During the small group discussion time, I remember our group laughing about the fact that if we were a non-Christian and we read this essay, we would have just gotten really scared. C.S. Lewis talks provocatively about the question “Can’t you lead a good life without believing in Christianity?” Lewis says that those who ask such questions are cowards and they are lazy. Lewis says:
“He is deliberately trying not to know whether Christianity is true or false, because he foresees endless trouble if it should turn out to be true.”
Lewis says that “honest rejection of Christ” might be forgivable, but looking the other way and pretending you haven’t noticed the Son of Man might be a different matter. Lewis describes these people as ostriches hiding their face in the sand.
People who asks this question, in fact, doesn’t even know what it means to live a “good” life neither do they understand what life is all about. It is impossible to be good with our own effort. I find it interesting that Lewis never really tells us what life is all about. I guess that wasn’t the point of this particular essay.
I am not a non-Christian, so I am not part of the group of people that Lewis is particularly addressing to. However I find this essay very insightful and useful in that I can understand what the people who ask the question of “being good with being a Christian” are really thinking. It seems that Lewis, who have been in the position of the people whom he is criticizing, has a good idea what is going on in these people’s minds. Knowing where these people are at when they ask this question can be very useful in helping these people know Christ, although I would probably use a less provocative language.
If I was a non-believer and would have read this article,,, I would have gotten so mad.. because by reading this I would have realized that I have been actually as stupid and cowardly as that ostrich hiding its head on the ground.. I think Lewis did offer the readers a good explanation of why we can be good when we are Christians because he has actually been in an atheist once.
답글삭제Nice summary and additional comments, Josh. I think when Lewis says people who ask these questions are missing out on what life is all about, he simply means that life is all about God. That he created it, finishes it, and should be the center of our own. You're right, I think he leaves that topic for other essays.
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