S1E25 – MC B3C12 – “Faith” (Part 2)

And so we come to the final chapter of Book III. Continuing on from last chapter, David and Matt continue to examine “faith”. This chapter focuses on faith in terms of salvation.

Episode 25: Mere Christianity, “Faith” (Part 2) (Download)

Show Notes

Introduction

• Matt and David talk about updating the podcast introduction. When we finish “Mere Christianity” and start a new book in Season 2, Matt will be taking over the introduction. Matt thinks David will have trouble letting go control, but we shall see…
• David answers the question “What does C.S. Lewis keep in the back of his wardrobe?”

Quote-of-the-Week

‘What are we to make of Christ?’ There is no question of what we can make of Him, it is entirely a question of what He intends to make of us. You must accept or reject the story.

C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock

Toast

• The drink-of-the-week was the same as last week, Macallan 12.

Discussion

01. “Second Kind of Faith”

• We left the previous episode on a cliffhanger. In today’s episode, C.S. Lewis will talk to us more about the second meaning of “faith”. However, it begins with a warning.

If this chapter means nothing to you, if it seems to be trying to answer questions you never asked, drop it at once … there are a great many things that cannot be understood until after you have gone a certain distance along the Christian road.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Faith

• However, this exemption does NOT apply to this podcast!
• In the previous episode, Jack spent time describing one definition of faith, which is fidelity to what you reason has told you, despite a storm of emotions. Towards the end of that chapter he began to introduce a second definition for faith, and that is what he spends the rest of today’s chapter expounding.
• When we really try and live out the Moral Law, we fail miserably. It is at this point that the second kind of faith comes into play…

Faith in this sense arises after a man has tried his level best to practise the Christian virtues, and found that he fails, and seen that even if he could he would only be giving back to God what was already God’s own. In other words, he discovers his bankruptcy.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Faith

• What does God want from us? This goes back to the “Heavenly or Hellish Creature” we have mentioned before. God cares about the sort of creature we are becoming:

… what God cares about is not exactly our actions. What He cares about is that we should be creatures of a certain kind of quality – the kind of creatures He intended us to be – creatures related to Himself in a certain way.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Faith

• If we are in right relationship with God, we will naturally be in right relationship with other human beings:

… If you are right with Him you will inevitably be right with all your fellow-creatures, just as if all the spokes of a wheel are fitted rightly into the hub and the rim they are bound to be in the right positions to one another.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Faith

• David suggested that “spiritual bankruptcy” is what Jesus had in mind when he began the Beatitudes:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven …”

Matthew 5:3

02. “Turning to God”

• This bankruptcy leads us to the point at which we hand things over to God…

We cannot discover our failure to keep God’s law except by trying our very hardest (and then failing). Unless we really try, whatever we say there will always be at the back of our minds the idea that if we try harder next time we shall succeed in being completely good. Thus, in one sense, the road back to God is a road of moral effort, of trying harder and harder. But in another sense it is not trying that is ever going to bring us home. All this trying leads up to the vital moment at which you turn to God and say, “You must do this. I can’t.”

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Faith

• Some people experience all this in a moment, such as St. Paul, or John Bunyan, the author of “The Pilgrim’s Progress”. However, for many people, it is instead a slow burn.
• Matt described a moment of surrender that he had during adoration at a retreat.

03. “Trust in Christ”

• At this point, we put our trust in Christ…

The sense in which a Christian leaves it to God is that he puts all his trust in Christ: trusts that Christ will somehow share with him the perfect human obedience which He carried out from His birth to His crucifixion: that Christ will make the man more like HImself and, in a sense, make good his deficiencies.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Faith

• This is the best deal you’ll ever get…

Christ offers something for nothing: He even offers everything for nothing. In a sense, the whole Christian life consists in accepting that very remarkable offer.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Faith

• This still requires obedience, however. Matt was reminded of Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who wrote a book on the topic called “The Cost of Discipleship”.

There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But 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.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Faith

• David mentioned Theosis, the idea central to Eastern Christianity that salvation and sanctification relates to our participation in the life of the Trinity.

04. “Faith and Works”

• Lewis now wades into treacherous waters. What is the relationship between Faith and Works? Lewis goes a different route …

Christians have often disputed as to whether what leads the Christian home is good actions, or Faith in Christ. I have no right really to speak on such a difficult question, but it does seem to me like asking which blade in a pair of scissors is most necessary.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Faith

• Perhaps we can see the issue clearer if we compare the parodies of the two extreme positions. The first is what people charaecturise the Catholic position as:

One set were accused of saying, “Good actions are all that matters. The best good action is charity. The best kind of charity is giving money. The best thing to give money to is the Church. So hand us over 10,000 pounds and we will see you through.” The answer to that nonsense, of course, would be that good actions done for that motive, done with the idea that Heaven can be bought, would not be good actions at all, but only commercial speculations.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Faith

• Should any listeners wonder … no, this is not the Catholic position. The Catechism clearly states that we are save by the grace of God.
• He then gives a second parody, which is not the Protestant response either.

The other set were accused of saying, “Faith is all that matters. Consequently, if you have faith, it doesn’t matter what you do. Sin away, my lad, and have a good time and Christ will see that it makes no difference in the end.” The answer to that nonsense is that, if what you call your “faith” in Christ does not involve taking the slightest notice of what He says, then it is not Faith at all – not faith or trust in Him, but only intellectual acceptance of some theory about Him.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Faith

• In response to the “intellectual acceptance” parody, Matt recalled the Epistle of James:

You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder.

James 2:19

• David quoted St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, concerning the “obedience of faith” …

 Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret for long ages but is now disclosed and through the prophetic writings is made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith— to the only wise God be glory for evermore through Jesus Christ! Amen.

Romans 16:25-27

• Lewis considers this verse of Scripture:

… work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Philippians 2:12-13

• He notices that this verse is saying two things.

The first half is, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” – which looks as if everything depended on us and our good actions: but the second half goes on, “For it is God who worketh in you” – which looks as if God did everything and we nothing. I am afraid that is the sort of thing we come up against in Christianity. I am puzzled, but I am not surprised. You see, we are now trying to understand, and to separate into water-tight compartments, what exactly God does and what man does when God and man are working together … you will find that even those who insist most strongly on the importance of good actions tell you you need faith; and even those who insist most strongly on Faith tell you to do good actions.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Faith

05. “Analogies”

• Attempts to separate our actions and God’s often fail. David made an analogy of an art teacher guiding the hand of his student along the page, then stepping back as the student grew in confidence.
• Matt pointed out that St. Augustine made a similar point, about consenting and surrendering to God’s guidance.

06. “Conclusion”

• Jack then concludes the chapter…

I think all Christians would agree with me if I said that though Christianity seems at first to be all about morality, all about duties and rules and guilt and virtue, yet it leads you on, out of all that, into something beyond. One has a glimpse of a country where they do not talk of those things, except perhaps as a joke. Every one there is filled full with what we should call goodness as a mirror is filled with light. But they do not call it goodness. They do not call it anything. They are not thinking of it. They are too busy looking at the source from which it comes.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Faith

Wrap-Up

Concluding Thoughts

• The outline for today’s chapter is available here.

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