Roaring River

Mere Christianity 19: Christianity is More like a Box of Chocolates than a Hershey Bar

Simplicity in this world is likely false. Things here are complicated. So complicated that to understand them at all, we have to deconstruct them into parts that are simpler.

But it is the whole thing that matters.

You have to pick all the coconut candies from the box of chocolates.

Lewis called atheism as too simple. For him, it fell apart upon examination.

"It is no good asking for a simple religion. After all, real things are not simple. They look simple, but they are not. People who want to destroy Christianity put up a version of Christianity suitable for a child of six and make that the object of their attack."

He warns that had God did not create a religion. Instead, religion is God's statement to us of certain quite unalterable facts about his own nature.

The fact that we turn it into a religion is Man's making.

"Besides being complicated, reality, in my experience, is usually odd. It is not neat, not obvious, not what you expect. For instance, when you have grasped that the earth and the other planets all go around the sun, you would naturally expect that all the planets were made to match -- all at equal distances from each other, say, or distances that regularly increaseed, or all the same size, or else getting bigger or smaller as you go farther from the sun. In fact, you find no rhyme or reason that we can see about either the sizes or the distances; and some of them have one moon, one has four, one has two, some have none and one has a ring."

"Reality is usually something you could not have guessed. That is one of the reasons I believe Christianity. It is a religion you could not have guessed."

Rather than a simple Hershey bar, you get a box of chocolates. Each individual. Some you like more than others.

Mere Christianity 18: Christianity is Not a Simple Religion

Here's where Christianity comes out as a fighting religion. It insists on being right and that insistance brings on people committed to destroying it.

Professor Lewis puts it bluntly. Being a Christian meahs that where Christianity differs from other religions, Christianity is the right religion. "As in arithmetic -- there is only one right answer to a sum, and all other answers are wrong (but some of the wrong answers are much nearer being right than others."

 
 
Jesus did not dodge this either.

"I Am the way, the truth and the life."

Jesus claimed that He is the only way to heaven and that there is no other way that leads to heaven. No matter how hard anybody may try, if he/she wants to go to heaven he/she will have to go through Jesus. If you want to go to London from New York, you need a specific ticket to go to that particular place. But if you think, "I will go to airport and catch any flight", assuming that every flight is going to London, then you will never reach the place because you need to catch the specific flight which is going to London. In the same way if we want to go to heaven, we should determine our way. And Jesus said that He is the way… and that no one can go to the Father except through Him. (See Chapter 3).

Lewis sees God as quite definitely good. "God takes sides, loves love and hates hatred, wants us to behave  in one way and not in another.

Mere Christianity 17: Rival Conceptions of God

There seem to be three big categories that divide humanity by what they believe or don't believe about God. Professor Lewis gets a bit deep here and so this is one of the places where I have tried to simplify and not being a theologian or philosopher, hopefully I did not go wrong in trying to be simple.

My chart is the ultimate in simplification of what are concepts that have fine lines and gather great debates ... just go to Google and you can find yourself reading for hours and understanding less the more you read. But for Professor Lewis these distinctions are important aspects of how he arrives on Christianity's doorstep as the himself sorts these views.

Lewis sees Pantheists as those that call one thing both good and bad. "We call a cancer bade, they would say, because it kills a man; but you might just as well call a successful surgeon bad because he kills a cancer. It all depends upon a point of view. It was professed by the great Prussian philosppher Hegel and describes many of the beliefs of Far Eastern religions.

Lewis sees Christians as those that believe God made the universe. "Space, time, heat and cold, and allthe colors and tastes, and all the animals and vegetables are all things that God made up out of His head as a man makes up a story. He is all good, and worthy of our worship.

Lewis sees Atheists as those who have to reject what all other people on earth believe. He started out as an atheist and long defended his views against his Christian friends, until he actually tried to understand his objections and that is when he became a Christian.