C. S. Lewis Mere Christianity: Chapter One

Every movement with the intent to create change must begin with a foundation of beliefs. These beliefs form the basis of convictions and ideals that those firmly rooted in the movement will act upon. In the 1960's Civil Rights Movement, religion played a major role. We explore these ideas in the March trilogy, written by John Lewis. Church gatherings and meeting places served as important locations for inspiration and refuge. Religious images and leaders, including Jesus Christ and Mahatma Gandhi, set an example the activists aimed to follow. The Social Gospel was pivotal in creating the underlying philosophy of the movement, while Islam may have been a source of tension.

Lewis' argument in the third book is most important to the point I want to discuss. He argues through this chapter the Christian behavior. Morality is what he considers to be the basics of good Christian behavior. Lewis states that morality is not simply, "something that prevents you from having a good time", but rather morals are the "directions for running the human machine". Every moral rule is there to prevent wear and tear on the way machine operates. He realizes that is why the rules seem to be constantly getting in the way of are natural behavior. Lewis sees that some people think in terms of moral ideals not rules and obedience. Ideals suggest preference to personal taste. Something that subjective would be meaningless in practice. Idealistic notions are meaningless unless we try to carry them out. Acting on ideals requires rules. Lewis uses the analogy of the ship to show how ideals without rules can go wrong. If the ships keep on having crashes they will not be able to sail. If their steering gears do not work they will not be able to avoid crashes.

To back his claims Lewis then presents eight proofs to show the reader what he is discussing more clearly. The eight proofs are stilted comparisons, justification of individual corruption for being part of a sinful system, belief that time dims sin, acclimation to low social norms, thinking that which is moral to man is moral to God, focusing on a specific trait and ignoring all others, failure to obeying God’s rules and then protesting about them being overly moral, and finally excusing moral failures on biology and evolution rather than attempting a change. These all fit into the two causes that Lewis

Book 3 of Mere Christianity contains 12 separate chapters, which has far too great a scope to address properly here, so a glimpse will have to suffice. In the first, Lewis examines three components of morality; the relations between men, the interior moral mechanics of a man, and the relationship between a man and the God who made him. Lewis makes the case that, since we are destined to live forever in one state or another, it is desperately important that we pay attention to the sort of Being we are becoming. Lewis points out that most of humanity can agree that keeping relations between men running smoothly are important, but varying world views and religions-or lack of religion, have produced some disagreements on the necessity of keeping one’s own ship in order, as it were, and it completely breaks down when the relationship between a man and his Maker are addressed, as there is virtually no agreement there.

The idea of striving for goodness has always been something that has been instilled in our minds since birth. We were always taught to the do the right thing. But why? What are the benefits of being a good person versus being bad? This is question that Colin Mcginn tackles in his article, “Why Not Be a Bad Person?” In it, he explains why he think virtue is the more intriguing moral standard, and explores why some people may disagree with him.

C.S. Lewis covers many topics in his fourth book contained in Mere Christianity titled BEYOND PERSONALITY: OR FIRST STEPS IN THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. He addresses such topics as theology, what it means to be the Son of God, the three personal God, the relationship of God and time, the cost of being a Christian, how God works to turn us into image of Christ, why Christian growth is both hard and easy, and also what he thinks about our old personalities before becoming Christians. These are all relative topics that apply to us and our daily lives. Learning and understanding this book can help a Christian tremendously in forming a deeper relationship with God.

The Law of Nature is discussed greatly in the book Mere Christianity of C. S. Lewis, who asserts that it is the Law of Nature which makes humans obligated to do the right thing. According to Lewis, this law can also be referred as The Real Morality or the Standard to which all people follow, and which people use to evaluate their and others’ behaviors. The Law of Nature tells the people which circumstance is appropriate to execute certain actions, and which situation is not suitable for certain behavior. For instance, in every human, there is a warrior trait, which is said to be necessary by the Law of Nature in order to protect oneself against life-threatening beings, but to be wrong when it is used to injure the innocent people. However, the Law of Nature functions beyond the machinery of evaluating

Everybody possesses an internal sense of moral obligation to realize the difference between right and wrong and choose to do what is right. Lewis ascertains that the existence of this common “moral conscience,” can only be the consequential result from the existence of a god who created all humans. (about.com).

In book one, Lewis explores humanity's conscience mindset of what is right and good, as well as, what is evil and wrong. Many people believe in right and wrong, but they don’t always understand

Lewis’ Screwtape Letters is an amusing and profound story of the world 's temptation and a Christian 's victory over it. In a collection of letters, an old demon, Screwtape, gives advice and guidance to his young and naive nephew, Wormwood, on how to lure his "patient" to Hell. Amateurishly attempting to tempt his patient to commit some great, extravagant sin, Wormwood lets his hand off the wheel and his patient becomes a Christian. Even in a seemingly hopeless situation, Screwtape kept his cool and advised Wormwood "to prevent his doing anything. As long as he does not convert it into action...Let him do anything but act. No amount of piety in his imagination and affections will harm us if we can keep it out of his will. As one of the humans has said, active habits are strengthened by repetition but passive ones are weakened."(pg.66-67) Screwtape and Wormwood work to work to keep the patients ' faith in a passive, lukewarm state and put out his fire for the Lord. They try to distract him with the ways of the world, but they are unable to put out his burning fire for the Lord. In an unexpected bombing, the patient slipped through Wormwood 's hands and into the open arms of his Heavenly Father. Some ways Wormwood is instructed to tempt his patient is by keeping him either stuck in the past or hag-ridden with the future, creating doubt during the low or struggling times and distracted during the good times, and with love.

The first chapter of Book One, C.S Lewis talked about The law of Nature. After finish this chapter. I realized that C.S Lewis exposed The law of Nature as Moral Law. The explanation for the example of The law of Nature is quite easily understand that how the morality is controlling your mind to do a good thing that not go against dogma. Because of this, it reminded me of the story of myself. The story happened a long time ago, when I was in grade 3, I saw fifty thousand Vietnamese dongs, which equal two and fifty cents dollars on my primary school hallway. At that moment, I need money to get a new toy for myself. I came and picked the money up, put it into my pocket, and walk away. The question bumped into my mind that “should I bring it to the school office or keep it for a new toy? But what if somebody lost it and they need it too?” and I felt like I have to choose between becoming virtuous person or stealer. The final decision I have done for myself to against evil was brought that money to the school office to return it to the one, who lost it. God has to lead me to do a good thing that he wants me to do to against evil.

Many people want to be seen as good. While there are people who need to be good, there are others who do not need to be good, for if they are good then people can take them down and bring them to their ruin. In Machiavelli’s writing he says, “Any man who tries to be good all the time is

C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity, defends the religion from the critics that believe that it is a religion that does not have foundation. He further goes to show the type of life that a Christian live. The book is divided into four different sections. In each section, there are things that Lewis touches on. In the beginning, he talks about natural law and how it needs to exist since humans did not invent, but they respond to it. He states that God exists and that it is made of three parts: The Father, the son and the Holy Spirit. Lewis goes on to describe what a Christian believes and how a Christian should behave. He highlights that one of the steps in being a Christian is to accept Jesus Christ and try to be like him. He goes on to also point out that non-believers should not know how Christians have differences within the faith because then there is where the notion that the religion is not well put or that its foundations are not strong become faulty.

“We need to design institutions (and cars and homes and toothbrushes, etc.) that make it easy for people to be good.” (Jim Farrell)

As humans, we are good by nature. We are not born just to do bad things. “Evil is a property of our actions when we pervert the beneficial purpose of things, but the things themselves are good” (Tiel, Pg 27). Instead of looking at everyone as a whole it will be easier to look at the individual and then relate that to everyone in the group so that it is easier to relate to. Everything we do is good it is just our intentions that can turn what we do evil. If we decide to do something for our own gain that ends up hurting someone else this is bad even though the action by itself would be harmless.