Book I = Our conscience is one proof that God exists
- Everyone knows the difference between right and wrong (Lewis calls this innate knowledge the Moral Law), but we don’t always do what is right
- The Moral Law overcomes selfishness or self-serving behavior
- The Moral Law is as “hard as nails” but God has given us a carpenter (Jesus) to help drive those nails
Book II = What Christians Believe
- God made the universe
- Evil is good gone wrong
- Free will gives the opportunity for evil to exist
- Jewish history is a series of stories that serve as examples and warnings
- Jesus, a Jew, is the ultimate proof that the Jews are God’s chosen people
- Christ’s death put us right with God
- Without the help of Jesus and the Holy Spirit we would never be able to surrender ourselves to God
Book III = A discussion of the spirit, the mind, and the will
(The soul is like a soup with ingredients of spirit, mind, and the will (our actions) all mixed together so that we cannot separate one from the other
- Morality consists of:
1) Relationship between man and man
2) Individual choices
3) Relationship with God (this relationship gives us a moral purpose)
- The Cardinal (pivotal) virtues
1) Prudence—the intelligence to make the correct choices
2) Temperance—the Golden Mean between too much and too little
3) Justice—the ability to determine the fair thing to do
4) Fortitude—Courage (grace under pressure)
- Emotional conflicts interfere with making the correct moral choices
- Love is an act of will not a feeling
1) Because fleshly sins are a distortion of love, sins of the flesh may be less bad than spiritual sins, but both separate us from God (A prig is worse than a prostitute but both peccadilloes will be penalized)
2) Unchastity is not improved by perjury—being unfaithful and lying about it is worse than being openly unfaithful
- Anger at evil is a Godly thing but the Christian goes beyond anger by asking Christ and the Holy Spirit for help in wishing the best for the evil one
- Good and evil increase at compound interest—little daily decisions are of infinite importance
- Christians are emboldened by the hope that God-given eternal desires will be fulfilled
- Faith enables us to have the patience to wait for the answer when we don’t understand a spiritual dilemma
- Bible reading, prayer, and worship are necessary to help maintain faith
Book IV = A discussion of theological concepts
- Theologians give us spiritual maps just as explorers give us geographical maps, but like explorers some theologians draw more accurate maps than others
- The three-person God makes God a personal God
1) Jesus related to us as a man
2) The Holy Spirit is inside us
3) God is omnipresent
- The resurrection of Lazarus in a example that with God time can go backward as well as forward
- Christianity spreads like an infection
- Christ can give us the abundant life when we turn our lives over to Him and stop acting like obstinate toy soldiers
- Christ is like Beauty in The Beauty and the Beast—His love can transform us into loveable beings
- Surrendering to Christ is the most difficult of things to do, but it gives us the easiest life
- Being a good citizen, a good mother, a good husband, a good doctor, a good scientist, a good banker, etc. can make us so smug that we never surrender our lives to Christ
- The more we let Christ into our lives the more courage we have to be honest with ourselves and with others—we become more transparent because we are not afraid to allow people to know what we are really like
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