Answers to Questions on Christianity

This was first published as a Christian fellowship pamphlet, 1944; then in Undeceptions, 1971 and Timeless at Heart 1991. I came accross this essay in audio format on Youtube and after fidgting several times to share specific parts of the essay with people I was having relevant discussions with, I have committed to reproduce it here in an easy to navigate Q and A format. Enjoy.

Rant on modern industry

Lewis: I have been asked to open with a few words on Christianity and modern industry. Now, modern industry is a subject of which I know nothing at all. But for that very reason, it may illustrate what Christianity, in my opinion, does and does not do. Christianity does not replace the technical. When it tells you to feed the hungry, it doesn’t give you lessons in cookery. If you want to learn that, you must go to a cook, rather than a Christian. If you are not a professional economist and have no experience of industry, simply being a Christian won’t give you the answer to industrial problems. My own idea is that modern industry is a radically hopeless system. You can improve wages, hours, conditions, etc., but all that doesn’t kill the deepest trouble, i.e., that numbers of people are kept all their lives doing dull repetition work which gives no full play to their faculties. Now, how that is to be overcome, I do not know. If a single country abandoned the system, it would merely fall prey to the other countries which hadn’t abandoned it. I don’t know the solution. That is not the kind of thing Christianity teaches a person like me.”

My own idea is that modern industry is a radically hopeless system. You can improve wages, hours, conditions, etc., but all that doesn’t kill the deepest trouble, i.e., that numbers of people are kept all their lives doing dull repetition work which gives no full play to their faculties. Now, how that is to be overcome, I do not know. If a single country abandoned the system, it would merely fall prey to the other countries which hadn’t abandoned it. I don’t know the solution. That is not the kind of thing Christianity teaches a person like me. Let’s now carry on with the questions.”

The Questions

Q1: Christians are taught to love their neighbors, how can they justify supporting the war

Lewis: "You are told to love your neighbor as yourself. How do you love yourself? When I look into my own mind, I find that I do not love myself by thinking myself a dear old chap or having affectionate feelings. I do not think that I love myself because I am particularly good, but just because I am myself and quite apart from my character. I might detest something which I have done. Nevertheless, I do not cease to love myself. In other words, that definite distinction that Christians make between hating sin and loving the sinner is one that you have been making in your own case since you were born. You dislike what you have done, but you don’t cease to love yourself. You may even think that you ought to be hanged. You may even think that you ought to go to the police and own up and be hanged. Love is not an affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained. It seems to me therefore that when the worst comes to the worst, if you cannot restrain a man by any method except by trying to kill him, then a Christian must do that. That is my answer but I may be wrong; it is very difficult to answer of course

Q2: How can a factory worker find God?

Lewis: "I don't see how the problem would be different for a factory worker than for anyone else. The primary thing about any man is that he is a human being sharing all the ordinary human temptations and essence. What is the special problem about the factory worker? But perhaps it is worth saying this: Christianity really does two things about conditions here and now in this world. (A) One, it tries to make them as good as possible, i.e., to reform them. But also (B) Two, it fortifies you against them insofar as they remain bad. If what was in the questioner's mind was this problem of repetition work, then the factory worker’s difficulty is the same as any other man confronted with any sorrow or difficulty. People will find God if they consciously seek from him the right attitude towards all unpleasant things, if that is the point of the question."

Q3: How would you define a practicing Christian? Are there any other varieties?

Lewis: "Certainly there are a great many other varieties. It depends of course on what you mean by 'practicing Christian.' If you mean one who has practiced Christianity in every respect at every moment of his life, then there is only one on record, Christ himself. In that sense, there are no practicing Christians, but only Christians who in varying degrees try to practice it and fail in varying degrees and then start again. A perfect practice of Christianity would, of course, consist in a perfect imitation of the life of Christ - I mean insofar as it was applicable in one's own particular circumstances, not in an idiotic sense. It doesn't mean that every Christian should grow a beard, or be a bachelor, or become a traveling preacher. It means that every single act and feeling, every experience, whether pleasant or unpleasant, must be referred to God. It means looking at everything as something that comes from him and always looking to him and asking his will first and saying, 'How would he wish me to deal with this?' A kind of picture or pattern in a very remote way of the relation between the perfect Christian and his God would be the relation of the good dog to its master. This is only a very imperfect picture, though, because the dog hasn't reason like its master, whereas we do share in God's reason, even if in an imperfect and interrupted way – interrupted because we don’t think rationally for very long at a time; it’s too tiring, and we have an information to understand things fully and our intelligence itself has certain limitations. In that way, we are more like God than the dog is like us, although of course, there are other ways in which the dog is more like us than we are like God. It is only an illustration."

Q4: What is the church’s attitude towards venereal disease and prophylaxis?

Lewis: "I need further advice on that question and then perhaps I can answer it. Can the questioner say which church he has in mind? A voice: The church concerned is the Church of England and its attitude, though not written, is implicit in that it has more or less banned all publicity in connection with prophylactic methods of combating venereal disease. The view of some is that moral punishment should not be avoided. Louis: I haven’t myself met any clergyman of the Church of England who held that view and I don’t hold it myself. There are obvious objections to it. After all, it isn’t only venereal disease that can be regarded as a punishment for bad conduct. Indigestion in old age may be the result of overeating in earlier life but no one objects to advertisements for Beecham’s pills. I, at any rate, strongly dissent from the view that you’ve mentioned."

Q5: What is the Christian view of feeling resentful or unhappy due to unjust fate?

Lewis: "The Christian view is that men are created to be in a certain relationship to God. If we are in that relation to Him, the right relation to one another will follow inevitably. Christ said it was difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew chapter 19 verse 23; Mark chapter 10 verse 23; Luke chapter 18 verse 24), referring no doubt to riches in the ordinary sense, but I think it really covers riches in every sense: good fortune, health, popularity, and all the things one wants to have. All these things tend just as money tends to make you feel independent of God because if you have them you are happy already and contented in this life; you don’t want to turn away to anything more and so you try to rest in a shadowy happiness as if it could last forever. But God wants to give you a real and eternal happiness. Consequently, he may have to take all these riches away from you; if he doesn’t, you will go on relying on them. It sounds cruel, doesn’t it? But I am beginning to find out that what people call the cruel doctrines are really the kindest ones in the long run. I used to think it was a cruel turn to say the troubles and sorrows were punishments, but I find in practice that when you are in trouble the moment you regard it as a punishment it becomes easier to bear. If you think of this world as a place intended simply for our happiness, you find it quite intolerable; think of it as a place of training and correction and it’s not so bad. Imagine a set of people all living in the same building. Half of them think it is a hotel, the other half think it is a prison. Those who think it a hotel might regard it as quite intolerable, and those who thought it was a prison might decide that it was really surprisingly comfortable. So that what seems the ugly doctrine is the one that comforts and strengthens you in the end. The people who tried to hold an optimistic view of this world would become pessimists; the people who hold a pretty stern view of it become optimistic."

Q6: What is the Christian view on the theory of life originating from an accidental stellar collision?

Lewis: "If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents – the accidental byproduct of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else’s. But if their thoughts – i.e., of materialism and astronomy – are merely accidental byproducts, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents. It’s like expecting that the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milk jug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset."

Q7: Does Christianity, especially the Protestant forms, tend to produce a gloomy, joyless condition of society?

 Lewis: "As to the distinction between Protestant and other forms of Christianity, it is very difficult to answer. I find by reading about the sixteenth century that people like Sir Thomas More, for whom I have a great respect, always regarded Martin Luther's doctrines not as gloomy thinking but as wishful thinking. I doubt whether we can make a distinction between Protestant and other forms in this respect. Whether Protestantism is gloomy, and whether Christianity at all produces gloominess, I find it very difficult to answer as I have never lived in a completely non-Christian society nor a completely Christian one, and I wasn't there in the sixteenth century and only have my knowledge from reading books. I think there is about the same amount of fun and gloom in all periods. The poems, novels, letters, etc., of every period all seem to show that. But again, I don’t really know the answer; of course, I wasn’t there."

Q8: Should Christians live a life of personal discomfort and self-sacrifice to qualify for heaven?

Lewis: "All people, whether Christians or not, must be prepared to live a life of discomfort. It is impossible to accept Christianity for the sake of finding comfort. But the Christian tries to lay himself open to the will of God, to do what God wants him to do. You don’t know in advance whether God is going to set you to do something difficult or painful, or something that you will quite like. And some people of heroic mold are disappointed when the job doled out to them turns out to be something quite nice. But you must be prepared for the unpleasant things and the discomforts. I don’t mean fasting and things like that; they are a different matter. When you are training soldiers in maneuvers, you practice with blank ammunition because you would like them to have practice before meeting the real enemy. So we must practice in abstaining from pleasures which are not in themselves wicked. If you don’t abstain from pleasure, you won’t be good when the time comes along. It is purely a matter of practice."

Q9: Does ambition conflict with Christian values?

Lewis: "It is easier to think of a simplified example. How would the application of Christianity affect anyone on a desert island? Would he be less likely to build a comfortable hut? The answer is no. There might come a particular moment, of course, when Christianity would tell him to bother less about the hut, i.e., if he were in danger of coming to think that the hut was the most important thing in the universe. But there is no evidence that Christianity would prevent him from building it. Ambition — we must be careful what we mean by it. If it means the desire to get ahead of other people, which is what I think it does mean, then it is bad. If it means simply wanting to do a thing well, then it is good. It isn’t wrong for an actor to want to act his part as well as it can possibly be acted, but the wish to have his name in bigger types than the other actors is a bad one."

Q10: How should the Bible be approached, given its ancient context and modern knowledge?

Lewis: "First of all, as to the people in a lower state of mental development, I am not so sure. What lurks behind that? If it means that people 10,000 years ago did not know a good many things that we know now, of course, I agree. But if it means that there has been any advance in intelligence in that time, I believe there is no evidence for any such thing. The Bible can be divided into two parts, the Old and New Testaments. The Old Testament contains fabulous elements; the New Testament consists mostly of teaching, not of narrative at all. But where it is narrative, it is in my opinion historical. As to the fabulous element in the Old Testament, I very much doubt if you would be wise to chuck it out. What you get is something coming gradually into focus. First you get, scattered through the heathen religions all over the world but still quite vague and mythical, the idea of a God who is killed and broken and then comes to life again, and no one knows where he is supposed to have lived and died; he's not historical. Then you get the Old Testament; religious ideas get a bit more focused; everything is now connected with a particular nation, and it comes still more into focus as it goes on. And Jonah and the Whale, the Book of Jonah, Noah and his ark (Genesis chapter 6 to 8) are fabulous, but the court history of King David (2 Samuel chapter 2, 1 Kings chapter 2) is probably as reliable as the court history of Louis XIV. Then in the New Testament the thing really happens: the dying god really appears as a historical person living in a definite place in time. If we could sort out all the fabulous elements in the earlier stages and separate them from the historical ones, I think we might lose an essential part of the whole process. That is my own idea."

Q11: Which of the religions of the world gives to its followers the greatest happiness?

Lewis: "Which of the religions of the world gives to its followers the greatest happiness? While it lasts, the religion of worshipping oneself is the best. I have an elderly acquaintance of about eighty who has lived a life of unbroken selfishness and self-admiration from his earliest years, and he is, more or less, I regret to say, one of the happiest men I know. From the moral point of view, it is a very difficult question; I am not approaching the question from that angle. As you perhaps know, I haven't always been a Christian. I didn't go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity. I am certain there must be a patent American article on the market which will suit you far better, but I can’t give any advice on it.

Q12: Are there any unmistakable outward signs in a person surrendered to God?

Lewis: "I think of the advertisements for White Smile's toothpaste, saying that it is the best on the market. If they are true, it would follow that (1) anyone who starts using it will have better teeth, (2) anyone using it has better teeth than he would have if he weren’t using it. But you can’t test it in the case of one who has naturally bad teeth and uses it and compared him with a healthy Negro who has never used toothpaste at all. Take the case of a sour old maid who is a Christian but cantankerous, on the other hand, take an unpleasant and popular fellow but who has never been to church. Who knows how much more cantankerous the old maid might be if she were not a Christian, and how much more likeable the nice fellow might be if he were a Christian? You can’t judge Christianity simply by comparing the product in those two people; you would need to know what kind of raw material Christ was working on in both cases. As an illustration, let us take a case of industrialism. Let us take two factories: factory A, with poor and inadequate plant, and factory B, with first-class modern plant. You can’t judge by the outside; you must consider the plant and the methods by which they are run, and considering the plant at factory A, it may be a wonder it does anything at all, and considering the new machinery at factory B, it may be a wonder it doesn’t do better."

Q13: What is your opinion about raffles within the plant, no matter how good the cause, which not infrequently is given less prominence than the alluring list of prizes?

Lewis: "A gambling ought never to be an important part of a man’s life. If it is a way in which large sums of money are transferred from person to person without doing any good — e.g., producing employment, good will, etc. — then it is a bad thing. If it is carried out on a small scale, I am not sure that it is bad. I don’t know much about it, because it is about the only vice to which I have no temptation at all, and I think it is a risk to talk about things which are not in my own makeup, because I don’t understand them. If anyone comes to me asking me to play bridge for money, I just say, ‘How much do you hope to win? Take it and go away.’”

Q14: Many people are quite unable to understand the theological differences which have caused divisions in the Christian Church. Do you consider that these differences are fundamental, and is the time now ripe for reunion?

Lewis: "The time is always ripe for reunion. Divisions between Christians are a sin and a scandal, and Christians ought at all times to be making contributions towards reunion, if it is only by their prayers. I am only a layman and a recent Christian, and I do not know much about these things, but in all the things which I have written and thought I have always stuck to traditional dogmatic positions. The result is that letters of agreement reached me from what are ordinarily regarded as the most different kinds of Christians — for instance, I get letters from Jesuits, monks, nuns, and also from Quakers and Welsh dissenters, and so on. So it seems to me that the extreme elements in every church are nearest one another, and the liberal and broad-minded people in each body could never be united at all. The world of dogmatic Christianity is a place in which thousands of people are quite different types keep on saying the same thing, and the world of broad-mindedness and watered-down religion is a world where a small number of people all of the same type say totally different things and changed their minds every few minutes. We shall never get reunion from them."

Q15: In the past, the church used various kinds of compulsion in attempts to force a particular brand of Christianity on the community. Given sufficient power, is there not a danger of this sort of thing happening again?

Lewis: "Yes, I hear nasty rumors coming from Spain. Persecution is a temptation to which all men are exposed. I had a postcard signed 'E.M.D.' saying that anyone who expressed and published his belief in the virgin birth should be stripped and flogged. That shows you how easily persecution of Christians by the non-Christians might come back. Of course, they wouldn’t call it persecution; they’d call it compulsory re-education of the ideologically unfit, or something like that. But of course, I have to admit that Christians themselves have been persecutors in the past. It was worse of them, because they ought to have known better; they weren’t worse in any other way. I detest every kind of religious compulsion. Only the other day, I was writing an angry letter to The Spectator about church parades in the Home Guard."

Q16: Is attendance at a place of worship or membership with a Christian community necessary to a Christian way of life?

 Lewis: "That’s a question which I cannot answer. My own experience is that when I first became a Christian, about fourteen years ago, I thought that I could do it on my own, by retiring to my rooms and reading theology, and I wouldn’t go to the churches and Gospel Halls; and then later I found that it was the only way of flying a flag, and of course, I found that this meant being a target. It is extraordinary how inconvenient to your family it becomes for you to get up early to go to church. It doesn’t matter so much if you get up early for anything else, but if you get up early to go to church, it’s very selfish of you and you upset the house. If there is anything in the teaching of the New Testament which is in the nature of a command, it is that you are obliged to take the sacrament, and you can’t do it without going to church. I disliked very much their hymns, which I considered to be fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music. But as I went on, I saw the great merit of it. I came up against different people of quite different outlooks and different education, and then gradually my conceit just began peeling off. I realized that the hymns, which were justsixth-rate music, were nevertheless being sung with devotion and benefit by an old Saint in elastic-sided boots in the opposite pew, and then you realize that you aren’t fit to clean those boots. It gets you out of your solitary conceit. It is not for me to lay down laws, as I am only a layman and I don’t know much."

Q17: If it is true that one only has to want God enough in order to find him, how can I make myself want him enough to enable myself to find him?

Lewis: "If you don’t want God, why are you so anxious to want to want him? I think that in reality, the want is a real one, and I should say that this person has in fact found God, although it may not be fully recognized yet. We are not always aware of things at the time they happen. At any rate, what is more important is that God has found this person, and that is the main thing."

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