“In the first place our warped natures, the devils who tempt us, and all the contemporary propaganda for lust, combine to make us feel that the desires we are resisting are so “natural,” so “healthy,” and so reasonable, that it is almost perverse and abnormal to resist them”
(A) This is a lie based on a truth
“Like all powerful lies, it is based on a truth-the truth, acknowledged above, that sex in itself (apart from the excesses and obsessions that have grown round it) is “normal” and “healthy,” and all the rest of it. The lie consists in the suggestion that any sexual act to which you are tempted at the moment is also healthy and normal”
(B) It’s actually a conflict, not between Christianity and nature, but Christian principle and other principles
“…Surrender to all our desires obviously leads to impotence, disease, jealousies, lies, concealment, and everything that is the reverse of health… Every sane and civilised man must have some set of principles by which he chooses to reject some of his desires and to permit others. One man does this on Christian principles, another on hygienic principles, another on sociological principles… The Christian principles are, admittedly, stricter than the others; but then we think you will get help towards obeying them which you will not get towards obeying the others”
(ii) We think it “impossible”!
(A) We quit before we start
“…many people are deterred from seriously attempting Christian chastity because they think (before trying) that it is impossible”
(B) We should at least try
“…in war, in mountain climbing, in learning to skate, or swim, or ride a bicycle, even in fastening a stiff collar with cold fingers, people quite often do what seemed impossible before they did it. It is wonderful what you can do when you have to”
(C) We need God’s help
“We may, indeed, be sure that perfect chastity…will not be attained by any merely human efforts. You must ask for God’s help”
(D) We need grace to persevere
“After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again. Very often what God first helps us towards is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again. For however important chastity (or courage, or truthfulness, or any other virtue) may be, this process trains us in habits of the soul which are more important still. It cures our illusions about ourselves and teaches us to depend on God… The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection”
(iii) We think it is being “repressive”
(A) Many people misunderstand what “repression” is
“…it does not mean “suppressed” in the sense of “denied” or “resisted.” A repressed desire or thought is one which has been thrust into the subconscious (usually at a very early age) and can now come before the mind only in a disguised and unrecognisable form. Repressed sexuality does not appear to the patient to be sexuality at all”
(B) Since those pursuing chastity are conscious of their resistance, they are the least likely to become repressed
“…those who are seriously attempting chastity are more conscious, and soon know a great deal more about their own sexuality than anyone else. They come to know their desires as Wellington knew Napoleon, or as Sherlock Holmes knew Moriarty; as a rat-catcher knows rats or a plumber knows about leaky pipes. Virtue – even attempted virtue – brings light; indulgence brings fog”
7. Christian morality doesn’t center on sex
“…I want to make it as clear as I possibly can that the centre of Christian morality is not here”
(a) The worst sins are purely spiritual
“The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual”
(b) It is the diabolical, not the animal which is worse
“For there are two things inside me, competing with the human self which I must try to become. They are the Animal self, and the Diabolical self. The Diabolical self is the worse of the two. That is why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But, of course, it is better to be neither”
Discussion Questions
1.What is the difference between chastity and modesty?
2. Either Christianity is wrong about chastity or the sexual instinct is misaligned. Why might we be inclined to think it is the latter?
Picking back up my notes for C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity”…
Notes & Quotes
1. Maybe it is forgiveness, rather than chastity, is the most unpopular thing in Christianity
(a) Because Christian forgiveness involves forgiving our enemies
…we come up against this terrible duty of forgiving our enemies. Every one says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive… And then, to mention the subject at all is to be greeted with howls of anger”
(b) People sometimes complain not that it’s not too hard, but just that it’s simply unfair!
“It is not that people think this too high and difficult a virtue: it is that they think it hateful and contemptible. ‘That sort of talk makes them sick,” they say. And half of you already want to ask me, ‘I wonder how you’d feel about forgiving the Gestapo if you were a Pole or a Jew?'”
2. But this is Christianity!
“I did not invent it. And there, right in the middle of it, I find “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those that sin against us.” There is no slightest suggestion that we are offered forgiveness on any other terms. It is made perfectly clear that if we do not forgive we shall not be forgiven. There are no two ways about it. What are we to do?”
3. In order to develop our ability to forgive, start small…
“When you start mathematics you do not begin with the calculus; you begin with simple addition. In the same way, if we really want (but all depends on really wanting) to learn how to forgive, perhaps we had better start with something easier than the Gestapo. One might start with forgiving one’s husband or wife, or parents or children, or the nearest NCO*, for something they have done or said in the last week. That will probably keep us busy for the moment”
* Non-Commissioned Officer in the army
3. There are misconceptions as to what it means to “love your neighbour as yourself”
“…how exactly do I love myself?”… I have not exactly got a feeling of fondness or affection for myself, and I do not even always enjoy my own society…. Do I think well of myself, think myself a nice chap? Well, I am afraid I sometimes do… but that is not why I love myself. In fact it, is the other way round: my self-love makes me think myself nice, but thinking myself nice is not why I love myself…. I can look at some of the things I have done with horror and loathing”
4. There is a distinction between the person and his/her actions
“I remember Christian teachers telling me long ago that I must hate a bad man’s actions, but not hate the bad man: or, as they would say, hate the sin but not the sinner.
…how could you hate what a man did and not hate the man? But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life-namely myself… In fact the very reason why I hated the things was that I loved the man. Just because I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things. Consequently, Christianity does not want us to reduce by one atom the hatred we feel for cruelty and treachery. We ought to hate them… But it does want us to hate them in the same way in which we hate things in ourselves: being sorry that the man should have done such things, and hoping, if it is anyway possible, that somehow, sometime, somewhere, he can be cured and made human again”
5. Loving my neighbour does not mean refusing to punish him
“No, for loving myself does not mean that I ought not to subject myself to punishment-even to death. If one 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”
(a) This does not contradict “Thy shalt not kill”?
“There are two Greek words: the ordinary word to kill and the word to murder. And when Christ quotes that commandment He uses the murder one… And I am told there is the same distinction in Hebrew. All killing is not murder any more than all sexual intercourse is adultery. When soldiers came to St. John the Baptist asking what to do, he never remotely suggested that they ought to leave the army: nor did Christ when He met a Roman sergeant-major-what they called a centurion”
4. If people What then, is the difference?
I imagine somebody will say, “Well, if one is allowed to condemn the enemy’s acts, and punish him, and kill him, what difference is left between Christian morality and the ordinary view?” All the difference in the world. Remember, we Christians think man lives for ever. Therefore, what really matters is those little marks or twists on the central, inside part of the soul which are going to turn it, in the long run, into a heavenly or a hellish creature. We may kill if necessary, but we must not hate and enjoy hating. We may punish if necessary, but we must not enjoy it. In other words, something inside us, the feeling of resentment, the feeling that wants to get one’s own back, must be simply killed. I do not mean that anyone can decide this moment that he will never feel it any more. That is not how things happen. I mean that every time it bobs its head up, day after day, year after year, all our lives long, we must hit it on the head. It is hard work, but the attempt is not impossible. Even while we kill and punish we must try to feel about the enemy as we feel about ourselves- to wish that he were not bad. to hope that he may, in this world or another, be cured: in fact, to wish his good. That is what is meant in the Bible by loving him: wishing his good, not feeling fond of him nor saying he is nice when he is not.
5. What’s the bottom line?
“I admit that this means loving people who have nothing lovable about them. But then, has oneself anything lovable about it? You love it simply because it is yourself, God intends us to love all selves in the same way and for the same reason: but He has given us the sum ready worked out on our own case to show us how it works. We have then to go on and apply the rule to all the other selves. Perhaps it makes it easier if we remember that that is how He loves us. Not for any nice, attractive qualities we think we have, but just because we are the things called selves. For really there is nothing else in us to love: creatures like us who actually find hatred such a pleasure that to give it up is like giving up beer or tobacco. …”
Discussion Questions
1. Why is the Christian doctrine of forgiveness so unpopular?
2. How does Jack suggest we start?
3. What does it mean to forgive your enemies and what does it not mean?
4. Does this mean we should be against capital punishment?
You can look at my more detailed notes, but this is an overview of the content of Book II of “Mere Christianity”…