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Mere Christianity Chapter 1 Summary

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Book three of Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis, commences by discussing moral rules, which are directions for the good human life. Moral ideals may be preferences but are not moral obedience or aiming for high morals. Morality is concerned about three things; first, fair play and harmony between individuals; second, cleaning up and improving or harmonizing the things inside each individual and third, the general purpose of human life, what we are made for, what the inventor/creator wants. Modern people think in the first way and lose the other two. Lewis next discusses cardinal or pivotal virtues which include Prudence, Temperance, Justice and Fortitude. Prudence means practical common sense and wisdom, Temperance is not abstaining, but moderation, restraint, going far enough but not too far, Justice means …show more content…

Christian morality is a technique for putting the human machine right. Psychoanalysis, on one hand, is about medical theories and techniques of therapists which are not necessarily incompatible with Christianity. On the other hand, as a general philosophic view of the world, as pronounced by Sigmund Freud, it directly contradicts Christianity. The next topic is sexual morality. Chastity is the least popular virtue and people think Christianity is wrong or our sexual instinct has gone wrong. Sexual perversion is from sexual corruption, not sexual starvation. The problem is that the cure for warped natures is difficult, because the desires we resist are natural or healthy, living virtuously is impossible and we misunderstand repression of the appetites. The next topic is a logical choice as it talks about Christian marriage. The sexual impulse in man works correctly in marriage; Christ taught that marriage makes a man and woman a single organism, one flesh. Christianity teaches that marriage is for life and the church regards divorce as something like cutting up a living

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I agree with Kinnaman’s unbiased assessment of Christianity and I find his research extremely helpful, because it provides us with a clear idea and an approximation of the precise degree of disdain and distrust others have towards the Christian faith. Furthermore, his research permits us to stand apart and examine ourselves as Christians. Kinnaman’s research results uncovered the most common points of skepticism and objections raised by outsiders towards the church and Christianity (Kinnaman, 2007). According to Kinnaman, the six issues or themes outsiders have against believers are the following: 1) Hypocritical 2)

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Lord Teach Me to Pray #6 Kingdom-Focused Prayer Text-Micah 4:1-5 Introduction-: In Philip Yancey’s book The Jesus I Never Knew he talks about how we live on Saturday, the day with no name: The other two days have earned names on the church calendar: Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Yet in a real sense we live on Saturday, the day with no name. What the disciples experienced in small scale—three days in grief over one man who had died on a cross—we now live through on cosmic scale.

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Clinton and Hawkins identifies psychological issues and spiritual issues through the same lens. Understanding how people act, and why they act the way they act is pivotal. Often, a person’s worldview explains these questions. In addition, they believe that all men are made in the image of God, however, they are separated by their sin nature. Interestingly, dealing with client’s psychological and spiritual issues stems for the innate from sin.

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These include the views that Christians are hypocritical and are more focused on rules and regulations than people, as well as several controversial standings such as homosexuality and political involvement. In fact, in Kinnaman’s findings, only an estimated 34% of young outsiders believed that Christians really cared about them (68). Additionally, UnChristian challenges the Christian community to step up to the plate and redefine what the world thinks of them. For each negative perception that is assumed by young outsiders according to Kinnaman’s research, he offered what he referred to as “new perceptions”, or how Christians should strive to be perceived by outsiders.

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645 Words | 3 Pages

In his book, “Simply Jesus: A new vision of who He was, what He did, and why He matters”, N.T. Wright illustrates the complexities about seeing Jesus in His time and how historical context as well as many other facets need to be taken into consideration to fully understand Him and His kingdom. Wright uses modern day analogies to assist his audience in comprehending a culture foreign to most and an era that is completely different than our own. He does this by dividing the book into three separate parts that seek to share historical data about Jesus in a way that is not overly-simplified and undermining of who He was, what He did, and why He matters. Part One of this book does not so much answer questions about Jesus as it does provide readers with “the right questions” (Wright, 2011, p. 7) to be answered.

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Integrative Approaches to Psychology and Christianity In the book entitled Integrative Approaches to Psychology and Christianity: An Introduction to Worldview Issues, Philosophical Foundations, and Models of Integration, Entwistle (2015) gives a comprehensive overview of imperative issues surrounding the integration of psychology and Christianity. Summary

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S. Lewis believes humans are inherently good and points to our natural sense of right and wrong and good intentions as a sign of this goodness. According to C. S. Lewis, humans have a natural moral law that helps us differentiate between what is right and wrong. For example, if you saw a man drowning, would you help him? C.S Lewis says that “You probably want to be safe much more than you want to help the man who is drowning: but the Moral Law tells you to help him all the same” (Lewis 10). The moral law is different from our natural instincts of self-preservation.

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McMinn (2007) quote about the nature of sin of the following: “Biblically, the sin problem involves more than simply our bad actions, whether personal or social in their implications and complication. In Scripture and theology, sin is a condition that goes to the root of our being, for it must do with our relationship to our origin and to God,” (p. 162), will help the couple to see the truth about the effects of sin within each other and their marriage. By helping them learn their attribute style regrading sin and along with helping them use prayer and Scripture as tool of insight into their personal relationship with sin and God, which will bring them to enter deeply into their spiritual life, which will require for both abandon sin management and seek inner transformation through the work of the Holy Spirit (McMinn, 2007, p 165). This form of spiritual discipline can help them heal their marriage along with healing induvial. I also think that it could beneficial for the counselor to us a some of the confronting approaches to deal with the couple’s sin, such

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Shirley Jackson's 'the lottery' demonstrates the dangers of traditions because the villagers' actions highlight the harmful consequences of following a tradition without understanding its purpose. The tradition of the village was to sacrifice someone from the village to be able to get good crops the next year. In danger of tradition there traditions were passed down but they where wrong they did it because they saw there mother do it. In the story 'The Lottery' the small village was a village with a very weird tradition.

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An Unfortunate Position In the first chapter of his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis makes two points: “Firstly, that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave a certain way, and cannot get rid of it. Secondly, that they do not in fact behave that way” (Lewis 8). Before Lewis makes this statement, he defines the certain way humans should behave as the Law of Nature, which is the Law of Right and Wrong. So Lewis is stating that all humans know they should do good instead of evil, but they still break the law telling them to do good.

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1819 Words | 8 Pages

In Christian Combatant the Church perceives psychology as the enemy. The next model is the Spies model this model is made up of two types of spies the foreign spies and the domestic spies. The foreign spies are not committed to a religious system, however, they want to learn about the religious system so they can use its resources (Entwistle, 2010). The domestic spies participate in the religious system but they are more committed to the psychological benefits from the religious system (Entwistle, 2010). Both the foreign and the domestic spies try “to find the good psychology in religion” (Entwistle, 2010, p. 183).

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2922 Words | 12 Pages

According to Christian author CS Lewis in his work Mere Christianity, “Prudence means practical common sense... Justice includes honesty, give and take, truthfulness, and keeping promises... And Fortitude includes courage” (Lewis 70-72). Finally, Temperance involves

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A Summary of the Book This time was the second time to read Christianity & Liberalism. While reading the book, this reviewer could realize that how he partially understood the book. In the first reading, last year, one of impressions of the book was the supernatural is foundational in Christianity.

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For millennia, what has been a dilemma to philosophy has also relentlessly threatened Christian theology and affects the daily lives of human beings. People are regularly faced with questions of morality that may resonate with the strict guidelines of laws or religious doctrine. A majority of individuals align with their respective traditional societal norms. Others, however, may commit acts that are not in accordance with the rest of society. Contingent upon the severity of the deed, it may be considered immoral, sinful, or outright evil.

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“Do good and avoid evil” is a result of the differing educational, religious and cultural influences on man in the various times and places of his historical development. Thomas Aquinas contended that general principles of the natural law cannot be applied to all men in the same way on the great variety of human affairs, thus arises the diversity of positive laws among various people. Human laws deal with changing and contingent matters and often with singulars, do not have the certitude that belongs to the speculative sciences. Each has its own realm of operation and is sufficient that each have the certitude proper to its own realm. [ Ibid. ]

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