Friday, January 21, 2011

Man or Rabbit?

The title of this essay at first confused me, and left me in suspense until almost the very end of the reading. This article talked about the difference between unintentionally ignorant people, and people who choose to be ignorant about Christianity. He is mainly addressing the question, "Can't you lead a good life without believing in Christianity?" He first tells the distinction between those who are in 'honest error' like Socrates and Confucius, who could not believe in Christianity because they never had heard of Christianity before. However, he says that the person who asks if they can live a good life without Christianity obviously has heard of Christianity but does not want any part of it. In regards to this, Lewis says, "The man who asks this question has heard of Christianity and is by no means certain that it may not be true. He is really asking, 'Need I bother about it? Mayn't I just evade the issue, just let sleeping dogs lie, and get on with being 'good?'" Lewis says that the man who does this is avoiding Christianity on purpose: "He is deliberately trying not to know whether Christianity is true or false, because he foresees endless trouble if it should turn out to be true."

Lewis then gives us a reality check: it's impossible to be good on our own efforts. He says, "The idea of reaching 'a good life' without Christ is based on a double error. Firstly, we cannot do it; and secondly, in setting up 'a good life' as our final goal, we have missed the very point of our existence." It is impossible to live our lives without Christ; only He can make us clean. The reference to the title came in when Lewis illustrated how God can help us turn into the men and women He created us to be: "All the rabbit in us is to disappear...we shall bleed and squeal as the handfuls of fur come out; and then, surprisingly, we shall find underneath it all a thing we have never yet imagined: a real Man, an ageless god, a son of God, strong, radiant, wise, beautiful, and drenched in joy." This is such a powerful image for me (and a similar illustration to the dragon image in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader). We cannot get rid of our sinful "outer shells" alone. Jesus Christ alone can help us get rid of our ugly, sinful selves to reveal the beautiful people that He created us to be.

2 comments:

  1. I really loved Lewis' illustration of the rabbit (and the dragon). It gave me a very realistic view of what it means to become all that God wants for us. It has been so long since I've read the Narnia books, but once that dragon was implied I remembered the story. The dragon kept trying to take off his scales, each time thinking that he had succeeded, only to find more scales underneath. Only God can bring us to our true selves and remove all of our scales. Great post.

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  2. Great post! I just found it interesting that in this reading, Lewis doesn't clearly say what really is the point of our existence. I guess that was not the point he was trying to get across. The point is that living a 'good' life is NOT the point of our existence.

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