"God created things which had free will.  That means creatures which can go either wrong or right.  Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong: I cannot. If a thing is free to be good it is also free to be bad.  And free will is what has made evil possible.  Why, then, did God give them free will?  Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having." Mere Christianity

When I am asked my view of free will I often remark: "I want Will to be as free as he possibly can be!"

But seriously speaking, why does C. S. Lewis assert so vigorously that God gave full freedom of choice to human beings?  Is this conclusion based upon natural observation? Certainly one glance at everyday life would suggest that human beings have free will.  After all, don't we make hundreds if not thousands of choices, large and small, each day?

However, when one examines the human condition more closely one sees individual choice hemmed in and around by so many forces: genetics, upbringing, larger societal and cultural influences, our natural surroundings, health, and the list goes on.  All of these realities impinging on human choice force us to ask: do we really have complete freedom of choice all of the time?

If one cannot confidently conclude, based upon some sort of natural theology or observation, that human beings have complete freedom of the will, is this doctrine then a matter of supernatural revelation?  Once again, we get a mixed review when it comes to examining the Scriptures on this subject.  Certainly the first humans were given free choice, either to obey God or to disobey.  (See Genesis 2-3.)  And this is the freedom of choice to which Lewis refers in the quote above.  However, ever since the Fall the choices of human beings in regard to a relationship with God have been radically affected by sin.  The Apostle Paul quotes the Old Testament when he writes in Romans 3:10-11

There is no one righteous, not even one;

there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.

How then are fallen, sinful human beings to get right with God?  God must make the first move.  And that is exactly what Scripture tells us God has done in Jesus Christ.  As Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 1:20,

For no matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ.

And so through him the "Amen" is spoken by us to the glory of God.

The most important decision ever made in the history of humanity was God's decision to say "yes" to us in Jesus Christ, in spite of our sin.

In the last months of his life, C. S. Lewis was asked by Sherwood Wirt, then editor of Decision magazine, if he felt he had made a decision at the time of his conversion.  Lewis responded this way:

I would not put it that way.  What I wrote in Surprised by Joy was that 'before God closed in on me, I was in fact offered what now appears a moment of wholly free choice.'  But I feel my decision was not so important.  I was the object rather than the subject in this affair.  I was decided upon.  (God in the Dock, p. 261.)

That is the most important thing--that we have been decided upon in Jesus Christ.  It is only when we hear this "yes" in Jesus Christ that we are called and empowered to make the most important decision of our lives, in response to God's decision.

What is your response to the "yes" of Christ?

The following prayer has brought encouragement to many as they have prayed it in response to the "yes" of Christ:

Dear Lord Jesus,

I know that I am a sinner and need your forgiveness.  I believe that you died for my sins.  I want to turn from my sins.  I now invite you to come into my heart and life.  I want to trust and follow you as Lord and Savior.

In your name I pray.  Amen.

If you have just prayed that prayer for the first time, I would love to encourage you by sending you some helpful literature.  E-mail me today, will@willvaus.com.

"Enemy-occupied territory--that is what this world is.  Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.  When you go to church you are really listening-in to the secret wireless from our friends: that is why the enemy is so anxious to prevent us from going."  Mere Christianity

C. S. Lewis saw life in epic proportions.  Perhaps that is what has drawn millions of people, including me, to read his books.  Seeing our lives as part of a cosmic battle, and important to winning the war, gives us significance.  And the hunger for significance is one of the greatest needs of the human soul.

The war we are involved in has to do with a clash of kingdoms.  Which kingdom we choose to belong to, which king to whom we swear allegiance, makes all the difference.  Will we devote ourselves to the rightful king, or to a usurper?  Will we give ourselves to the sovereign who laid down his life as a servant, or to the satan who seeks to suck our lives into slavery?

World War II formed the backdrop to everything Lewis had to say about living in enemy-occupied territory.  In the back of Lewis's mind was the situation in France--where French citizens could choose either to align themselves with the Vichy government, the compromisers, or they could choose to become part of the underground resistance against Hitler.

Taking this background and applying it by analogy to the spiritual life, Lewis makes exciting what often seems mundane to us.  For to be part of the underground resistance in a spiritual sense involves just such seemingly ordinary activities as going to church, reading the Bible and praying.  Yet each of these activities really does have cosmic significance.  For by praying, Bible reading and engagement in the corporate worship of the church we are entering into communication, not simply with other underground resistors in the cosmic battle against the enemy, but with the rightful king himself--the king of the universe.  And what could be more significant than that?

I for one want to be part of that underground resistance movement Lewis wrote about.  I want to align myself with other resistors against the great satan, not only in my own time and locale, but across all time and space--the communion of saints.  I want to devote myself to the service of the rightful king, just as the early church did, through the daily, dogged engagement in the sometimes seemingly mundane exercise of the means of grace.  For as we read in Acts 2:42, "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer."  The reason I want to live such a life of devotion is because it really is the only life of significance.

How about you?  Will you devote yourself to the rightful king through prayer, study, worship and service?  If so, perhaps you might make this your prayer for today--

"O Father, light up the small duties of this day's life.  May they shine with the beauty of Thy countenance.  May we believe that glory may dwell in the commonest task of every day.  Amen."  St. Augustine 354-430

"You can be good for the mere sake of goodness: you cannot be bad for the mere sake of badness.  You can do a kind action when you are not feeling kind and when it gives you no pleasure, simply because kindness is right; but no one ever did a cruel action simply because cruelty is wrong--only because cruelty was pleasant or useful to him.  In other words badness cannot succeed even in being bad in the same way in which goodness is good.  Goodness is, so to speak, itself: badness is only spoiled goodness." Mere Christianity

Lewis's point is that there are not two equal and opposite powers in the universe: good and evil.  If there were, then why do we call one good and the other evil?  Is it not evident that we are judging the two by some higher standard?  And that higher standard is God?

So then, good is original; evil is only a false copy of the good.  Evil feeds off of goodness; it takes goodness and twists it into an unnatural shape.

Take the goodness of human sexual pleasure as an example.  Evil takes that pleasure and perverts it--uses it--at the wrong time, in the wrong place, with the wrong person, from the wrong motive.  In fact, the pleasure still left in the sexual act, when so perverted by evil, is the only good thing about it, because pleasure itself is a good.

So what will happen when evil can no longer feed off the good?  What will happen when good and evil are completely separated?  Evil will starve.  Having no life-blood on which to survive, evil itself will die.

This separation the Bible calls the final judgement, and the place where evil dies--hell.  Heaven will be the place where evil can no longer corrupt the good.

"And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur . . . Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. . . . Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth . . ." Revelation 20:10-21:1

"May He support us all the day long, till the shadows lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life over, and our work is done.  Then in His mercy, may He give us a safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at the last."  John Henry Newman 1801-1890

"Reality, in fact, is usually something you could not have guessed.  That is one of the reasons I believe Christianity.  It is a religion you could not have guessed.  If it offered us just the kind of universe we had always expected, I should feel we were making it up.  But, in fact, it is not the sort of thing anyone would have made up.  It has just that queer twist about it that real things have." Mere Christianity

Christianity has a number of doctrines which are suprising and not completely comprehensible.  For example, Christianity teaches that God is three-in-one: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, yet one God.  How can God be three persons, yet one being?

Here's another queer teaching: God became human in Jesus of Nazareth.  Jesus is fully God and fully human.  He contains two natures in one person without confusion, change, division or separation.  I get confused just thinking about it sometimes!

Furthermore, Christianity teaches that God "works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will" (Ephesians 1:11), yet human beings have free will.  Some of the greatest minds down through history have tried to puzzle out that one without a fully successful resolution.

The fact that Christianity teaches such puzzles which are beyond human comprehension certainly does suggest that her doctrines are not made up.  But in the mean time, what do we do with them?  What do we do with the seeming antinomies of three persons in one God, two natures in one person, sovereignty of God and human free will? 

Regarding the handling of the last antinomy Lewis had some good advice in a letter to a correspondent written on 3 August 1953:

No one can make these two views consistent.  Of course reality must be self-consistent: but till (if ever) we can see the consistency it is better to hold two inconsistent views than to ignore one side of the evidence.

The history of Christianity is littered with heresies which ignored one side of the evidence.  Some people ignored God's oneness in favor of God's threeness, and vice versa.  Others emphasized Jesus' divinity over his humanity, while others did just the opposite.  Still others emphasized God's sovereignty while ignoring human freedom and others touted freedom while forgetting God's omnipotence.

I'm with Lewis, until I stand before God and God explains it all--if he ever does--I am going to hold two inconsistent views rather than ignore one side of the evidence.  It is sort of like what a bell-ringer must do.  The bell-ringer in a church can't see where the two ropes join to the bell in the tower, but when he or she pulls on both ropes, first one and then the other, people can hear the bell ring.  I am going to hold on to both bell ropes (three and one, human and divine, God's sovereignty and human freedom), even though I can't see where the two ropes join with the bell in the tower.  Until I get up into the "tower" one day, I'm just going to keep ringing that bell: "I believe in one God, the Father almighty . . ." and I'm going to keep praying, "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief" (Mark 9:24).

"Pantheists usually believe that God, so to speak, animates the universe as you animate your body: that the universe almost is God, so that if it did not exist He would not exist either, and anything you find in the universe is a part of God.  The Christian idea is quite different.  They think God invented and made the universe--like a man making a picture or composing a tune.  A painter is not a picture, and he does not die if his picture is destroyed.  You may say, 'He's put a lot of himself into it,' but you only mean that all its beauty and interest has come out of his head.  His skill is not the picture in the same way that it is in his head, or even in his hands." Mere Christianity

Lewis points out one of the problems with pantheism.  It has to do with the claim that everything is God, or a part of God.  If this is so then cancer, slums, hunger, and all the pain in the world are parts of God.  Such an idea is certainly not appealing to the human mind.  And why is it that humans can imagine a better world than what is?  Does it not make more sense to say that what is wrong with the world is due, not to God, but to the creation itself "going astray"?  At least that is the theistic solution to the problem of evil.  According to theists evil is the result of something good God gave to part of his creation--namely--free will.

But there is a third way of viewing the relationship between God and creation which Lewis does not mention in Mere Christianity.  That is panentheism.  This is the view that all of creation exists in God.  Panentheism tries to avoid a potential problem in theism, namely the tendency to distance God from creation. (Actually theists solve this problem by pointing out, in contrast to deists, that God is providentially involved at all times and in all places, in the ongoing governance and sustenance of his creation.) Panentheism also tries to avoid the problem inherent in pantheism, of identifying God too much with creation.  Jurgen Moltmann suggests that the best analogy for this view of the relation between God and creation is not that of a father who engenders and rules over life outside himself, but that of a mother who makes room for and nourishes life within her own body.

But then one wants to ask the panentheist: Will the child in God's womb ever be brought to birth?  Will the child ever have its own existence distinct from the mother?  Will the child ever have the possibility of choosing his or her own direction in life?

Personally I find myself in greater harmony with the theistic view of creation expressed by Diogenes Allen in his book Finding Our Father.  Allen writes:

That he created ex nihilo means that once there were no realities but God.  He could have remained alone, for he lacked nothing (as the Trinity doctrine also emphasizes). . . .

He could have legitimately remained the only center, the only power around which all that was himself was related.  But he performed an ethical act, not by recognizing other realities (which he could have done only were there preexisting matter), but in the first instance by creating realities when there was nothing.  It was an act by which he limited his power; for the existence of other realities means he chooses to make and to allow for the existence of particulars which do not orbit around himself.  They are independent foci, which can rightly be objects of interest and concern to one another and to him because, as independent realities, they have legitimate worth.

As Allen points out, this creation and recognition of independent, particular realities is essential to love. If there are no particular realities distinct from God, how can God love those particulars as distinct from himself?  And how can it be said that we love him?  If we are not distinct from God, how can our love of God involve a choice? 

Clearly God has created us as distinct, particular realities who have the awesome power of choice.  God summarizes that choice in this way:

". . . I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.  Now choose life . . ." Deuteronomy 30:19

O God, thank you for creating the universe, and me as part of the universe, distinct from yourself.  Thank you for giving me the awesome gift of free will.  Help me, by the power of your Holy Spirit this day, to choose life and blessing rather than curse and death, for the sake of your Son Jesus, in whose name I pray.  Amen.

"If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake.  If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all those religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of the truth.  When I was an atheist I had to try to persuade myself that most of the human race have always been wrong about the question that mattered to them most; when I became a Christian I was able to take a more liberal view.  But, of course, being a Christian does mean thinking that where Christianity differs from other religions, Christianity is right and they are wrong.  As in arithmetic--there is only one right answer to a sum, and all other answers are wrong; but some of the wrong answers are much nearer to being right than others." Mere Christianity

The wonderful thing about being a "mere Christian" is that you can be open to truth wherever you find it.  As Justin Martyr wrote hundreds of years ago, "All truth, wherever it is found, belongs to us as Christians."  As a mere Christian you can give up the time-wasting botheration of bashing other religions all the time, and also the enervating attempts to prove your one little sect right, and all the others wrong.  One can be open to truth in non-Christian religions, and in Christian denominations other than one's own.

The difference between being a mere Christian and being a universalist, or even a watered-down, nominal Christian is that:

1. You look for truth in the Christian revelation first.
2. You become well-acquainted with that revelation through regular reading and study of the New Testament.
3. Based upon that study you choose a room in the house of Christendom, as Lewis calls it in the preface to Mere Christianity.  You choose a room to settle in, whether Presbyterian, Methodist, Anglican, Baptist, Catholic, Orthodox, or whatever, and then in that room you can receive spiritual meals and enjoy Christian fellowship.
4. As a mere Christian you show kindness and respect to those who have chosen different rooms and to those who still haven't chosen their room in Christ's house.

The life of the mere Christian consists in a constant balancing act between truth and love.  The pursuit of truth will continue to lead you "further up and further in" to the center of one Christian communion.  But the pursuit of love will make you ever broader in your kindness and respect to Christians of all shapes and sizes.  In fact, your love for people of all religions, and no religion, should be ever growing. 

As the Apostle Paul once wrote, as we speak "the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ" (Ephesians 4:15).

"From the cowardice that dare not face new truth

From the laziness that is contented with half truth

From the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,

Good Lord, deliver me."

Prayer from Kenya

"Of course, I quite agree that the Christian religion is, in the long run, a thing of unspeakable comfort.  But it does not begin in comfort; it begins in the dismay I have been describing, and it is no use at all trying to go on to that comfort without first going through the dismay." Mere Christianity

I had an English professor during my first year in college who very snidely remarked one day in one of his lectures that "Christianity is a very comforting religion for those who are looking for that sort of thing."  His point was that those who face the supposed "real facts of the universe", that we have come from nothing and are moving toward nothing, are much braver than those who do not face such "facts".

My professor got it wrong on at least three points.  First of all, "facing the facts" has nothing to do with bravery.  It is a matter, simply, of intellectual honesty, or the lack of it.

Secondly, it can hardly be stated as a "fact" that we are, as human beings and as a universe, moving from nothing to nothing.  The study of what lies behind the beginning and possible end of the universe is not a matter for scientific investigation but rather for philosophical exploration.  God cannot be proved or disproved.

Thirdly, as C. S. Lewis rightly points out, Christianity does not begin in comfort.  It begins with the dismay of being told you have a fatal disease.  Only when you accept the heavenly doctor's diagnosis can you move on to hear and understand the comfort Christianity has to offer.

Contrary to what my English professor thought, I believe that Christians are among the bravest people in the world.  Christians are brave like the child who submits to the parent who must pull a nasty looking thorn out of the child's finger, even though it is going to hurt like anything.  It is hard to hear that one has the poisonous thorn which the Bible calls "sin", and that the thorn is going to lead to death unless it is removed.  One would rather ignore the thorn and try to work around it as best as possible because having the thorn removed is not comfortable at all.  Christians are honest because they are willing to face the fact that they have a nasty thorn in their finger, and they are brave because they are willing to submit to the heavenly doctor, who is also our heavenly parent, to have the thorn removed.

The choice is not comfort or dismay.  The only sensible choice is the one which Christians make: dismay which leads to comfort.  The Apostle Paul faced the kind of dismay we are talking about, and thus went on to know the comfort which only Christ can offer.  He summarized the experience of both in one sentence:

"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."  Romans 6:23

"Lord, do not give me over either to my human ignorance and weakness or to my own deserts, or to anything, other than your loving dealing with me.  Do you yourself in kindness dispose of me, my thoughts and actions, according to your good pleasure, so that your will may always be done by me and in me and concerning me.  Deliver me from all evil and lead me to eternal life through Jesus Christ."  St. Anselm 1033-1109

"You find out more about God from the Moral Law than from the universe in general just as you find out more about a man by listening to his conversation than by looking at a house he has built." Mere Christianity

If the only revelation of God which we had was the universe in general, what would we most naturally conclude about God?

1. I think we would be led to believe that God was a great artist, because the universe is certainly a creation of tremendous beauty.
2. In examining the far-flung galaxies, through all the aids of modern science, we might conclude that the Creator is indeed large, larger than the immense creation itself, if we are even to attribute size to God.
3. We would most likely conclude that the Creator of the universe must be a God of order, for certainly through science and natural observation human beings have discovered many patterns in the functioning of the cosmos.
4. But then we would also have to say, given the storms, earthquakes and other natural disasters which regularly occur on our own planet, that the Creator is no friend to humanity.
5. And given the immensity of the universe, why should the Mind behind it all even care about us, mere specks of dust that we are, floating on a slightly larger speck of dust, in a vast landscape which the specks themselves can't fully comprehend?

Thankfully the Creator has not left us with the universe itself as our only clue to God's nature and purposes.  And if, in addition to the universe, we only had the moral law to reveal God's desires, wouldn't that law leave us hopeless as well?  For we don't keep the moral law, and the law itself only shows us that the Creator cares about right conduct.  We would be left wondering whether God loves us.  Does God, can God, forgive us when we stray so far from God's own original intentions for us?  This is a question which, ultimately, only the revelation in Jesus Christ answers.

"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8

"Thanks be to thee, my Lord Jesus Christ,

For all the benefits which thou hast given to me,

For all the pains and insults which thou hast borne for me.

O most merciful redeemer, father and brother,

May I know thee more clearly,

Love thee more dearly

And follow thee more nearly,

Day by day."

Richard of Chichester 1197-1253

"We all want progress.  But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be.  And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer.  If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man."  Mere Christianity

Repentance, metanoia in the Greek, means a change of mind.  In the New Testament repentance is always a change of mind which results in a change in direction.  God calls us, through the moral law and his offer of grace in Christ, to change our minds about our self-centered ways of living, to stop going our own way and follow Christ instead.  Repentance thus involves a 180 degree turn.

The prodigal son in Luke 15 is often cited as an example of repentance.  After he squandered his wealth in wild living the son "came to his senses", decided to go back to his father and offer his services as a hired man.  The prodigal son had a long walk home, no doubt.  Repentance often involves just such a decision, turning and long walk home.

But in reality the prodigal son is an example of our merely human attempts at repentance.  We think of our relationship with God as a bargain.  We try to earn our way back into the Father's household where we will pay for our mistakes.

The father in the story will have none of it.  While the prodigal son is still a long way off the father runs to embrace him.  The dad interrupts the son's repentance speech with plans for a party.  He welcomes the young man back home as a son, not a hired servant.  They begin to celebrate the son's homecoming together.

Real repentance, at the deepest level, is about accepting the Father's welcome.  It is not about the hard work we do.  It is not about tearfully enacted speeches.  Repentance has nothing to do with earning anything.  In fact, as C. S. Lewis points out later in Mere Christianity, Jesus is the only perfect penitent.  And so real repentance for us means accepting what Jesus has done for us, through his perfect life, his death on the cross for our sins, and his resurrection from the dead.  Real repentance is about allowing Jesus to work true repentance, true change, in us.  For in Christ, God the Father has run to embrace us.  He wants to welcome us home and throw a party for us.  He wants us to be his children, not his hired servants.

The only question is: will we accept God's offer?

"Almighty Father, in whose  hands are our lives: we commend ourselves to the keeping of your love.  In your will is our peace.  In life or in death, in this world and the next, uphold us that we may put our trust in you; through Jesus Christ our Lord."  William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1881-1944

"We want to know whether the universe simply happens to be what it is for no reason or whether there is a power behind it that makes it what it is." Mere Christianity

As a child I used to try to imagine "nothing".  You know what?  I couldn't do it.

When I would try to imagine nothing, there was always something.  I would close my eyes and imagine total blackness.  But then I realized that blackness is something.

So I would imagine complete whiteness instead.  But then I recognized that whiteness is something.

This little exercise in imagination led me to my first philosophical insight.  It made me realize that there has always been something.  And that realization led to the question: Did the universe begin with some THING or with some ONE?  In other words, was there a personal beginning to the universe, or an impersonal one?

It seemed obvious to me as a child, and it still seems obvious now, that humans are personal beings. Descartes said, "Cogito ergo sum."  "I think therefore I am."  All human beings are thinking, rational (some more than others), personal beings.

So how did the personal evolve from the impersonal?  Such an evolution seemed to me as a child, and it still seems now, rather impossible, or at least improbable.  Thus, there must be "behind" or "outside" of the universe itself a personal being, a mind at least, who created all that is, or at least got it all going.

By this chain of reasoning I too arrived at the same conclusion as C. S. Lewis in his chapter: What Lies Behind the Law.  But of course the Psalmist put it all so much more simply, and beautifully, when he wrote:

"By the word of the Lord were the heavens made;

and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth."

Psalm 33:6

Why not make the following your prayer to your Creator today?

O God in whom I live and have my being,

Be in my head, and in my understanding;

God be in my eyes, and in my looking;

God be in my mouth, and in my speaking;

God be in my heart, and in my feeling;

God be at my end, and at my departing.

(Adapted from the Old Sarum Primer.)