Bookmark and Share
Bookmark and Share

(e.g., John 1 or God's love) Advanced Search

Mere Christianity
by C. S. Lewis


Born in Ireland in 1898, C. S. Lewis was educated at Malvern College for a year and then privately. He gained a triple first at Oxford and was a Fellow and Tutor at Magdalen College 1925-54. In 1954 he became Professor of Mediaeval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge. He was an outstanding and popular lecturer and had a lasting influence on his pupils.

C. S. Lewis was for many years an atheist, and described his conversion in Surprised by Joy: 'In the Trinity term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God ... perhaps the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.' It was this experience that helped him to understand not only apathy but active unwillingness to accept religion, and, as a Christian writer, gifted with an exceptionally brilliant and logical mind and a lucid, lively style, he was without peer.

In 1943 Great Britain, when hope and the moral fabric of society were threatened by the relentless inhumanity of global war, an Oxford don was invited to give a series of radio lectures addressing the central issues of Christianity. Over half a century after the original lectures, the topic retains it urgency. Expanded into book form, Mere Christianity never flinches as it sets out a rational basis for Christianity and builds an edifice of compassionate morality atop this foundation. As Mr. Lewis clearly demonstrates, Christianity is not a religion of flitting angels and blind faith, but of free will, an innate sense of justice and the grace of God.
_________________________________________________________________________


Table of Contents

PREFACE TO MERE CHRISTIANITY

Book I. RIGHT AND WRONG AS A CLUE TO THE MEANING OF THE UNIVERSE

1. The Law of Human Nature

2. Some Objections

3. The Reality of the Law

4. What Lies Behind the Law

5. We Have Cause to Be Uneasy

Book II. WHAT CHRISTIANS BELIEVE

1. The Rival Conceptions of God

2. The Invasion

3. The Shocking Alternative

4. The Perfect Penitent

5. The Practical Conclusion

Book III. CHRISTIAN BEHAVIOUR

1. The Three Parts of Morality

2. The "Cardinal Virtues"

3. Social Morality

4. Morality and Psychoanalysis

5. Sexual Morality

6. Christian Marriage

7. Forgiveness

8. The Great Sin

9. Charity

10. Hope

11. Faith

12. Faith - Second Sense

Book IV. BEYOND PERSONALITY: OR FIRST STEPS IN THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY

1. Making and Begetting

2. The Three-Personal God

3. Time and Beyond Time

4. Good Infection

5. The Obstinate Toy Soldiers

6. Two Notes

7. Let's Pretend

8. Is Christianity Hard or Easy?

9. Counting the Cost

10. Nice People or New Men

11. The New Men

Comment Script

Comments

Great resource to be able to listen to the audio book, Mere Christianity, online. I recently used this to help prepare a lesson for our Sunday school class and was a great resource for me. Thank you for making this available.
#1 - Cary Bohannon - 11/09/2009 - 07:21
i was supposed to read this book for a class, but i forgot, so i listened to it
#2 - Logan Crawford - 12/09/2009 - 19:52
God bless you for this convenient and source.
#3 - Pelagiya - 01/29/2010 - 15:18
I think one of the few flaws in Lewis's reasoning is his main point. That the natural human laws are not instinct but some greater guidance.

If you have ever dealt with drastic annihilation of morals in stroke victims you will see that morals that we feel we should follow (but freely ignore a lot of the time) can be wiped out (guilt for having lost these morals is also wiped out) by death of parts of the brain.

It has also been shown that Animals also have moral leanings and animals also have the will to break these natural inclinations (for animals these include monogamy, incest and murder).

In Lewis's time a lot of this was not known.
I guess you could always argue that god acts through evolution to craft favorable morals but god would only loosely refer to some greater leaning towards order in chaos. If you know anything about chaos in the fractal sense you will see that order comes as a direct result of chaos, not the other way around. So is god chaos or the result of chaos(order)? If you believe god is a superpower above all else then he could only be chaos.
#4 - Kieran - 03/03/2010 - 21:05
intersting...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHrvr5deVF8
#5 - Mark - 03/05/2010 - 03:26
What can be done...
to help these poor neo-intellectuals that define themselves by their so called "debunking" of Christianity. I feel so sad for them but don't know what I can do to break through that shell of ignorance and hate.

I guess I can pray for them if nothing else.
#6 - Soldier - 03/05/2010 - 19:45
Morals, kindness, conservatism come from the individual human being and to claim god has anything to do with it is just selling humanity short.

I'd rather at least try to be intellectual than rely on god to do it for me.
Humans decide the difference between right and wrong and good and evil and to claim these things are just items that grow on a tree we are forbidden to eat from is just...ridiculous!
#7 - Mark - 03/11/2010 - 03:41
Name
E-mail (Will not appear online)
Homepage
Title
Comment
To prevent automated Bots form spamming, please enter the text you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.



This comment form is powered by GentleSource Comment Script. It can be included in PHP or HTML files and allows visitors to leave comments on the website.

Site Map | Home | Top of Page

© 2008 Truth According to Scripture