I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
2006-07-04 03:07:03 · 8 answers · asked by Bruce B 4 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
magickstyle--
I appreciate your candor and your participation. I do feel there are a couple of facts that I need to point out: Jesus did exist. There is no argument from ANY camp on that. Agnostics, Jews, Christians, Muslims--no one argues His existence. In fact, He is even noted in the writings of non-christian historian Josephus. The existence of Jesus is not being argued. What do make of Him, that is where the debate lies. And one more thing...Jesus did more than claim to be "the son of God." He claimed to BE GOD. That is the premise for C.S. Lewis's writing.
Hope this helps.
2006-07-04 03:43:29 · update #1
yes, i agree. Thats one of the statements that has made C.s. Lewis famous.
2006-07-04 03:12:48 · answer #1 · answered by really? 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
First of all, I disagree with him on the most basic level, which is accepting the Bible as literal truth. Who knows if Jesus even existed, much less what he actually claimed? People are misquoted all the time today, with all our recording technology, so how much worse must it have been back then? Plus, the Bible was written hundreds of years afterward by people who never even met him. But leaving that aside, I disagree with Lewis because I'm of the opinion that the whole "I'm the son of God" thing applies equally to everyone who cares to open their eyes and hearts and minds and follow the path that he followed. We're all the children of divinity. And if he said he was the ONLY son of God, well, if he was the only one saying this stuff at the time, then he probably was. Until there were more. But anyway, I'm not exactly familiar with all of Jesus' (reported) claims because of my first statement.
2006-07-04 10:22:10 · answer #2 · answered by magickstyle 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
If you actually read some of the words of Jesus and understood his cultural audience, you would see that he was either a madman or legitimately the Son of God (God on Earth).
"Before Abraham was, I am" (refering to 'I am that I am', said to Moses).
By modern comparison, it would be like somebody spitting in the Pope's face and saying he's been doing it all wrong! Either that dude's got some balls, or he probably knows something that we don't.
I understand that Lewis was trying to prove his point without necessarily pointing to the Bible--in order to make his point more accessible to non-believers--but the holy book makes no mention of Jesus being crazy, so for most people, that sort of behavior only leaves one option.
2006-07-04 10:16:34 · answer #3 · answered by jermaine 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
cs lewis is saying that if jesus was not god then he was 'the devil of hell'.
so cs lewis is saying that the only difference between god and 'the devil of hell' is ... that god is god.
if jesus said and did things that only the devil would do, i would not want to follow him.
if the only reason that god is good is because he is all powerful ... then josef stalin and saddam hussein were also very admirable men.
2006-07-04 10:12:36 · answer #4 · answered by synopsis 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
U might like to reserve the answers to christians, but personally, I find C S Lewis quite logical.
2006-07-04 10:11:16 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Jesus was considered a heretic in his day because of the things he said. Just because he was more open-minded than the people around him, and spoke of things that they didn't dare think of, that doesn't mean he was the son of God.
2006-07-04 10:14:14 · answer #6 · answered by T Time 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Do demons of hell heal people and teach about God on a regular basis? I believe he is our savior and is the only son of God.
2006-07-04 10:13:14 · answer #7 · answered by kingofcheese4 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I would say C. S. Lewis didn't read many books on Eastern Philosophy.
2006-07-04 10:13:00 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋