Kidda's Mere Christianity ISU

   I've been reading CS Lewis since I discovered The Horse and His Boy at the age of 10. He's one of the people that actually got me to like reading, and of course, fantasy. He was also instrumental in forming my picky taste for authorial voices. If it doesn't flow, it's ugly to me. This fussiness has helped me learn the effects of different voices on the reader.
   This is Lewis' attempt at explaining Christianity to non-Christians; not only that, but he tries not to give favour to any denomination through emphasizing particular aspects of Christianity which the denominations disagree about.
   I chose this book for my Independent Study Unit in my Religions and Literature class (Ontario, Gr 12, Uni Prep). The writing below is the text I used for my presentation handout. The handout itself is an MS Publisher document, which I won't bother uploading. It's too bad I couldn't show off my graphic design (*bragging XP*). I also used illustrations from the Narnia books.
   (Note: I have come up with the term deomorph (someone may have used it before, but I have never heard it at all) to show that while literature is interpreted as showing God as anthropomorphic, this view does not acknowledge that if He is real, He could only have come first. The Bible supports that we are to be little pictures of God from its first mention of us.)

   I ask you to please look at the last question at the very bottom of this page.

CS Lewis

Mere Christianity

Thesis:

Lewis maintains that the goal and purpose of humanity is to obtain eternal life with God through Christ.

Subtopic 1:

Lewis believes that we are meant to be deomorphs.

"God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them," is Moses' outline of humanity's original state (New American Standard Bible, Gen. 1.27).

Lewis believes that we will someday return to that state. "{God} will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or goddess," he proclaims, "... a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God perfectly (though, of course, on a smaller scale) His own boundless power and delight and goodness" (Lewis 170).

Question: What does the concept of a deomorphic human do to the concept of an anthropomorphic god?

Because humans are meant to become like God, Lewis then explains that, "... the Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs" (Lewis 164).

Question: How does the Church's purpose as outlined by CS Lewis differ from what the institutional chruch has done in history? Why might this have happened?


Subtopic 2:

Lewis acknowledges that we cannot reach God on our own because our physical life (and sin) conflicts with our spiritual life (and morality).

Lewis distinguishes limited biological life from unlimited spiritual life, pointing out that, "The two kinds of life are... not only different... but actually opposed" (Lewis 148).

He also connects gaining spiritual life to losing some physical life. "... repentance is no fun at all... It means unlearning all the self-conceit and self-will that we have been training ourselves into for thousands of years. It means killing a part of yourself, undergoing a kind of death" (Lewis 47).

This can be connected to the Gospels in many places, in which Jesus claims that, "whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it" (Mat. 16.25).

Lewis compares a man growing in Christ to a tin soldier coming to life. The tin soldier doesn't realize that he will be improved if he is alive and gaining flesh. "... All he sees is that the tin is being spoilt. He thinks you are killing him." Fittingly, "he will do everything he can to prevent you" (Lewis 149).

Lewis maintains that "... to climb up into spiritual life..." is "... the really tough work--the bit we could not have done for ourselves." (Lewis 150)

Question: Do you disagree? Can a spiritually impure, physically attentive person still obtain eternal life? If so, how?


Subtopic 3:

Lewis believes that the character of God works to draw humans into Him.

Lewis describes the way in which the Holy Trinity work with a human to draw him in:
"God is the thing to which {the Christian} is praying--the goal he is trying to reach. God is also the thing inside him which is pushing him on--the motive power. God is also the road or bridge along which he is being pushed to that goal." (Lewis 135)

When "... {Jesus} said... 'Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man,'" He established Himself as a bridge between Earth and Heaven (John 1.51).

Lewis also gives a reason why Jesus cannot merely be a "great moral teacher"; He must either be Lord, liar, or lunatic:
"{Jesus} told people that their sins were forgiven, and never waited to consult all the other people whom their sins had undoubtedly injured. He unhesitatingly behaved as if He was the party chiefly concerned, the person chiefly offended in all offences. This makes sense only if He really was the God whose laws are broken and whose love is wounded in every sin" (Lewis 42).
If Jesus is Lord, and forgives us of our sins, it is He who solves the dilemma of our inability to reach God on our own.

Question (intended to include, but ran out of time for presentation): Can Jesus still be seen as a "great moral teacher" if He seems to do things that only God is allowed to do? If so, how?

Question (not included in the presentation: Have you read or seen any of the Chronicles of Narnia? Can you think of any ways in which the allegories in that movie/literature reflect the concepts outlined in Mere Christianity?

Question for the Christians out there (not included in the presentation): Is there anything that you think I have gotten incorrect about Lewis' book? What about Christianity? Do you think there's anything Lewis has got wrong?