Mere Christianity – Book III – Chapter 2 (“The ‘Cardinal Virtues'”)

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?

C.S. Lewis Doodle

No doodle!