Mere Christianity

by C.S. Lewis

‘mere’ Christianity, which is what it is and what it was long before I was born and whether I like it or not.

We do not see into men’s hearts. We cannot judge, and are indeed forbidden to judge.

When a man who accepts the Christian doctrine lives unworthily of it, it is much clearer to say he is a bad Christian than to say he is not a Christian.

It is more like a hall out of which doors open into several rooms. If I can bring anyone into that hall I shall have done what I attempted. But it is in the rooms, not in the hall, that there are fires and chairs and meals.

God keeps no one waiting unless He sees that it is good for him to wait.

you must be asking which door is the true one; not which pleases you best by its paint and panelling.

this year, or this month, or, more likely, this very day, we have failed to practise ourselves the kind of behaviour we expect from other people.

If we do not believe in decent behaviour, why should we be so anxious to make excuses for not having behaved decently?

For you notice that it is only for our bad behaviour that we find all these explanations.

The Moral Law tells us the tune we have to play: our instincts are merely the keys.

Strictly speaking, there are no such things as good and bad impulses. Think once again of a piano. It has not got two kinds of notes on it, the ‘right’ notes and the ‘wrong’ ones. Every single note is right at one time and wrong at another. The Moral Law is not any one instinct or set of instincts: it is something which makes a kind of tune (the tune we call goodness or right conduct) by directing the instincts.

You might think love of humanity in general was safe, but it is not. If you leave out justice you will find yourself breaking agreements and faking evidence in trials ‘for the sake of humanity’, and become in the end a cruel and treacherous man.

you cannot have any real safety or happiness except in a society where every one plays fair,