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C.S.

Lewis Mere Christianity Book 2 Nathaniel Compton 1/19/11

C. S. Lewis wrote the book Mere Christianity. In this book he separates many topics into

miniature books. The second book discusses how Christians should not view all other religions

as completely wrong, but just not fully correct. Somewhere in most religions there is a grain of

Biblical truth that makes the religion not completely wrong. Religion is just like math in that

math requires perfect answers, so religion requires exact beliefs, but just as in math; some

answers are less incorrect than others. Religion is man’s attempt to get to God; Christianity is

God coming down to man.

Lewis says that there are two categories of people: those that don’t believe in God, and

those that do believe in God. In that category are the subcategories of Hindus, Platonists, Stoics,

Ancient Greeks and Romans, modern savages, Mohammedans, and so on. Many of these

religions have sections of their beliefs that are what Christians believe, but they are still not able

to claim Christ and go to heaven because they have not accepted Jesus as their personal savior.

Another concept that C.S. Lewis covers is the concept that an artist will not die when

their paintings are destroyed, even though they “put themselves into the painting”. The

individual is painting with all of their artistic talent to create the best possible painting

achievable. Some believe that God put Himself completely into the earth at creation. Using this

form of reasoning, they infer God will be destroyed when the earth is destroyed. However, since

God made the earth with little effort at all, this form of reasoning is unsound.

When C.S. Lewis was an atheist, he believed there must not be a God if the universe was

such an unjust and cruel place. He later realized where his logic was flawed. Lewis had no

example of the absence of injustice or cruelness with which to compare the earth; therefore, he

couldn’t state it was cruel. Lewis goes on to say that everything is absolute, and there is no

partial thing. In other words, gravity is always in effect, the earth will always be revolving
C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity Book 2 Nathaniel Compton 1/19/11

around the sun, not the other way around. Sin will always be wrong, no matter what is

happening.

Mere Christianity covers many subjects such as free will, free will means we are able to

do things, but only because God planned for us to do those action far before time began.

Throughout the book, Lewis shows that has learned about how we as a people all think in two

abstract ways. The first is the herd mentality, and the second is the self-preservation mentality.

The Herd mentality is the concept that everyone looks out for each other to keep the

human race as a whole intact and to keep those around us protected. Herd mentality is exactly as

it is stated, it is the thought of keeping the human race together, and not allowing others to stray

and to be brought to harm if they can help it. For example, if someone yelled for help and the

only person that heard the yell would run to their aid without listening to the fear of death and

injury. The individual would be risking their life for a complete stranger for the sake of the

stranger not dying.

Self preservation is the concept of an individual taking care of his or herself as best to his

or her capabilities. That doesn’t mean that they live in a mansion it means they take the least

dangerous roads of life and they try to make sure they will be fine for a long period of time. For

example if someone were to yell for help another person wouldn’t help them because they know

that if they help the other person they might get themselves killed in the process. They are

worried that they will become injured in saving the other person and don’t want to risk injuring

themselves

Another subject that C. S. Lewis talks about is the way people view Christianity, the way

I see Christianity is that it is God coming down to man, not to be mistaken with religion, man

trying to get to God. Christianity is essentially God allowing us to have a relationship with Him
C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity Book 2 Nathaniel Compton 1/19/11

and to live with Him in eternity. The word Christianity has had many meanings throughout time;

in the Bible times when someone was called a Christian it meant that they were a follower of

Christ. Nowadays if someone is called a Christian they are considered a nice person.

Lewis concludes the book by saying that we are all given challenges that we must choose

to either listen to the self preservation or the herd mentality and that by allowing one to take

presidency, we would not be using the wonderful mind that God has given us because sometimes

dashing in to save someone is not the best thing for us to do, yet letting them die is not any

better. Lewis has shown us the way that he feels as a people we are living by, if we didn’t have

the herd mentality we would be completely concerned with only ourselves and never help

anyone. If we were only focused on the herd mentality we would not preserve ourselves and thus

would be only hurting ourselves. Therefore we need to use both the herd mentality and the self-

preservation mentality evenly and sparingly as the need arises.

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