Mere Christianity

Reading C.S. Lewis never disappoints me. He has a way of saying something that I know in a way that makes it make even more sense. I am currently reading through his book Mere Christianity; it is my second time through it, but the last time I read it I was in high school.

In the book he attempts, and is successful I might add, to address the key doctrines of the Christian faith from a logical and apologetic viewpoint, rather than a theological one. It was originally a series of radio broadcasts, in fact, several of his books were radio broadcasts.

He takes a chapter to address the issue of there being two powers in the world, a Good god, and a Bad god, known as Dualism.

Often times, people say that this has to be the case, of course this is not the teaching of the Bible. Lewis makes this deduction: in order for bad to be bad, it must have good. In other words, bad is only defined as bad if there is something considered good. To actually quote Lewis, "Goodness is, so to speak, itself: badness is only spoiled goodness."

This line of thinking leads to the concept that evil is not something which is original or created, but something that is devised in the minds and hearts of fallen creatures. A good example is eating. Eating is a necessary thing, and is very good for us. We were made to consume food, and to enjoy the taste and textures of each food. But that can quickly lead to overeating, and we learn that is wrong when we are in pain laying on our couch feeling stuffed. It can also lead to a misplacement of value on food.

If I like chicken, and my friend eats my chicken, I get upset and yell at my friend and call him names. This is a misplacement of value; the chicken is just food, but my friend is a person, and a person that I apparently like and trust.

I think we can do this with everything. God creates, and then Satan and the rest of us fallen creatures, take them and twist them into perverted passions bent on selfish designs.

Of course Lewis concludes that there is no such thing as a Good god and a Bad god, and the way he gets to that conclusion is because badness needs goodness to exist. Therefore, if there were two gods like this, the Bad one would need the Good one to exist in order for himself to exist.

I had these thoughts before, but for some reason when I read Lewis talk about it, it comes even more to life in my head. I wrote a post a while back about an author being like a good friend, and he is definitely one of my best friends.

I have not read anything by Lewis that I did not like, although I have not read everything he has written so there may be something by him I won't like, but I doubt it.

In my mind he had a special gift to communicate truth with clarity and a candor that makes me feel like he is just a friend engaging me in a good discussion. If you don't have an author that you connect with, find one, at least one, and try out Lewis, he very well could be the author for you.