Mere Christianity 4
Study Guide Questions for Book 1, Ch. 4 "What Lies Behind The Law"
If you are looking for the beginning of the study for C. S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity then you can go HERE for a brief introduction. At the bottom of the introduction you will find the links to each section of the study guide as it becomes available. If you would like to see the growing list of book studies available for free on this site you can go HERE. Enjoy!
Virtues/Vices/Great Ideas: (Find them in the Text)
Purpose
Grammar Questions: (The Information of the Text)
According to Lewis, when we talk about nature being governed by certain laws what do we really mean?
What is the Law of Human Nature “above and beyond?”
What is the “materialist view” of how the universe came to be as we now know it?
What is the “religious view” of how the universe came to be as we now know it?
“In the long run” what does “every scientific statement” boil down to?
What is “not a scientific question?”
What is the “one thing…in the whole universe” which we have more and special access to?
What analogy did Lewis use to illustrate how we might infer from our own special case that other things in the universe are also affected by “a Power” or “ a Director?”
What did Lewis “think we have to assume” about this “Power?”
What third view did Lewis mention that people sometimes try to offer besides materialism or religion?
Logic Questions: (Interpreting, Comparing/Contrasting, Reasoning)
Why is it impossible to know, by scientific inquiry, whether there is anything above or beyond the facts of how certain natural objects behave?
Lewis argues there are really only two views of the origin of the universe, materialism and religion. Why could there not be a third?
Why might it be important to note, as Lewis did, that “wherever there have been thinking men both views turn up?” In other words, why is it important to note that there is nothing new or novel about either of these views?
Why did Lewis think, “the more scientific a man is, the more…he would agree with” him about the job of science being merely that of observation of facts?
Why did Lewis think that “anyone studying man from the outside as we study electricity or cabbages” would never learn about the existence of the “moral law?”
Lewis wrote, “If there was a controlling power outside the universe, it could not show itself to us as one of the facts inside the universe - no more than the architect of a house could actually be a wall or a staircase or fireplace in that house.” What did he mean by this? Why couldn’t the “Power” itself be a part of the universe?
Why was Lewis’ analogy of the postal service worker delivering letters helpful? How does it relate to the question of the effects of the “Power” upon other things besides mankind?
Why did Lewis think “we have to assume” that the Power is “more like a mind than it is like anything else we know?”
How did Lewis show that third view, the “Life-Force philosophy,” doesn’t really amount to a third view at all?
Rhetoric Questions: (The Analysis of Ideas in the Text)
Offer a definition of the scientific method? What kinds of things can scientific inquiry determine? What are the limits of the scientific method (what can it not determine)? Give an example of a claim that can be tested by the scientific method. Give an example of a claim that cannot be answered by the scientific method. How can the latter claim be explored or examined since it is not open to scientific inquiry?
Lewis is working his way, philosophically, to demonstrating that a God exists and eventually to the fact that the God who is there is also the God of the Bible, the Father of Jesus. What are your thoughts about this approach? Should Christians reason with non-believers in this manner or should they simply share the gospel? Is it okay to go from establishing a general view that there is some power in the universe, to a personal God, to Yahweh (the God of the Bible)? What are the potential pros and cons of doing this kind of Christian Apologetics where the Bible is not (at least initially) a part of the conversation?
Theological Analysis: (Sola Scriptura)
Consider what the apostle Paul says in Romans 1:18-32. How does this impact your thinking about the second Rhetoric question?
Read Acts 17. How does Paul’s methodology to preaching the gospel differ when he is addressing a Jewish audience versus the Greek philosophers in Athens? What accounts for his different tactics? How should this inform our own approach to evangelism and apologetics?