Mere Christianity

May 3, 2008
Religion III
Mere Christianity
The book “Mere Christianity” was written by the author C.S. Lewis. This author was an atheist and then he converted to Christianity. The purpose of the book is to explain Christianity through logical explanations and describe Christian beliefs and behaviors. In my reflection I will focus on two specific sections of the book. First on book one, whichis about the law of human nature and how society deals with it. Then on book three, whose topic is similar to that of book one but dealing as well with Christian behavior and morality.
The first book it titled “Right and Wrong as a Clue to the meaning of the Universe.” In this book Lewis explains that for some reason we all think that everybody knows the law of human nature and that it does notneed to be taught. The ironic part is that even though we all are conscious of it we still break the law, and we believe in it so much that whenever we break it we always make up excuses for our wrong action. Lewis stated that all cultures agree that this law exists, but they differ in some aspects. To exemplify this Lewis wrote “Men have differed as to whether you should have one wife or four.But they have always agreed that you must not simply have any woman you liked.”(p. 9)
One thing that now I am sure of is that we I am forced to believe in right and wrong. If there were no difference between doing good or evil, it would be the same if I punched and bag and then I punched a child. Even though we know the difference because of the law of nature, we always break it. When we do wrong,we feel guilty and we start making up excuses for our incorrect behavior. I find this quite sad because this uncontrollable disobedience is what has caused our universe to be as conflictive as it is today. The worst part is that we are responsible of this because we all break the law simply because we are selfish beings who are always comparing to each other.
Sometimes we say that a man shouldnot behave in a certain way just because his action might be inconvenient to us at that moment. I might get angry with a friend for telling my parents I ditched school one day, and I would consider her action as wrong for revealing my secret, but my parents would consider her action as correct for saying the truth. Today people call decent behavior to the behavior that is more useful to them.Lewis mentioned that the point of behaving decently was to benefit society, and this clearly means that men have to be unselfish if they want to follow the laws of morality.
Behind this controversial lies there are two views, the materialistic and the religious view. The materialistic view thinks that matter and behavior just happen to exist. The religious view thinks there is more like a mindbehind it. I happen to be convinced by the religious view, not only because I am a faithful believer, but because it would be odd to think that, a piece of matter is behind of this complex subject.
Book number three which three titled “Christian Behavior” begins by explaining the three parts of morality. The first one is the relationships between humans, the second is the care of one self, andthird is the relationship between a human and the power that made him. Each human is like a piece of a machine, if all work well everything goes fine in the machine, and the machine cannot work without the help of its creator.
The four cardinal virtues are prudence, temperance, justice, and fortitude. Many people seem like fools today because they got the idea mistaken when Christ said that wecould only get into his kingdom if we were like children, but Lewis explained this when he wrote “He wants a child’s heart, but a grown-up’s head”(p. 77). The quality is better than a simple action when it comes to virtues because there is no use in doing right actions for the wrong reasons.
One of the key elements for social morality is the golden rule, which is do to others as you would have...