Roaring River

Mere Christianity 6: Two Realities Guide the Actions of Humans

If we have missed C. S. Lewis' message so far, he makes it quite clear as he closes out Chapter 1. His words are not difficult so I put them forth as he wrote his summation.

These, then, are the two points I wanted to make.

First, that human beings all over the earth have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of this idea.

Second, that we do not in fact behave this way. We know the Law of Human Nature and we break it.

These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in.

Does the reality of the Law of Human Nature (Right and Wrong) have anything to do with Jesus? Does the existence of this Law change anything about what Jesus did when He was on earth. Does it change anything about your faith or lack of faith in Jesus?

Mere Christianity 5: Just Plain Humans Who Fail to Be Fair?

C. S. Lewis makes his concept for the Law of Human Nature clear when he takes the opposite point of view. His words, simplified a bit by me:

Think of a country where people were admired for running away in battle, or where a man felt proud of double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him. 

Men have differed about who you should be most unselfish to -- whether it was only your own family, or your fellow countrymen, or everyone. But they have always agreed that you ought not to put yourself first.

Selfishness has never been admired.

Whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real Right and Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if you try breaking one to him he will be complaining "It's not fair."

It seems, then, we are forced to believe in a real Right and Wrong. People may be sometimes mistaken about them, but they are not a matter of mere taste and opinion any more than the multiplication table.

Now if we are agreed about that, I go on to my next point, which is this:

None of us are really keeping the Law of Nature.

If there are any exceptions among you, I apologize to them. They had much better read some other work, for nothing I am going to say concerns them.  I am only trying to call attention to the fact that this year, or this month or more likely, this very day, we have failed to practice ourselves the kind of behavior we expect from other people.

I do not succeed in keeping the Law of Nature very well, and the moment anyone tells me I am not keeping it, there starts up in my mind a string of excuses as long as your arm.

It seems we cannot avoid the Law of Gravity. or the Law of Heredity, or the Laws of Chemistry and Physics. We are stuck with them. But the one Law we all believe other people should never break is the Law of Treating You Rightly -- and it is precisely this law that we all break consistently. And from this transgression, all sorts of minor and major conflicts emerge.

Was Eve's sin one of just eating an apple? Was this a big failing or a tiny miscue? Whom did she hurt for knowingly doing what she knew was wrong? Was this a true transgression or was she just tricked by the serpent? Or were the serpent's guile words just clever enough for her to rationalize taking something she wanted?

How many times a day are we guilty of such disobedience? What are the repurcussions when we do the same kinds of things -- actions that break the Law of Human Nature? That break trust with family, friends, colleagues, neighbors? How would we react if someone did these same things to us? Is C. S. Lewis right when he says that this Law of Moral Right and Wrong is something we break on a rather consistent basis? Why do we do this when we would hate it if someone deliberately hurt us by lying, cheating -- breaking a bond of trust between us?

The World where Selfishness is admired does not exist.

That is why, the second our failures to adhere to the rule of fair play are uncovered, we go to extremes to justify our bad behavior. White lies, or black lies become our way of covering up what we did wrong. We know intuitively from childhood that selfish behavior is wrong. We know selfishness has never been admired.

The fall from grace hits hard for the mighty.

Has anyone spotted Tiger on his yacht yet?

After making billions of dollars more on a squeaky clean image that also just happened to be perhaps the greatest golfer in history, the news has been especially rough. True confessions of one woman after another, all claiming that Tiger really loved them was one of the most dramatic failures of living The Law of Right and Wrong.

In a pattern of saying one thing to his wife and to the media about the importance of family ... and then doing the opposite, Tiger tarnished the most important thing he had. He will still be one of the sport's greatest players, but the whispers on the golf course will follow him for the rest of his life once he returns to the game.

Is it fair that we are angry with Tiger for breaking this bond. Or was this just some private thing that happened between him and his family? Was his failing of the Law of Human Nature any worse than when we hide a failing of our own by coloring the truth to rationalize our failures? 

C. S. Lewis issued an apology if someone feels he misappropriately accused them of keeping to the Law of Human Nature. Do you think any of us can accept his apology?

Do you agree with C. S. Lewis that there is a universal Law of Human Nature that we should all be fully aware of? Do we really know Right from Wrong?

Right Way and Wrong Way Photo Credit: nicoledanique.wordpress.com/2009/ 

Nordegren and Woods Photo Credit: People Magazine and Getty Images

Cartoon by Sangrea.net

Mere Christianity 4: "Survivor" TV Show Runner-up Violates Law of Human Nature

There exists a basic Law of Human Nature, and we all understand it exists.

Recently, the CBS TV Show Survivor featured Russell, a particularly aggressive player  whose strategy was to create chaos between other players that only he could come in and solve. He openly lied and broke the rules of fair play, but the other players never caught on that they were being manipulated – until the very last episode when he admitted proudly that this was his strategy and that his actions proved his strategy was the best and that he ought to win the game.

Every contestant on the show knew then that this man had broken the Law of Human Nature and had played unfairly. When the voting for the winning Survivor came about, it was a different player who was selected by the players as the best. Natalie White got to the finalists by playing more closely to the Rule of Fair Play than the villainous contestant.

In the end, the game show contestants could not reward someone who so blatantly played outside the Rule of Fair Play. Mind you, the game itself had no rules except to get someone else voted out instead of yourself. By the game's history, the villain should have won -- he certainly thought he had the victory in the bag. But by the Rule of Fair Play that everyone sensed, most of the contestants who had stuck more closely with the Law of Fair Play while playing Survivor.  Selfishness has never been admired.

This show is a modern example, I think, of C. S. Lewis' conclusion that there is a universal Law of Fair Play. It is as powerful as the instinct for self-preservation, but it differs from a "herd instinct" because there is a choice to be good or to be evil. In fact, truth be told, all of us have difficulty following the Law of Fair Play -- we frequently chose to do wrong -- maybe not as blatantly as Survivor's Russell, but we do find it hard to be perfect. Still, when we bread the code, we know it. Deep inside, we know it and we try to justify the bad behavior.

Mere Christianity 3: A Rule of Fair Play

Decent behavior between people, organizations – even countries.

Fights break out between us when one of us breaks the commonly understood Rule of Fair Play. We defend our positions, as if the other party has stepped on our rights. But underneath the quarrel there is a  realization by both that an offense has occurred that is not fair. One feels offended. The other tries to rationalize his behavior. The very fact that people quarrel over behaviors or actions between them validates that both know the rule has been broken. We both know there is a Right and a Wrong behavior.

Consider athletic competitions. Rules of fair play are established. But when two players clash, each feels that the other violated the rule. So we need referees to establish who the real offender is. Even then, however, the player who committed the foul will argue that the other player is the guilty one. But neither will deny that there is a rule that both should adhere to – a Rule of Fair Play, a Rule of Right and Wrong. Either the violator knows that he broke the Rule and agrees with the referee or the violator vigorously defends his actions because he feels he was the wronged party.

Photo Credit: Watchmojo.com

Mere Christianity 2: Rignt? Wrong? Let's Fight!

“That’s my seat, I was there first.”

"It doesn't matter. I got the seat now!"

Or ...

"I thought you wanted to stand so I just sat down. The seat was empty.

How would you like it if someone did that to you?

When we say such things, we are appealing to some sort of expectation of fair play – as if we expect the other person to know the rules. In fact, we appeal to this person to change behavior and to do what both people know is the right thing to do and to give the seat to the person who was actually first.

Rather than admit that “taking someone’s seat” is counter to this rule of fair plan, instead we make an excuse that gives us special permission to do something we would not want others to do to us.

It appears apparent that there is a common understanding of a basic rule that we as humans should follow in our relationships with one another.

Photo Credit: at: theosophical.wordpress.com/2009/05/20/lets-argue/

Mere Christianity 1 -- The Most Original Christian Writer of Our Century

In the early 1940's, about the time I was born, there was a brilliant thinker who went on radio to deliver three broadcasts to describe why he could no longer be an atheist. He had thought his way past atheism -- a position he then declared suitable only for boys.

These talks were then compiled int a book called "Mere Christianity" that the New York Times acclaimed as "ideal for the half-convinced, for the good man who would like to be a Christian but finds his intellect getting in the way." Lewis was a professor of Medieval and Renaissance literature at Cambridge University and may be best known today for his book "The Chronicles of Narnia" -- recently made into a movie.

Lewis wrote about his qualifications (or actually his lack of qualifications) for writing this explanation of the Christian faith:

"It’s not because I’m anybody in particular that I’ve been asked to tell you what Christians believe. In fact it’s just the opposite. [The British Broadcasting Corporation] have asked me, first of all because I’m a layman and not a parson, and consequently they thought I might understand the ordinary person’s point of view a bit better. Secondly, I think they asked mebecause it was known that I’d been an atheist for many years and only became a Christian fairly recently. They thought that would mean I’d be able to see the difficulties – able to remember what Christianity looks like from the outside. So you see the long and the short of it is that I’ve been selected for this job just because I’m an amateur and not a professional, and a beginner not an old hand. Of course this means that you may well ask what right I have to talk on the subject at all. Well, when I’d finished my scripts I sent them round to various people who

were professionals: to one Church of England theologian, one Roman Catholic, one Presbyterian, and one Methodist. The Church of England man and the Presbyterian agreed with the whole thing. The Roman Catholic and the Methodist agreed in the main, but would have liked one or two places altered. So there you’ve got all the cards on the table.What I’m going to say isn’t exactly what all these people would say; but the greater part of it is what all Christians agree on… One thing I can promise you. In spite of all the unfortunate differences between Christians, what they agree on is still something pretty big and pretty solid: big enough to blowany of us sky-high if it happens to be true…"

“Mere Christianity” has been one of the most instrumental books in my walk as a Christian. It is insightful, but Lewis writes in a style not easy to skim and his thinking process is so complex that I found that it had to be studied to get the full power from it.

I have not just underlined key passages, I have even charted them out on legal pad so I could hold the thoughts in mind and make them actionable in my mind. And that means that I have likely read “Mere Christianity” six times, plus many times when I just picked it up and re-read a page or two to clear my head.

I was not surprised at my recent Bible Study Group to learn that most of these quite learned Christians had not read Lewis’ book or some had started and gave up. It is hard work to get to through Lewis' academic writing style ... and there are those who will struggle with the need for a rational treatise on why to be a Christian, when the real reason is simply a statement of faith -- no other explanation needed. But I obviously found Mere Christianity to be incredibly helpful to me personally but not at all easy to read.

So, I am undertaking a daunting task that I am actually looking forward to: I am going to attempt to write a simplified version – kind of like the NIV simplified King James. I hope to create a more approachable version of this classic, without losing the brilliance of C. S. Lewis.

These notes will be from my seventh reading of C. S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. I hope Professor Lewis does not turn over in his grave, shaking a fist at me. Or you might prefer to follow a study published by the C. S. Lewis Foundation.