Today in Mere Christianity, we begin Book III! This new book is entitled “Christian Behaviour”. In this chapter, in addition to learning about the qualities of my ideal woman(!), we discover what C.S. Lewis regarded as “the three parts of morality”. To illustrate these different parts, Jack uses the analogy of a convoy of ships.
Does the presence of evil in the world mean that God wills it? This and several other very important questions will be tackled by C.S. Lewis in today’s episode. Jack looks at humanity’s attempt to be happy with “something other than God”, as well as God’s initiatives to call mankind back to Himself.
In today’s episode, we continue working our way through Book II of “Mere Christianity”. In the previous chapter, C.S. Lewis had examined “Rival Conceptions of God”, especially pantheism. In today’s episode he looks at another possible contender, dualism, the idea that there are two independent and opposing powers locked together in an eternal battle…
Since it is the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, Nessa and I are devoting the next to episodes to the two key doctrines of the Reformation: “Sola Fide” (Faith Alone) and “Sola Scriptura” (Scripture Alone). Today we’ll begin by looking at the first of these doctrines, Sola Fide.
• Over the next two weeks we’re going to look at “Sola Fide” (Faith Alone) and “Sola Scriptura” (Scripture Alone)
• Luther thought that Sola Fide was the central element of Christianity:
“If the doctrine of justification is lost, the whole of Christian doctrine is lost” – Luther, Lectures On Galatians
• I quoted from the Protestant apologetics site “Got Questions”:
“Sola fide or faith alone is a key point of difference between not only Protestants and Catholics but between biblical Christianity and almost all other religions and teachings. The teaching that we are declared righteous by God (justified) on the basis of our faith alone and not by works is a key doctrine of the Bible and a line that divides most cults from biblical Christianity…
If we abandon the doctrine of justification by faith, we abandon the only way of salvation…
The Bible teaches that those that trust Jesus Christ for justification by faith alone are imputed with His righteousness, while those who try to establish their own righteousness or mix faith with works will receive the punishment due to all who fall short of God’s perfect standard” – GotQuestions.org (Emphasis added)
• A key text for Luther in relation to his doctrine of Sola Fide was:
“For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law” – Romans 3:28
However, when he translated it, he added an additional word:
“For we maintain that a person is justified by faith ALONE apart from the works of the law” – Romans 3:28
To justify this change, Luther responded thus:
“If your papist wishes to make a great fuss about the word sola [alone], say this to him: ‘Dr. Martin Luther will have it so, and he says that a papist and a donkey are the same thing.'” – An Open Letter on Translating by Martin Luther
(The term “papist” here refers to Catholics)
• Luther was a master at insults. So much so, that today you can generate an insult from the Luther Insult Generator.
• When Paul talks about “works”, he is talking about the works of the Mosaic Law. In fact, he spends a lot of time in his letters comparing the Old Covenant with Moses to the New Covenant with Jesus.
• There only verse of the Bible which speaks of “faith alone” is the following passage from the Epistle of James:
“You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone” – James 2:24
Luther referred to this epistle as an “epistle of straw” and he moved it to the appendix of his translation of the Bible:
“We should throw the Epistle of James out of this school, for it doesn’t amount to much. It contains not a syllable about Christ. Not once does it mention Christ, except at the beginning. I maintain that some Jew wrote it who probably heard about Christian people but never encountered any.” – Luther’s works, vol. 54: Table Talk
• Nessa asked about what a Catholic should do if he “has a beef” with the Catholic Church. I suggested that it would probably depend upon the kind of issue at hand:
1. Doctrinal Issue
If you disagree with Catholic doctrine, first of all make sure that what you’re rejecting actually is the Catholic teaching on the matter and not some distortion of it. Once you have done this, find yourself a knowledgable Catholic to explain the basis of the doctrine.
2. Issues of Scandal
Reform yourself first! Be an example for others to imitate, imitating St. Francis and St. Dominic.
• I discussed my approach when discussing the Epistle of James. I ask a series of questions:
1. Can a dead faith save you? No? So you’re saying that you need a faith that’s alive?
2. Can a barren faith save you? No? So you’re saying that you need a fruitful faith?
3. Can an incomplete faith save you? No? So you’re saying that you need a complete faith?
• This then leads to another round of questions:
1. How is faith given life?
2. How is a barren faith made fruitful?
3. What is the difference between a complete faith and an incomplete faith?
The answer, according to the Epistle of James, is “Works”. In his letter, James teaches that faith must be living, fruitful and complete:
1. Living Faith “In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead”
– James 2:17
2. Fruitful Faith “Do you want to be shown, you foolish fellow, that faith apart from works is barren?”
– James 2:20
3. Complete Faith “[Abraham’s] faith was made complete by what he did”
– James 2:22
• On the subject of faith and works, I quote CS Lewis who said:
“Christians have often disputed as to whether what leads the Christian home is good actions, or Faith in Christ…it does seem to me like asking which blade in a pair of scissors is most necessary”
– Mere Christianity
• The Catholic Church does not teach a works-based righteousness. She condemned this heresy (“Pelagianism”) in the Fifth Century!
• I quote Lewis a second time when he’s explaining how the divine life should be nurtured and protected:
“Your natural life is derived from your parents; that does not mean it will stay there if you do nothing about it. You can lose it by neglect, or you can drive it away by committing suicide. You have to feed it and look after it: but always remember you are not making it, you are only keeping up a life you got from someone else. In the same way a Christian can lose the Christ-life which has been put into him, and he has to make efforts to keep it. But even the best Christian that ever lived is not acting on his own steam – he is only nourishing or protecting a life he could never have acquired by his own efforts”
– Mere Christianity
• The pithiest summary of salvation really comes from St. Paul’s epistle to the Galatians:
“The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love” – Galatians 5:6
• Pope Emeritus Benedict articulated this in one of
Being “just” simply means being with Christ and in Christ. And this suffices. Further observances are no longer necessary. For this reason Luther’s phrase: “faith alone” is true, if it is not opposed to faith in charity, in love. Faith is looking at Christ, entrusting oneself to Christ, being united to Christ, conformed to Christ, to his life. And the form, the life of Christ, is love; hence to believe is to conform to Christ and to enter into his love. So it is that in the Letter to the Galatians in which he primarily developed his teaching on justification St Paul speaks of faith that works through love – Pope Benedict XVI, Wednesday Audience, 19th November 2008
At last we come to the final chapter of “Mere Christianity” completing my notes for the book.
1. Christ came to transform
“…Christ’s work…is not mere improvement but Transformation. The nearest parallel to it in the world of nature is to be found in the remarkable transformations we can make in insects by applying certain rays to them. Some people think this is how Evolution worked”
(a) We are used to transformation through evolution
“…Everyone now knows about Evolution (though, of course, some educated people disbelieve it): everyone has been told that man has evolved from lower types of life. Consequently, people often wonder ‘What is the next step? When is the thing beyond man going to appear?'”
(b) People have constantly been incorrectly predicting the next step
“…I cannot help thinking that the Next Step will be really new; it will go off in a direction you could never have dreamed of. It would hardly be worth calling a New Step unless it did. I should expect not merely difference but a new kind of difference. I should expect not merely change but a new method of producing the change…. And finally, I should not be surprised if, when the thing happened, very few people noticed that it was happening”
(c) The Next Step is here
“Now, if you care to talk in these terms, the Christian view is precisely that the Next Step has already appeared. And it is really new. It is not a change from brainy men to brainier men: it is a change that goes off in a totally different direction – a change from being creatures of God to being sons of God. The first instance appeared in Palestine two thousand years ago”
This step has some differences in relation to the past…
“And in fact this New Step differs from all previous ones not only in coming from outside nature but in several other ways as well”
Picking back up my notes for C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity”…
1. If Christianity is true, why are all Christians not obviously nicer than all non-Christians?
(a) Part of this question is very reasonable
“If conversion to Christianity makes no improvement in a man’s outward actions… I think we must suspect that his ‘conversion’ was largely imaginary…”
(i) Jesus told us to judge by results
“Fine feelings, new insights, greater interest in ‘religion’ mean nothing unless they make our actual behaviour better; just as in an illness ‘feeling better’ is not much good if the thermometer shows that your temperature is still going up… Christ told us to judge by results”
(ii) When we fail to live up to our calling, we make Christianity harder to believe for others
“When we Christians behave badly, or fail to behave well, we are making Christianity unbelievable to the outside world… Our careless lives set the outer world talking; and we give them grounds for talking in a way that throws doubt on the truth of Christianity itself”
(b) Part of this question is very unreasonable
But there is another way of demanding results in which the outer world may be quite illogical…. they should see the whole world neatly divided into two camps -Christian and non-Christian – and that all the people in the first camp at any given moment should be obviously nicer than all the people in the second.
There are several flaws with this kind of thinking…
Our penultimate chapter of Book I of “Mere Christianity” is Chapter 4 and is entitled “What lies behind the Law”. In this episode, Jack digs into the consequences of the Moral Law and, in particular, what we can know about the universe in which we live.
Unfortunately, there were some small issues in this episode with my microphone, a bit of a crackle, but hopefully I’ll have it sorted out by the next time Matt and I record agin.
If you enjoy this episode, you can subscribe using iTunes or Google Play. As always, if you have any objections, comments or questions, please send us an email through my website or tweet us @pintswithjack.
