"Mere Christianity" was something very interesting for me to read. It really brought a new perspective to how I view Christianity, and my own relationship with Christ. One of the first things that struck me was when Lewis talks about the word gentlemen and how it used to be a term that listed fact. It used to mean someone who had a coat of arms and a landed property, and now it is a judgment of character. Lewis uses this example with Christian. The world is suppose to mean an individual who believes in the doctrine. Lewis states "It is not for us tot say who, in the deepest sense, is or is not close to the spirit of Christ." We cannot as Christians judge who the better Christians are. Actually, God tells us that we are not allowed to judge because he of course is the only one who can judge at all.
My favorite part of this reading was Chapter 1. The explanation of moral law. The thing that I found most interesting is that across all cultures there is some sort of moral law. Most cultures find fault in the killing of an innocent person, stealing another person's property, and most cultures also agree on the sanctity of marriage. They may not agree on the same number of wives as Lewis says, but they agree that you may not just have any women you want. This was very important to me in and argument against evolutionism. I don't think that anyone can truly believe that this was all random when it is such a constant. My group even discussed how animals do not have the same laws at all, some will even kill their own young for food. We even talked about monkeys and how they will become terribly violent and even disembowel each other without hesitating. Then we discussed a soul and I made the remark that animals do not have a soul, but another group member brought up the question do souls actually exist? I found this interesting. What is a soul? How do we define it, and is the definition actually true to a soul or something else?
This reminds me of the line, "I love your Christ, but not your Christians." I think that Christian has to non Christians come to mean a good person, so how we act influences that.
ReplyDeleteThe moral law, I agree is such an interesting topic. The example with the animals and how their laws are completely different from ours was neat. Also, I know to us it seems ridiculous that evolution could be true, but again we have to remember that we are looking at it from a Christian perspective. We have to look at evolution from the inside of our beliefs, and the outside. Rather than judging it and saying it can't possibly be true, we need to look at the facts. If we don't do this, we are simply using bulverism - which will get us nowhere. Evolutionists are doing the same thing for creation - looking at it and assuming that it cannot be possible without really knowing much about it.
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