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C.S. Lewis | Mere Christianity Book IV | Beyond Personality: Or First Steps in the Doctrine of the Trinity Chapter 2 | “The Three-Personal God” Question: What is the difference between begetting and making that Lewis wants to remind us of? Answer: “A man begets a child, but he only makes a statue. God begets…

C.S. Lewis | Mere Christianity Book IV | Beyond Personality: Or First Steps in the Doctrine of the Trinity Chapter 1 | “Making and Begetting” Question: What warning is Lewis not heeding in Book IV? Answer: Everyone has told him “the ordinary reader does not want Theology; give him plain practical religion.” Q: Why has…

C.S. Lewis | Mere Christianity Book III | Christian Behavior Chapter 12 | “Faith” [Part Two] Question: What does Lewis want his readers to “notice carefully” in this chapter? Answer: “If this chapter means nothing to you” or if it is answering questions you don’t have, then “drop it at once.” Q: Why does Lewis…

C.S. Lewis | Mere Christianity Book III | Christian Behavior Chapter 11 | “Faith” [Part One] Question: What is the first way Christians speak of faith? Answer: Faith in the first meaning is thinking Christianity is true—accepting the beliefs of Christianity as true. Q: What used to puzzle Lewis about this? A. Why is faith…

C.S. Lewis | Mere Christianity Book III | Christian Behavior Chapter 10 | “Hope” Question: What is hope? Answer: “A continual looking forward to the eternal world.” It is not “a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do.” And, “It does not mean that we…

C.S. Lewis | Mere Christianity Book III | Christian Behavior Chapter 9 | “Charity” Question: What is Charity? Answer: Charity is one of the “Theological” virtues, along with Faith and Hope. Part of Charity is forgiveness, which Lewis wrote about in an earlier chapter. The meaning of the word has changed over time so that…

C.S. Lewis | Mere Christianity Book III | Christian Behavior Chapter 8 | “The Great Sin” Question: What is the “one vice of which no man in the world is free”? Answer: Pride. Q: What are some things that are true about the sin of pride? A: We all struggle with it. We despise it…

C.S. Lewis | Mere Christianity Book III | Christian Behavior Chapter 7 | “Forgiveness” Question: What does Lewis begin this chapter questioning? Answer: Which is the most unpopular virtue? He had said previously unchastity, but now we arrive at “this terrible duty of forgiving our enemies,” which may be harder. Lewis offers this great observation:…

C.S. Lewis | Mere Christianity Book III | Christian Behavior Chapter 6 | “Christian Marriage” Question: In the previous chapter, Lewis spoke negatively about the sexual impulse. Why doesn’t he want to speak “about its right working,” Christian marriage? Answer: Two things. First, “the Christian doctrines on this subject are extremely unpopular,” and two, Lewis…

C.S. Lewis | Mere Christianity Book III | Christian Behavior Chapter 5 | “Sexual Morality” This may be a good chapter to begin at the end. Lewis has a final thought that frames everything he says in this chapter. It may also take us by surprise. Question: Where is “the center of Christian morality”? Answer:…

C.S. Lewis | Mere Christianity Book III | Christian Behavior Chapter 4 | “Morality and Psychoanalysis” Note: It’s interesting to come back to this chapter with the intention of trying to understand it with an audience in mind. Lewis the intellectual is a formidable thing, for example as he describes Sigmund Freud in certain areas…

C.S. Lewis | Mere Christianity Book III | Christian Behavior Chapter 3 | “Social Morality” In the first book, Lewis made the case for a Moral Law that we fail to keep and which is evidence of God. In the second book, Lewis explained the various ideas people hold about God and why he understands…

C.S. Lewis | Mere Christianity Book III | Christian Behavior Chapter 2 | “The ‘Cardinal Virtues’” Question: What constraint was C.S. Lewis operating under in the previous chapter? Answer: He has only ten minutes to talk on the air, so everything had to be condensed. This is why he reduced morality to the idea of…

C.S. Lewis | Mere Christianity Book III | Christian Behavior Chapter 1 | “The Three Parts of Morality” I’m not sure the question and answer thing really works with this chapter, so I think I will simply try and summarize each of the ten paragraphs. Paragraph 1 | Lewis tells the story of a schoolboy…

C.S. Lewis | Mere Christianity Book II | What Christians Believe Chapter 5 | “The Practical Conclusion” Question: What did Jesus do for us? Answer: Jesus went through a perfect surrender and humiliation. It was “perfect because He was God, surrender and humiliation because He was man.” His death gives us new life and puts…

C.S. Lewis | Mere Christianity Book II | What Christians Believe Chapter 4 | “The Perfect Penitent” To me, Chapter 4 of Book II feels like an aside. Lewis has been building to “a frightening alternative,” that Jesus is who he said he was or is a crazy person or is something worse. But Lewis…

C.S. Lewis | Mere Christianity Book II | What Christians Believe Chapter 3 | “The Shocking Alternative” Question: What is the Christian belief that C.S. Lewis ended the last chapter with? Answer. “An evil power has made himself for the present the Prince of this World.” Q. What are the problems that are raised by…

C.S. Lewis | Mere Christianity Book II | What Christians Believe Chapter 2 | “The Invasion” Question: According to C.S. Lewis, what is too simple? Answer: Atheism (as discussed in the previous chapter) and a watered-down Christianity (“there is a good God in Heaven and everything is all right”) that does not include “all the…