Mere Christianity Book Summary

Book Summary

15 min

Audio available

Brief Summary

Human beings’ innate sense of right and wrong indicates that morality is a universal natural law. Common moral virtues have been valued across history and across different cultures. Christianity has helped humans evolve because it encourages them to live more virtuous lives in accordance with the life of Jesus Christ. Christians strive to emulate Christ. They choose to reject selfish and carnal desires in life and instead pursue the true joy and fulfillment of a virtuous life and the hope of eternal salvation in Heaven.

About the Author

CS Lewis was an author, academic, and theologian. He published over thirty books, including his famous fiction works The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Space Trilogy. His bestselling nonfiction books include Mere Christianity, Miracles, and The Problem of Pain.

Lewis was a scholar of English Literature at Oxford University and Cambridge University, where he served as the chair of Mediaeval and Renaissance Literature at Magdalene College until his death. He was a former Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. He earned his undergraduate degree at Oxford University, where he won a triple first. Lewis passed away in Oxford, England in 1963.

Topics

Religion & Spirituality

Mere Christianity Book Summary Preview

What You’ll Learn

The importance of pursuing genuine self-improvement and living a virtuous life
Why an innate sense of morality is evidence that a benevolent and intelligent being contributed to the design of the universe
How suffering and evil can exist in a world designed by a just God
Why Christians strive to emulate the life of Jesus Christ

Who Is This For

Christians who want to better understand their faith
Nonbelievers and skeptics who wish to learn about Christianity
Individuals who are curious about philosophy, religion, and morality

Key Insights

Human beings are born with an intuitive knowledge of universal moral laws. This means they have an innate understanding of moral virtues, and react negatively when something happens that offends their moral principles. Most moral virtues remain the same across time, location, and cultures.

The existence of a universal moral law indicates that the presence of a caring, intelligent being was affiliated with the creation of the universe because these moral virtues are designed to encourage human beings to love and care for each other. Jesus Christ was both divine and human, so his life represents the virtuous ideal that all Christians should strive to emulate. However, free will enables some humans to choose to behave in a way that corrupts goodness and leads to evil on earth.

Christians must strive to avoid materialistic temptations and selfish desires and instead live according to their beliefs, especially the three basic virtues of hope, faith, and charity. Christianity is an advantageous spiritual trait that has helped humanity to survive and thrive because it has helped people to understand and live according to the universal moral law and to live together in harmony.

Morality Is A Universal Natural Law

Human beings are bound to have conflicts and disagreements. However, unlike animals, human beings are the only creatures who are able to use words instead of violence to resolve conflicts. While sometimes human disagreements turn into physical altercations, most disagreements are verbal. People quarrel with one another. Both children and adults are prone to quarreling, because they intuitively take issue with situations that offend their internal knowledge of universal moral law.

Human beings have an innate sense of what is fair and honest. Fairness and honesty are both examples of moral principles, and people, even children, have an internal understanding of these principles. They expect others to adhere to these same moral principles, so when someone commits certain actions, like lying or cheating, that offends these moral principles, they are understood to have done something wrong.

Even the offending party, more often than not, agrees that their actions have violated some innate principle. They rarely try to justify the action or argue the case that the moral standard is wrong. Instead, most people make excuses for why their circumstances justified their breaking of the moral principle. For example, someone might say they really needed cash as an excuse for stealing, but they would not argue the case that stealing itself is a moral action.

Most people know when they have done something wrong, because they have an intuitive sense of...