Mere Christianity Book 2 Lecture

Rival Conceptions of God Atheists Must think the human race has always been wrong about the question that mattered to them most. Christians There are lots of wrong answers but some are much nearer being right than others

Divisions of Humanity Majority (91% in USA) Believe in some kind of God Christianity lines up with the majority Minority Do not believe in God

Division in Those Who Believe in God Pantheist (Transcendental, Cosmic Humanist) God is beyond good and evil. He is an impersonal life force. The universe is almost or is God Monotheist There is one God who is good and right. God invented and made the universe

Cancer Pantheist See it from the divine point of view, you would realize that this also is God Christian Don’t talk damned nonsense Christianity is a fighting religion. Great many things have gone wrong in the world and God will put them right again.

God is Cruel and Unjust Argument How did I get the idea of cruel and unjust? Did I get the idea from myself? If so then God is not cruel and unjust because I just made up what cruel and unjust means If there is something such as real justice, it could not have evolved. It must come from an outside being

Dualism Two separate and independent powers One Good One Bad When we say that Good is right then they are no longer equal because we are saying there is an independent power that prefers Good Goodness is being in a right relationship to God

“You can be good for the sake of mere goodness but you cannot be bad for the sake of mere badness.” It is always something good that you desire.

Satan Christians think the Dark Power was created by God. It was good and went wrong.

Civil War This is a civil war, a rebellion

Enemy Territory Christians are in enemy occupied territory

The Shocking Alternative Free Will is what has made evil possible Wanting to be God is the sin that Satan taught us.

Happiness We cannot have happiness outside of God. Attempts to have happiness outside of God bring: War, poverty, ambition, prostitution, diseases, slavery etc.. Come from this.

3 Things God Did Left us a conscience, the sense of right and wrong Gave us “Good Dreams” those stories scattered throughout religion of a redemptive God Eternity in Their Hearts Chose Israel to communicate to about who He really is.

The Real Shock Reading From the Book A man suddenly shows up among the Jews To be God To forgive sins That he Always existed That he will one day judge the world.

The Claim to Forgive Sins Unless He is God, this claim is preposterous, comic and of a mad man.

You cannot say.. Jesus was a good moral teacher but not God. He is either the Son of God, a madman, or something worse.

The Perfect Penitent He was not a lunatic or a fiend He was God and is God. God has landed on this enemy occupied world in human form.

The Christian Formula Christ was killed for us. His death has washed out our sins, by dying He disabled death itself. He rose again and conquered death.

Repentance The process of surrender is what Christians call repentence Unlearning self will and self conceit Killing yourself and undergoing a sort of death

The Catch It takes a good person to repent and we are not good people We need Christ who has willingly surrendered His life to help us surrender ours.

The Practical Conclusion We share the suffering and humiliation of Christ and we will share His conquest of Death when we die. In Christ a new kind of man appeared, a new kind of life that we can share.

How does that life spread to us? According to Lewis it is some combination of belief, baptism, and communion. All Christians believe in all three things yet I do not believe a person needs to be baptized or take communion to be saved. Belief and Repentance is all that is necessary. Lewis seems to indicate that Christians can lose their salvation.

The Christian Christian is not a man who never goes wrong but a man who is enabled to repent and pick himself up and begin over again after each stumble because the Christ life is inside him repairing him, enabling him to repeat the kind of voluntary death which Christ Himself carried out.

How are We Different from Others Trying to Do Good? We are in a different position from other people trying to do good. Any good we do comes from the Christ Life inside of us.

What about the heathen who have never heard? This is not an excuse for you to not come to Him who have heard

Why didn’t Christ just come in force? Because when He does it will be too late for the rest of us. He wants to give us a chance to come to him voluntarily before he comes in judgment.

Design a conversation where you are able to make some of Lewis’s points to a non-Christian.