"C S Lewis "Mere Christianity""

Recently, I read a book by C S Lewis. His book is titled “Mere Christianity”. I thought of including everything that I have learned, chapter by chapter, but only to find out that I couldn’t cram everything into my blog. So I’ll just share what I think is important.

The most interesting thing about this book is that, C S Lewis is once an atheist who once argued all possible reasons why Christianity is false, only to end up turning into a Christian because his reasons have been proven wrong by other reasons. He is a man of reasons, which is why this book is interesting to me, because he can come up with reasons to why he thinks Christianity is the way.

In this book, he also talked about the Christian ways and the doctrine. He talked about forgiveness, faith, hope, love, Christian marriage, sexual morality, and the greatest sin which is Pride, new men, and why God gave us free will which gave us the possibility to disobey and corrupt the world. There are other chapters in the book, but the list is quite long. I know you won’t read the book, because you may find it “chim”. I’ll do my best to talk about some stuff in the book.

The chapter on Christian marriage is a chapter that struck me the most. It talks of how couples commit themselves to spend the rest of their life with each other till death. However, when they cease to be “in love”, they think that they are entitled to a divorce to find another partner, not realizing the feeling will go out of the new one just as it did from the old spouse.

First of all, ceasing to be “in love” doesn’t mean cease to love. The difference between “in love” and love is that, love is not only a feeling but a deep unity maintained by will, deliberately strengthened by habit and reinforced by grace.

They can have this love even when they do not like each other like they once did; just as you love yourself when you don’t like yourself in a way that you’re “in love” with yourself. Love is the engine which the marriage runs on, and being “in love” is the explosion that started it.

And this is also how we love our neighbors, including our enemies. This is how we forgive them, just like how we forgive ourselves. Just like how we love ourselves but hate the bad actions we do, it’s the same with our neighbors. Loving our neighbors in this sense, is not feeling fond. We love them because we wish them good, not feeling fond of them or saying their nice when they’re not.

Another thing I learned from this book is that, it is extremely difficult to hand our whole self to Christ. This, we all know, because we always tend to want to be in control all the time. Sometimes we would doubt Him. But at least, giving our whole selves to Him is easier than what we are trying to do, which is to remain “ourselves”, keeping personal happiness as our great aim in life, and yet at the same time, be “good”.

We are all trying to let our mind and heart go their way – centered on money or pleasure or ambition – and still hoping in spite of this, to behave honestly, chastely and humbly. THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT CHRIST WARNED US WE COULD NOT DO.

In the book, it also talks about how easier it is for nasty people to accept Christ compared to people who are given money and natural gifts like sound nerves and good digestion, which cost God nothing. However it cost Him crucifixion to convert rebellious wills. People who have all these goodness cannot be brought to Christ at all until one day, their self-satisfaction shattered.

That is why it is easier for nasty people – low, timid, warped, thin-blooded, lonely, unbalanced people to be brought to Christ. If they make an attempt at all, they learn in quick double time that they need help. Christ said “blessed are the poor” and “how hard it is for the rich to inherit the Kingdom”, and these nasty people are the lost sheep that Christ came specially to find. They were the awful set that Jesus went about with during His ministry.

We should always remember that we are poor, and we are the ones He blessed. All these gifts will only make our fall more terrible, our corruption more complicated, and your bad example more disastrous. The Devil was an archangel once; his natural gifts were as far above ours as ours are above those of a chimpanzee.

God knows what a wretched machine we are driving. Keep on, do what you can. One day, He will give us a new one. God became man to turn creatures into sons. Not simply to produce better kinds of the old, but to produce a new kind of man.

Alright, I’m done for now. Don’t wanna drag on anymore. If you wanna read the rest of the book, go to this website which has all the chapters of his book.
http://www.philosophyforlife.com/mctoc.htm