Christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. It therefore has nothing (as far as I know) to say to people who do not know they have done anything to repent of and who do not feel that they need any forgiveness. It is after you have realized that there is a real Moral Law, and a Power behind the law, and that you have broken that law and put yourself wrong with that Power – it is after all this, and not a moment sooner, that Christianity begins to talk. When you know you are sick, you will listen to the doctor. When you have realized that our position is nearly desperate you will begin to understand what the Christians are talking about. They offer an explanation of how we got into our present state of both hating goodness and loving it. They offer an explanation of how God can be this impersonal mind at the back of the Moral Law and yet also a Person. They tell you how the demands of this law, which you and I cannot meet, have been met on our behalf, how God Himself becomes a man to save man from the disapproval of God….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 beings 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 that dismay. In religion, as in war and everything else, comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth – only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair.
–C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
Thank you for posting this reminder of what clarity looks like!
May God continue to further the reach of CSL’s words, and even more, the fruit of his example to all of us
That’s why Brit Hume’s message about Tiger Woods’ need for Christianity is so telling. Buddhism holds that there is no sin, only a greater “self understanding.” Poor ole Tiger is surely aware by now that he has sinned (he is feeling more than just the pain of his adultery; he is feeling the sad results of it, too.) but as a Buddhist there is nothing he can do about it. Christianity is the only “religion” that describes the reality of sin, the need for forgiveness, and the means of that forgiveness.
Right on Lewis and Hume!