A First Look at Book IV of Mere Christianity: Begotten and the Trinity

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Throughout the preceding chapters, Lewis has been demonstrating what “Mere Christianity” is by showing first what the Law of Morality is and then how it functions in the Christian life. We looked at several virtues and what characterizes each of them. Now we turn to a bit of a different book. In Book IV, Lewis addresses more of the “Theology” of Christianity, beginning with the Trinity.

Right from the onset, Lewis draws attention to a mentality that continues today – people are not concerned with theology (the study of God); they just want a personal relationship with Jesus without another’s interference. Don’t give me doctrines, dogma, or principles. You believe what you want to believe, and I will believe what I want to believe. I just want the love of Jesus, and that’s enough for me. Many will say such things when it comes to discussions about theology.

Lewis uses the analogy of a map versus visiting particular places. Sometimes we underestimate the inherit value of a map, but Lewis says:

The map is admittedly only coloured paper; but there are two things you have to remember about it. In the first place, it is based on what hundreds and thousands of people have found out by sailing the real Atlantic… In the second place, if you want to go anywhere, the map is absolutely necessary (136).

Of course he is applying this analogy to the Bible and the importance of the Bible in the Christian life. Many who think regular, thoughtful, reading and engaging with others about the Scriptures often think of Christianity (and other religions) as a type of spirituality. For them, there are religious connotations tied to the reading and application of Scripture.

Lewis, when talking about theology, wants to distinguish between the Bios and Zoe. The bios is the temporal, fading part of life. It is the part that always results in death. The zoe is the opposite; it is the eternal aspect of spiritual life – where one spends all eternity in the presence of God.

Lewis attempts to explain the distinction by, in the previous paragraphs, discussing the difference between making and begetting. God makes man, but God cannot beget man; God can only beget Someone like Himself. God begets Christ. Man does not make man; man begets man.

Lewis is not a theologian and does not go in depth about the nature of the Trinity. He does, however, in his own style provide a helpful way to think about the Trinity’s beauty and complexity.

Before we go further, I would like to interject a few comments. The word “Trinity” does not appear in Scripture. It is a Latin word “trinotos” applied to the Bible’s teaching on the matter. The early church did not use such language, although they acknowledged the special relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It was in the Fourth Century that the church began using such language to describe the relationship between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Seventeen centuries later, it is a doctrine essential to the Christian faith.

Lewis explains the Trinity by using the example of a man saying his prayers by his bedside. “An ordinary simple Christian kneels down to say his prayers. He is trying to get into touch with God. But if he is a Christian he knows that what is prompting him to pray is also God: God, so to speak, inside of him. But he also knows that all his real knowledge of God comes through Christ, the Man who was God – that Christ is standing beside him, helping him to pray, praying for him (143). It is through this understanding that theology begins to make sense. As Lewis says, “Theology is, in a sense, experiential knowledge.”

I believe Lewis puts it well in the final paragraph of chapter two. Many people are fabricating religions and making their own systems of standards by the figments of their imaginations. Lewis says:

If Chrisitianity was something we were making up, of course we could make it easier. But it is not. We cannot compete, in simplicity, with people who are inventing religions. How could we? We are dealing with Fact. Of course anyone can be simple if he has no facts to bother about (145)

Questions to consider
*What do you think when you hear the word “Theology”?
*Lewis talks about Christian community as an “adequate instrument”. Do you have community in your life?
*Do you believe the Bible speaks about “Facts”?
*Is the Bible more than moral guidelines and helpful advice? Does it contain the truths of God essential for salvation?




Pastoral Qualifications: Know the King James

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I recently came across a posting for a pastor to a “home” church, a group of people who gather together in a home to worship. For many, this may sound incredibly odd, maybe even cultish. However, many churches today started in just the same way. Mars Hill, Mark Driscoll’s church, began in a similar way. Even in my own denomination, many of the churches begin with local, home Bible studies. Of course, our way of “church planting” is very different than the post. Those who are called to church planting, have the emotional, spiritual, and financial backing of another local congregation and denomination. The “home church” aspect of the post is not that uncommon, but the “pastoral qualifications” for the pastor are quite shocking.

When I first read this posting, which you can find here here, I was shocked, but after giving it some thought, I could not help but sympathize with them. I think this posting serves as an example of the Reformer’s work 600 years after the Protestant Reformation. Luther and many others wanted the Holy Scriptures in the hands of the people in their own language rather than Latin, a language uncommon among the common people. As a result of Luther and many others’ work, the Bible is readily accessible to many. However, I do not think Luther meant for Christianity to be stretched in such a way that it resembles what it does today.

I absolutely agree that Scripture should be accessible to all. The Westminster Confession of Faith is a confessional standard for many; it says, “All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all: yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation are so clearly propounded, and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.” Salvation, through the Word of God and the work of the Holy Spirit, is available to all who believe in the truths of Scripture, no matter the amount of Bible knowledge.

So what’s wrong with this posting? In essence, they have a low view of God and a low view of Scripture, the two things necessary to Christianity. First, they do not want an academic applying for the position. They want someone who can speak to the most common of men without flattery and unbeknown speech. I don’t disagree with the latter thought, but I do disagree with their inadequate view of Scripture and the neglect for God’s call to search after Him and know Him more and more. They have made a man created interpretation of Scripture (the King James) their standard. There was a moment in seminary where I said to myself, “I am studying the Word of God in its original languages.” That is a joy I would love for everyone to share. If not everyone, I would like to think that pastors overseeing their flock have at least some basic knowledge of Greek and Hebrew and referencing it often. We do not have the original “autographs” on which the biblical authors wrote the inspired Word of God, but we do have copies. The goal of understanding the Bible is to study the original understanding of Scripture from the perspective of the writers to a particular audience and then seek to understand in our context today. To limit one’s self to a particular translation is detrimental to the spiritual vitality of the congregation.

Secondly, they have a low view of God, the Triune God. At one point in the post, the writer says, “We believe that the Holy Spirit DOES NOT Convict you of sins!” My only question is “What does then?” I think throughout the post, their lack of thorough knowledge of the Scriptures is evident, and it is here that it is most evident. It is the Holy Spirit, which came after the ascension of Christ, that brings conviction of sin into the lives of people. Repentance is a guilty feeling for we are guilty before the Lord, but it is His Spirit that turns our wayward hearts to the glory of the Lord. It is through faith that we come to this understanding, but faith itself is a gift.

I want to have compassion and sympathy for this small congregation who is seeking to grow in their faith and see others grow as well. It’s evident that they have a heart for someone who loves the Lord and loves teaching others. I fear that this congregation is walking a path that will lead them to destruction. They will continue to seek a wrong understanding of God and ostracize themselves from the world around them.

There are many other things I could say about this posting, and you are welcome to comment with your thoughts. The subject of women’s roles in the church is a hot topic in our day, and I will devote a future post to that topic alone. I hope you don’t say, when you see posts such as this one, “Look at those Christians… they are all crazy.” Nor do I hope you say, “I’m glad that I am not them. I’m so much better off.” As those who believe the Lord works in people’s hearts, we can pray for the Lord to bring a greater understanding of grace to this small community, and also for those who will read this job listing and react to it’s implicit condemnation of those who think differently.




A Look at Faith in Relation to Reason and Moral Efforts

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In the next two chapters, which end this section, Lewis looks at two aspects of faith: reason and moral effort, simply put. I believe this is the rub in Christianity for a majority of people, both those who are “intrigued” by Christianity and those who profess to be Christian and wrestle to understand themselves before God. Lewis provides us a bit of insight on both matters.

First, especially in recent years, there has been a renewed interest in reason, especially as it relates to the discussions of faith and science. Language such as “evidence” is often used. Lee Strobel is an example. The title of his best selling book is The Case for Christ. Like a lawyer or investigator, he compiles the evidence. After a thorough “investigation” he concludes Christianity to be true and becomes a believer.

For Lewis, reason precedes faith. In many circles, this is a large debate. It’s much like asking “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” God has given us reason by being created in His image, and yet, our reason is faulty by our mere nature. However, as he indicates, I think many often think in terms of reason and faith as they relate to mood.

This rebellion of your moods against your real self is going to come anyway. That is why Faith is such a necessary virtue: unless you teach your moods ‘where they get off,’ you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist, but just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and the state of its digestion. (125)

I believe that if we look at Faith from a Scriptural perspective, we would see that it is something much more than what we think. It is not a words used flippantly in Scripture. We see characters of the Bible use their reason over and over, and it only leads to heartache and pain. Don’t you think David reasoned about Bathsheba. But Faith is quite a different matter for it is a gift from God. It is the thing that turns our wayward hearts to something more than ourselves. Faith forces reason to look outward and upward. I think this is what Lewis means when he says, “Every faculty you have, your power of thinking or of moving your limbs from moment to moment, is given [to] you by God. If you devoted every moment of your whole life exclusively to His service you could not give Him anything that was not in a sense His own already” (126).

Faith, as Lewis deals with it in the next chapter, focuses quite a different aspect. It is a faith that one knows from the inside. It is a familial faith. Many look at Faith from the inside and don’t quite understand it. Lewis puts it this way: “And as long as a man is thinking of God as an examiner who has het him a sort of paper to do, or as the opposite party in a sort of bargain – as long as he is thinking of claims and counterclaims between himself and God – he is not yet in the right relation to Him” (129).

Many have called this by different terms but essentially they mean the same thing. They use such terms as “moral perfectionism” or “legalism”. In either sense, the idea is to earn God’s favor through acts of goodness and kindness. Many Christians live their lives this way and feel tremendous discouragement and even possibly resentment to God.

But that is not the way of Christian; that is not the way the Bible has explained Faith. This is not the way Christ taught His disciples.

Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But in trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you. (131)

Faith is a multifaceted word, used throughout Scripture to understand our relationship with God, both as unbelievers and believers. It is clear from Scripture that it is essential to the Christian life, for one cannot stand before the Lord without it. It not only brings us into a right relationship with Him through the perfect obedience of Christ, but it also assures us of God’s everlasting love. Faith should not bring us assurance of our salvation but rest in the concrete reality of God’s grace.