Category: Apologetics

Mere Christianity – Book III – Chapter 10 (“Hope”)

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Book-3

Picking back up my notes for C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity”…

Notes & Quotes

1. Hope is not wishful thinking

“Hope is one of the Theological virtues. This means that a continual looking forward to the eternal world is not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do”

2. It does not mean we can abdicate from our earthly responsibilities

“It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven”

3. We often don’t want Heaven

Most of us find it very difficult to want “Heaven” at all-except in so far as “Heaven” means meeting again our friends who have died.

(a) …usually because we’re too focussed on this world…

“One reason for this difficulty is that we have not been trained: our whole education tends to fix our minds on this world. Another reason is that when the real want for Heaven is present in us, we do not recognise it”

(b) …even when this world should be pointing us to the next…

“There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise. The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or first think of some foreign country, or first take up some subject that excites us, are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning, can really satisfy. I am not now speaking of what would be ordinarily called unsuccessful marriages, or holidays, or learned careers. I am speaking of the best possible ones. There was something we grasped at, in that first moment of longing, which just fades away in the reality. I think everyone knows what I mean”

We can respond to this in three different ways:

(i) Blame those things

“He puts the blame on the things themselves. He goes on all his life thinking that if only he tried another woman, or went for a more expensive holiday, or whatever it is, then, this time, he really would catch the mysterious something we are all after. Most of the bored, discontented, rich people in the world are of this type”

(ii) Become disillusioned

“He soon decides that the whole thing was moonshine… And so he settles down and learns not to expect too much and represses”

(A) Which would be great if man did not live for ever

“But supposing infinite happiness really is there, waiting for us? Supposing one really can reach the rainbow’s end?”

(B) …but not if man lives forever

“In that case it would be a pity to find out too late (a moment after death) that by our supposed ‘common sense’ we had stifled in ourselves the faculty of enjoying it”

(iii) The Christian Way

“Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same.”

4. We shouldn’t interpret the descriptions of Heaven overly-literally

“There is no need to be worried by facetious people who try to make the Christian hope of ‘Heaven’ ridiculous by saying they do not want ‘to spend eternity playing harps.’ The answer to such people is that if they cannot understand books written for grown-ups, they should not talk about them… People who take these symbols literally might as well think that when Christ told us to be like doves, He meant that we were to lay eggs”

(a) They symbolic

“All the scriptural imagery (harps, crowns, gold, etc.) is, of course, a merely symbolical attempt to express the inexpressible. Musical instruments are mentioned because for many people (not all) music is the thing known in the present life which most strongly suggests ecstasy and infinity. Crowns are mentioned to suggest the fact that those who are united with God in eternity share His splendour and power and joy. Gold is mentioned to suggest the timelessness of Heaven (gold does not rust) and the preciousness of it”

Discussion Questions

1. What is hope?

2. Does the belief in Heaven mean that we can ignore earth?

3. Why do we sometimes struggle to desire Heaven?

4. In what way does this world point to Heaven? How do people respond to this?

5. Why should we not interpret Heaven’s descriptions in the Bible?

C.S. Lewis Doodle

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Mere Christianity – Book III – Chapter 9 (“Charity”)

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Book-3

Picking back up my notes for C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity”…

Notes & Quotes

1. “Charity” has a broader meaning than its current usage.

“‘Charity’ now means simply what used to be called ‘alms’ – that is, giving to the poor. Originally it had a much wider meaning… Charity means “Love, in the Christian sense.” But love, in the Christian sense, does not mean an emotion. It is a state not of the feelings but of the will; that state of the will which we have naturally about ourselves, and must learn to have about other people”

2. Charity is distinct from affection

“I pointed out in the chapter on Forgiveness that our love for ourselves does not mean that we like ourselves. It means that we wish our own good. In the same way Christian Love (or Charity) for our neighbours is quite a different thing from liking or affection”

(a) Affection can aid charity

“Natural liking or affection for people makes it easier to be “charitable” towards them. It is, therefore, normally a duty to encourage our affections – to “like” people as much as we can (just as it is often our duty to encourage our liking for exercise or wholesome food) – not because this liking is itself the virtue of charity, but because it is a help to it”

(b) However, affection can be an obstacle to charity

“…it is also necessary to keep a very sharp look-out for fear our liking for some one person makes us uncharitable, or even unfair, to someone else. There are even cases where our liking conflicts with our charity towards the person we like. For example, a doting mother may be tempted by natural affection to ‘spoil’ her child; that is, to gratify her own affectionate impulses at the expense of the child’s real happiness later on”

3. Feelings and actions are separate, but related

(a) Acts of charity nurture affection

“The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbour; act as if you did… When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him”

Our motivation will affect the result:

(i) Expecting Gratitude 

“If you do him a good turn, not to please God and obey the law of charity, but to show him what a fine forgiving chap you are, and to put him in your debt, and then sit down to wait for his ‘gratitude,’ you will probably be disappointed….”

(ii) Loving another “self”

“But whenever we do good to another self, just because it is a self, made (like us) by God, and desiring its own happiness as we desire ours, we shall have learned to love it a little more or, at least, to dislike it less”

(b) Acts of hate nurture hate

“This same spiritual law works terribly in the opposite direction. The Germans, perhaps, at first ill-treated the Jews because they hated them: afterwards they hated them much more because they had ill-treated them. The more cruel you are, the more you will hate; and the more you hate, the more cruel you will become-and so on in a vicious circle for ever”

3. Acts of love and hate have compound interest

“Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible”

4. What should we do if we don’t love God?

(a) Do it anyway

“[People] are told they ought to love God. They cannot find any such feeling in themselves. What are they to do? The answer is the same as before. Act as if you did. Do not sit trying to manufacture feelings. Ask yourself, ‘If I were sure that I loved God, what would I do?’ When you have found the answer, go and do it”

(b) God does not mainly care about feelings, but our will

“Nobody can always have devout feelings: and even if we could, feelings are not what God principally cares about. Christian Love, either towards God or towards man, is an affair of the will. If we are trying to do His will we are obeying the commandment, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.” He will give us feelings of love if He pleases. We cannot create them for ourselves, and we must not demand them as a right. But the great thing to remember is that, though our feelings come and go, His love for us does not. It is not wearied by our sins, or our indifference; and, therefore, it is quite relentless in its determination that we shall be cured of those sins, at whatever cost to us, at whatever cost to Him”

Discussion Questions

1. What is “charity”?

2. How is charity related to and distinct from affection?

3. Why does Jack say that love and hate have “compound interest”?

4. What should we do if we don’t have feelings of love towards God? Why?

C.S. Lewis Doodle

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Mere Christianity – Book III – Chapter 7 (“Forgiveness”)

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Book-3

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?

5. Why should we forgive others?

C.S. Lewis Doodle

No doodle!

Mere Christianity – Book III – Chapter 4 (“Morality and Psychoanalysis”)

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Book-3

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?

C.S. Lewis Doodle

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Mere Christianity – Book III – Chapter 3 (“Social Morality”)

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Book-3

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?

5. What is Jack’s concern about usury?

6. What advice does he have for us about charity?

7. How will most people react to this chapter?

C.S. Lewis Doodle

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Mere Christianity – Book III – Chapter 1 (“The Three Parts of Morality”)

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Book-3

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?

7. Why does it matter if we live forever?

C.S. Lewis Doodle

Islam and violence

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I’ve had an interest in Islam for quite some time now. Particularly during the weeks when I was reading through the Qur’an, I would regularly have people ask me about the relationship between Islam and violence.

Given that tomorrow is the anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center, I thought it appropriate to post this debate between Robert Spence and Dr. James White, which I think brings up most of the major points which have to be considered in relation to this question:

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