It looks like quite a number of people at church will be reading through Mere Christianity with me . In the early chapters of the book, Lewis attempts to show that there is a universal impulse toward the concepts of right and wrong, and that some ideas of morality are superior to others.One of the strengths of Lewis' writing is his ability to come up with simple and helpful ways to illustrate the points he is trying to make. Here is an example of one such illustration from chapter 2:
If your moral ideas can be truer, and those of the Nazis less true, there must be something — some Real Morality — for them to be true about. The reason why your idea of New York can be truer of less true than mine is that New York is a real place, existing quite apart from what either of us thinks. If when each of us said 'New York' each means merely 'The town I am imagining in my own head', how could one of us have truer ideas than the other? There would be no question of truth or falsehood at all. In the same way, if the Rule of Decent Behaviour meant simply 'whatever each nation happens to approve', there would be no sense in saying that any one nation had even been more correct in its approval than any other; no sense in saying that the world would ever grow morally better or morally worse.If you would like to read the book and participate in three book club sessions I will be leading, please do. You can find out dates and times for that book club on the Valley Christian Church website.
Mere Christianity is available in Kindle format, and is also available as a audio book from Audible.com.
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