Mere Christianity - Bk 2 - Ch 1 - The Rival Conceptions of God

As I mentioned before, the BBC engaged Lewis initially for a set of four broadcast talks on Wednesday nights.  They expanded it to a fifth talk on a Saturday so Lewis could respond to the tremendous amount of mail the first four talks generated.  All those talks took place in 1941, during the midst of the London Blitz in WWII.  Those first set of five talks were so successful, the BBC asked Lewis to return to give an additional five talks, simply entitled, "What Christians Believe."  Lewis gave the first of those talks, moved to Sunday night, on Jan. 11, 1942.  Initially, Lewis gave this talk no name, so it has simply been called the First Talk.  When first published as Book 2 of "What Christians Believe" (later as Book 2 of "The Case for Christianity" in the U. S.), it was simply titled "1."

However, when it was compiled into "Mere Christianity" in 1952, Lewis and the publisher gave it a
new title, "The Rival Conceptions of God."

Lewis begins with a profound statement.  "If you are a Christian you do not have to believe that that all other religions are simply wrong all through."  Sadly, many Christians think otherwise.  Christians line up with the majority of humanity who believe in some kind of God.

In stark contrast, Lewis, asserts atheists have to believe "the main point in all religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake.  Lewis says that when he was an atheist, "I had to try to persuade myself that most of the human race have always been wrong about the question that mattered to them most."  Atheist align with the small minority of humanity who do not believe in some kind of God.

However, Christians believe where Christianity differs from other religions, Christianity is right and other religions are wrong.  Lewis gives the analogy of arithmetic - where only one answer is right, but some answers are closer to being right than others.

Lewis outlines the big division between those who believe in some kind of God as between Pantheism (usually held by Hindus and other Eastern religions and Hegel)  and the Christian idea of God (usually shared by the Jews and Muslims).  Lewis describes Pantheism as reflecting that God is beyond good and evil.  Since, in Pantheism, God is in everything, all good and evil is part of God.  Morality thus simply becomes a point of view - what is evil to one is good to another.  Christianity stands apart from Pantheistic religion. It asserts, with other religions, that God created the world, like a painter painting a picture, who has put a lot of himself into that work of art.

Lewis gives an example.  When confronted by cancer or a slum, a Pantheist tends to say - From the divine point of view - this is also God.  According to Lewis, the Christian responds, "Don't talk damned nonsense."  Though Christianity believes God made the world, it also believes a good many things have gone wrong and God insists on our putting them right again.

Of course, that raises the big question - why has it gone wrong?  Lewis says for many years he rejected the Christian answer.  He rejected the concept that any intelligent power had created this cruel and unjust world.  But then he began to wonder where he got the idea that the world was unjust and cruel - by what standard did he measure the universe against?

Lewis gives the analogy of falling into water.  A man, not a water animal, feels wet when he falls into water.  However, a fish, a water animal, does not feel wet when it falls into water (in fact it feels at home again).  Then Lewis thought his idea of justice was just a private idea.  But then, he couldn't really say the world was unjust, if it was just a private idea of justice.  In that case, his whole argument against God fell apart.  Eventually, Lewis realized that atheism was too simple.  If the universe has no meaning, then we could never discover it had no meaning.  Lewis gives another analogy.  If the whole world was dark, we would never know it was dark - in fact, we would have no eyes since there would have been no need to develop (evolve) eyes.  The whole concept of dark would be a word without meaning to us.  In a similar manner, if the universe has no meaning, we could never know it has no meaning.  It has to have meaning for us to even consider the possibility it has no meaning.

Bk 1 - Ch 5 - We Have Cause to be Uneasy

Bk. 2 - Ch. 2 - The Invasion

Overview - Mere Christianity