Mere Christianity -- Book 4, Chap. 1
Making and Begetting
Some of Lewis’ friends recommended to him that he should not attempt this last section of Mere Christianity: namely, to unfold the meaning of the major doctrines of “mere Christianity.” They said that the people want “practical” religion, not doctrine. But Lewis does not think his readers are children and therefore they should not be treated as such.
Theology means the “science of God.”
And Lewis believes that:
Any man who wants to think about God at all would like to have the clearest and most accurate ideas about Him which are available.
Knowing God vs. Knowing About God?
While Lewis was giving a talk to the Royal Air Force an officer opposed Lewis’ lecture saying that he doesn’t have time for all this doctrinal stuff. He had had an experience where he felt God one time and all these creedal statements about God seem to be so petty and unreal.
To some degree Lewis agreed. There is a huge difference between creedal statements “about” God (or what we call “systematic” theology) and knowing or experiencing God personally.
However, we must be careful not to confuse the purpose of the two.
The creedal statements about God, may seem less real, but they are equally essential to knowing the right God.
Lewis gives the analogy of a map. You may experience the Grand Canyon and be overwhelmed by its grandeur and beauty. But what do you do when you need to find it in the first place or to travel around in it and explore its many dimensions? You need a map. Why?
1.
A map is based upon what hundreds and thousands of people who have already found and explored the many depths of the Grand Canyon. They have seen it from many different angles and have seen sights that you have not yet seen. The map can bring all their expertise together and place them in one location to enhance your own “knowledge” of the Grand Canyon.
A map is based upon what hundreds and thousands of people who have already found and explored the many depths of the Grand Canyon. They have seen it from many different angles and have seen sights that you have not yet seen. The map can bring all their expertise together and place them in one location to enhance your own “knowledge” of the Grand Canyon.2.If you want to get anywhere in and out of the Grand Canyon you will need a map to know where you are going. If you want to just sit on the edge and look down, then fine. But if you want to enter into it and explore it you need the assistance of the map.
If you want to get anywhere in and out of the Grand Canyon you will need a map to know where you are going. If you want to just sit on the edge and look down, then fine. But if you want to enter into it and explore it you need the assistance of the map.Theology is like a map. It is not God and should not be confused with knowing God. However, the “map” is based upon what thousands of others, who have known God, have found out about God and put their thoughts and experiences in one place to help you. Also, if you want to know the true God you need the map. In fact, it would be just as dangerous as the thrill seeker who enters the Grand Canyon without a map, as a human being seeking to know God merely by his own personal experience and not depending on others. Why?
Because we live in an era where there is a lot of talk about God:
Everyone reads, everyone hears things discussed. Consequently, if you do not listen to Theology, that will not mean that you will have no ideas about God. It will mean that you have a lot of wrong ones – bad, muddled, out-of-date ideas. For a great many of ideas about God which are trotted out as novelties today are simply the ones which real Theologians tried centuries ago and rejected. To believe in the popular religion of modern England (or America) is retrogression – like believing the earth is flat.
The Popular Idea of Christianity vs. Real Christianity
Most people reduce Christianity to mere morality. Jesus was just a good moral teacher that we would be greatly helped in society if we followed his advice. But is that what Christianity is “all” about?
It is true that if we all followed Christ’s teachings that we would be better off. But if that is all that Christianity is, then why go there? After all, there have been many philosophers (Plato, Aristotle, Confucius, etc.) who have told us many helpful things and if we had listened to them too we would have been better off.
But so what? We have never been very good at following the advice of others. Why would Christ’s advice be any better? Maybe someone would say that he was the “best” moral teacher and that’s why we should follow his teachings. But if we couldn’t follow the more elementary teachings, what makes us think we can follow the most advanced ones?
If all Christianity is is moral advice for being better men, then we don’t really need it. We have had thousands of years of moral advice – a bit more makes no difference at all.
But as soon as you begin to really explore Christianity you realize that it is much, much more than mere moral advice. It is radically different than the popular religion of the masses (civil religion). Rather, it says things like “Jesus Christ is the Son of God” and “If you put your faith in Christ you too can be a Son of God” because “His death saved us from our sins.”
While these statements are very unusual and difficult to understand, we shouldn’t be surprised that something that is trying to say something about another world is hard to grasp:
Christianity claims to be telling us about another world, about something behind the world we can touch and hear and see. You may think the claim false, but if it were true, what it tells us would be bound to be difficult – at least as difficult as modern Physics, and for the same reason.
Becoming Sons of God
Now the statement that seems to be the most difficult is the idea that somehow by attaching ourselves to Christ – by riding on His coat tails – we too can become “Sons of God.”
Now, while it is true that there is a sense in which God is the “Father” of all humanity, we are talking about something very unique that is at the very center of our Theology.
The Nicene Creed speaks of Jesus Christ as “begotten, not created” and “begotten by his Father before all worlds.” Lewis is not referring to the Virgin Birth but to something much earlier, in fact, before Nature was created at all, before time began. “Before all worlds” Christ is begotten, not created. What does this mean?
Begetting: To “beget” something is to become the father of – you beget something of the same kind as yourself. A man begets human babies, a beaver begets little beavers, and a bird begets eggs which turn into little birds.
Making: to create is to make something of a different kind from yourself. A bird makes a nest, a beaver builds a dam, a man makes a radio – or better yet, he makes a statue. Now, the statue can be very good, even an exact replica of yourself – but it is not a real man. It only looks like one – it cannot breathe or think – it is not alive.
God begets God as man begets man. But God does not create or make God, just as man does not make man. That is why men are not “Sons of God” in the same way that Christ is. They are like God but they are not the same kind. They are more like statues or pictures of God.
As a statue has the shape of a man but is not alive, so man has the “shape” or likeness of God, but he has not got the kind of life God has.
Likeness of God
Everything God has made has some likeness to Him – is a symbol of His being.
Space is like God in its immensity. Matter is like God’s energy. Vegetables are alive like God. Animals, like insects resemble God’s unceasing activity and creativeness. Higher animals have instinctive affections and the highest animals, mankind has a will and ability to reason. Here in man, the biological life of all living beings reaches its climax. But these “likenesses” are only symbolic or translations of God.
Natural/Biological Life vs. Spiritual Life
But there is still a sense in which man’s natural, biological life is not like God’s spiritual life. There is a huge difference. Biological life comes through nature and like all other things of this creation it tends to run down and decay. It can only be maintained by feeding off other parts of its environment – air, water, food, etc. We can call it: Bios.
The Spiritual life of God is eternal and is the source of all life in nature. We can call it: Zoe (cf. John 1:4, 11:25; 14:6; Rom. 5:10, 17; 6:23; 8:6, 10; 2 Cor. 4:10-12; Col. 3:3; 1 John 1:2; 5:11, 20).
Bios has, to be sure, a certain shadowy or symbolic resemblance to Zoe: but only the sort of resemblance there is between a photo and a place, or a statue and a man. A man who changed from having Bios to Zoe would have gone through as big a change as a statue which changed from being a carved stone to being a real man.
And this is precisely what Christianity is about. This world is a great sculptor’s shop. We are the statues and there is a rumor going round the shop that some of us are some day going to come to life (see the children’s story of Pinocchio).
