Mere Christianity – Book 4, Chap. 10

Nice People or New Men

Lewis has been describing the ultimate end of the Christian life as God making us perfect as He is perfect.  While we will never arrive at that end in this life, we can be certain that God is not finished with us until we do arrive at that goal.

But a question arises in regards to just what a Christian is.  Someone might ask:

If Christianity is true why are not all Christians obviously nicer than all non-Christians?

This question from an outsider of Christianity is certainly an indictment upon all Christians that must be considered with all seriousness.  The question is a very reasonable one to ask. 

In fact, we could say clearly that if our conversion to Christianity does not improve our outward actions – “if he continues to be just as snobbish or spiteful or envious or ambitious as he was before” – then our conversion to Christ would certainly be suspect.  All our “knowledge” of the Christian faith really means nothing if it doesn’t affect our actions. 

In fact, we must always remember that we are living our lives before a watching world so that:

When we Christians behave badly, or fail to behave well, we are making Christianity unbelievable to the outside world. 

We need to always ask seriously if we are living our lives in such a way “that throws doubts on the truth of Christianity itself” to outsiders.

But we must also remember equally that there is a real sense in which the question above is also unreasonable/illogical.  Why?

1.The distinction between a Christian and a non-Christian is more complicated than simply, neatly dividing the two into two hermetically sealed camps.  There are people who may call themselves Christians (including clergyman) who really are not.  And there are some who are moving closer to becoming Christians who may not yet call themselves such.  Also, there are many “good pagans” who simply because of their good upbringing and other positive influences are indeed “nice” people (i.e. common grace).

2.But let’s say that we can clearly distinguish between a true Christians person and a true non-Christian.  We still need to ask the right question:

If Christianity is true then it ought to follow (a) That any Christian will be nicer than the same person would be if he were not a Christian.  (b) That any many who becomes a Christian will be nicer than he was before.

Now, does it really necessarily mean that simply because the person has become a Christian that he will always be nicer than someone who is not a Christian?

Christian Miss Bates may have an unkinder tongue than unbelieving Dick Firkin.  That, by itself does not tell us whether Christianity works.  

The question is what Miss Bates’ tongue would be like if she were not a Christian and what Dick’s would be like if he became one. 

Miss Bates and Dick, as a result of natural causes and early upbringing, have certain temperaments:  Christianity professes to put both temperaments under new management if they will allow it to do so.

What you must ask is if that management, “if” allowed to take over, will improve that temperament.  In other words, it is not simply by becoming a Christian that completely changes a person’s temperament, but whether or not that person is willing to yield their temperament to God to be transformed into something new.

Just because you don’t see radical changes quickly in the temperament of the Christian does not mean that Christianity is a failure.

3.Christ will in fact turn Miss Bates into a very nice person by the time he is finished with her.  But we must also remember that not only does Miss Bates need to be changed, so does Dick.  Christianity isn’t just for nasty people.  Nice people equally need to be saved. 

We have been talking, in fact, as if Dick were al right; as if Christianity was something nasty people needed and nice ones could afford to do without; and as if niceness was all that God demanded.  But this would be a fatal mistake.  The truth is that in God’s eyes Dick Firkin needs “saving” every bit as much as Miss Bates.

Why?  Isn’t God impressed by Dick’s good disposition?  Well, what made Dick that way?  What caused Miss Bates to be the way she is? 

By common grace (“natural causes”), Dick has been surrounded by good influences that shaped his temperament.  God provided those good influences in his life that makes Dick the way he is.  It is God’s gift to Dick, not Dick’s gift to God. 

Equally, God has sent other natural causes into Miss Bates life, natural causes working “in a world spoiled by centuries of sin, to produce in Miss Bates the narrow mind and jangled nerves which account for most of her nastiness.”  God will, in His own timing, work that out in her life.

So both people are the way they are because of outward influences that are beyond their control.  The kinds of temperaments those influences produced are not the real issue at all. 

For Lewis the real issue boils down to free will – what God is truly concerned about is whether or not Miss Bates or Dick will turn to Him.

Will they, or will they not, turn to Him and thus fulfill the only purpose for which they were created?  Their free will is trembling inside them like the needle of a compass.  But this is a needle that can choose.  It can point to its true North; but it need not.  Will the needle swing round, and settle, and point to God?

According to Lewis, this is something that even God has no control over.  Both Miss Bates and Dick are completely free to turn to him or turn away from him.  They must choose.

God can help them make the right choice, but he cannot force them to make the right choice.

He cannot, so to speak, put out His own hand and pull it into the right position, for then it would not be free will any more.  Will it point North?  That is the question on which all hangs.  Will Miss Bates and Dick offer their natures to God?  The question whether the natures they offer or withhold are, at that moment, nice or nasty ones, is of secondary importance.  God can see to that part of the problem. 

So for Lewis the whole problem to the question is whether or not Miss Bates or Dick will choose to let God help them or not.  God can change them once they turn their lives over to him.

Of course is pleased with nice things and regards nasty things as bad.  But what is the cause of whether those things are nice or nasty?  For Dick, it is simply natural.  But what is going to happen to Dick when those natural things pass away along with all nature?  What will he be then?  God has given him many more good natural influences at the moment which makes him “look” nicer than Miss Bates.  In that sense, he looks better than she does at the moment.  But what happens when those things are no longer present?

The real question is what will Dick do with what he has verses what Miss Bates will do with what she has.  OK, Dick has had a better environment supporting him, but what does he do with it?  He still must be transformed into an eternal being, which he cannot do.  He must rely on God for that.  The real questions is whether or not he has made use of what God offers him to become that eternal being.

Therefore, what really separates Dick and Miss Bates is not what they presently are, nasty or nice, but whether or not they have turned to God for salvation.

In other words, the real question is not what we are saddled with in this life (some have much more on them that others do not), but what we choose to do with it (cf. this discussion in “Morality and Psychoanalysis”).  But as long as Dick hangs on to what he’s got, he will never be truly what God intends him to be.  The only way to be the kind of creature that God wants, is to loose your life – to give it up to God.

And only God can bring about this true “crucifying” regeneration that must take place (cf. “The Perfect Penitent” and Eustace Scrubb from “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” – who is transformed back into a boy from a dragon in Aslan’s presence.)

Finally, it should not surprise us if we find among Christians some people who still nasty.  There is a reason for this – a reason why nasty people might be expected to turn to Christ is greater numbers than nice people.

Jesus was himself greatly criticized because he always hung around “such awful people.”  He came for the poor and sick, not for the wealthy and well.  After all, consider how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God.

One of the real dangers with having a lot of wealth in this life is that it is easier to become satisfied with what you already have and see no need of anything else, certainly not God.  If everything is easy, you have no real motive to be dependent upon God.  Natural gifts work the same way:

If you have sound nerves and intelligence and health and popularity and a good upbringing, you are likely to be quite satisfied with your character as it is.  “Why drag God into it?” you may ask.  A certain level of good conduct comes fairly easily to you.  You are not one of those wretched creatures who are always being tripped up by sex, or dipsomania, or nervousness, or bad temper.  Everyone says you are a nice chap and (between ourselves) you agree with them.  You are quite likely to believe that all this niceness is your own doing:  and you may easily not feel the need for any better kind of goodness.  Often people who have all these natural kinds of goodness cannot be brought to recognize their need for Christ at all until, one day, the natural goodness lets them down and their self-satisfaction is shattered.  In other words, it is hard for those who are “rich” in this sense to enter the Kingdom.

It is very different for the nasty people – the little, low, timid, warped, thin-blooded, lonely people, or the passionate, sensual, unbalanced people.  If they make any attempt at goodness at all, they learn, in double quick time, that they need help.  It is Christ or nothing for them.  It is taking up the cross and following – or else despair.  They are the lost sheep; He came specially to find them.  They are (in one very real and terrible sense) the “poor”:  He blessed them.  They are the “awful set” He goes about with – and of course the Pharisees say still, as they said from the first, “If there were anything in Christianity those people would not be Christians.”

In other words, those folks who are satisfied with the way they are – being such nice folks and all – really see no need for a change.  They are doing OK on their own.  But the really wretched souls that the world has given up on long ago, those are the ones who have nothing else to hope for.  These are the folks that make up the kingdom of God.

So if you are a nice person – if virtue comes easily for you – beware! 

If you mistake for your own merits what are really God’s gifts to you through nature, and if you are contented with simply being nice, you are still a rebel:  and all those gifts will only make you fall more terrible, your corruption more complicated, your bad example more disastrous.  The Devil was an archangel once; his natural gifts were as far above yours as yours above those of a chimpanzee. 

But if you are a poor creature – poisoned by a wretched upbringing in some house full of vulgar jealousies and senseless quarrels – saddled, by no choice of your own, with some loathsome sexual perversion – nagged day in and day out by an inferiority complex that makes you snap at your best friends – do not despair.  He knows all about it.  You are one of the poor whom He blessed. 

Niceness is a wonderful thing.  And we should work in our world to make as many people as possible grow up “nice.”  But if we were to succeed in making everyone nice, do not suppose for a moment that we have saved their souls. 

A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world – and might even be more difficult to save.

But mere improvement is not redemption.  Instead God became a man to turn creatures into sons, not simply to produce better men of the old kind.  He came to produce a new kind of man altogether.  “It is not like teaching a horse to jump better and better but like turning a horse into a winged creature.”

At the end of the day – all such questioning is really evading the real issue.  If you look hard enough you will find plenty of arguments against Christianity by looking at how far some Christian is from what you expect.  But:

What can you really know of other people’s souls – of their temptations, their opportunities, their struggles?  One soul in the whole creation you do know:  and it is the only one whose fate is placed in your hands.  If there is a God, you are, in a sense, alone with Him.  You cannot put Him off with speculations about your next door neighbors or memories of what you have read in books.  What will all that chatter and hearsay count (will you even be able to remember it?) when the anesthetic fog which we call “nature” or “the real world” fades away and the Presence in which you have always stood becomes palpable, immediate, and unavoidable?