The final chapter of Mere Christianity is entitled, “The New Men.” In it, Lewis touches upon something that will no doubt drive your modern day fundamentalist crazy: evolution. Not only does Lewis mention it, but he actually says, “Perhaps a modern man can understand the Christian idea best if he takes it in connection with evolution.”
That’s right. C.S. Lewis—the beloved writer of the Chronicles of Narnia series—had no problem with the theory of evolution. He was what we would call a theistic evolutionist. He not only did not see evolution as a threat to the faith, he saw it as a perfect way to further explain the Christian idea of salvation and growing up in Christ. Now, although this post is not where I’m going to address this further, I do want to mention that many of the early Church Fathers held a similar view. No, they didn’t know anything about the scientific theory of evolution, but they did teach that God created all creation with the ability to adapt and change, and they did teach that God had not created man perfect, but rather with the purpose of growing up and being transformed more fully into the likeness of God. In fact, I think Lewis probably got his ideas from the early Church Fathers.
In any case, Lewis point about evolution and Christianity is this: evolution shows that the “stream of life” that has happened over the past few millions of years has often flowed in ways that would, at the time, have not been foreseen. Think about the dinosaurs—“logic” would have it that creatures would go on getting bigger and stronger; but as it turned out, the most dominant creatures on the earth today rarely grow more than 6 feet tall, and they gain dominance over nature with what their brains can conceive…these creatures are so advanced that they can write long posts on a computer and then send them all over the world on something called the “internet.” I’m sure no T-Rex saw that coming!
Lewis’ point is that evolution often takes unexpected turns, and this is precisely what we see in Christianity. That “next step” in evolution has already happened in the person of Jesus Christ—and the next big change isn’t from one sort of biological creature into another, but rather from biological human beings into true, “Zoe-filled” human beings like Christ. Simply put, the next step takes us beyond mere biology. Or as Lewis says, “In a sense, the change is not ‘evolution’ at all, because it is not something arising out of the natural process of events, but something coming into nature from outside.”
This change, Lewis says, is different in other ways as well. First, this “new life” isn’t carried on by sexual reproduction—it is a distinctive work of the Spirit that works out over the course of time. (Of course, we still can’t help but using sexually-related metaphors to describe this change: we are “born again”).
The second difference is that, whereas in evolution, where organisms have no real choice in the matter of evolving, in this instance, we as human creatures entirely have the choice to take the next step or not. We can either chose to accept the offer of the new kind of life, or we can refuse it.
The third difference goes back to Christ. Lewis had earlier said that Christ was the “first instance” of the new man. Here he revises his earlier comment, and says that Christ is not simply the “first instance” of the new man, but in reality he is the new man: “He is the origin and center and life of all the new men.” And in that sense, not only are we as individuals “new men,” but we are ultimately part of the new man.
Fourthly, whereas the earlier steps of evolution took millions of years, this new kind of Christian life has happened like a lightning bolt. Remember, 2,000 years in the scope of the history of the universe is a blip. Seen in that light, the Church is, as Lewis puts it, still teething: “The outer world, no doubt, thinks [the Church] is dying of old age.”
Finally, as Lewis says, the stakes are higher. All the earlier evolutionary changes in this creation can be compared to the “evolution” of that initial sperm and egg into a 9-month-in-the-womb fetus, ready to be born into a whole new world it cannot yet conceive. The new life in Christ is that new birth into a whole new mode of life. On this point, Lewis wonders: “I wonder what an ordinary baby would do if it had the choice. It might prefer to stay in the dark and warmth and safety of the womb. For of course it would think the womb meant safety. That would be just where it was wrong; for if it stays there it will die.”
Lewis ends his chapter (and his book) by pointing out that already, all throughout the world the “new men” are already being transformed. The way he describes “the new men” has always intrigued me:
“Every now and then one meets them. [But] they will not be very like the idea of ‘religious people’ which you have formed from your general reading. They do not draw attention to themselves. You tend to think that you are being kind to them when they are really being kind to you. They love you more than other men do, but they need you less. They will usually seem to have a lot of time: you will wonder where it comes from.”
The last thing Lewis says is that when it comes right down to it, there are no real personalities outside of God. The only way you will ever be your true self is to find yourself in God. He says, “Sameness is to be found among the most ‘natural’ men, not among those who surrender to Christ. How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been: how gloriously different are the saints.”
With that, Lewis points out that if all you’re concerned about is yourself, you’re never going to find Christ:
“Your real, new self will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. Does that sound strange? The same principle holds, you know, for more everyday matters. Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring a two-pence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. The principle runs through all life from top to bottom. Give up your self, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will ever really be yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”
I know that’s a long quote, but that’s how Lewis ends the book, and that’s a pretty good summary of the principle of life itself…if you ask me.
The thing I most appreciate about Mere Christianity is that it shows that Christianity is a lot more than just some nice little formula to “get saved and go to heaven.” If Christianity does not open the door to a bigger understanding of God, of life, and of creation itself, if it does not reveal a far greater, more complex, more challenging, more invigorating world that you realize you cannot even fully conceive—if it doesn’t do that, then it’s not worthwhile.
Mere Christianity stands as the point in my life where I started to really grasp what a truly transformative worldview Christianity was. It has shaped my life, possibly more than any other book—for without reading Mere Christianity, my life would have no doubt taken a very different direction. The faith I saw in Mere Christianity called to me, and I chose to follow. I don’t know how many posts I’ve ended doing as I’ve gone through the entire book, but I felt impelled to do this. I ended up teaching the book to students for 12 of my 16 years as a teacher, and chances are I’ll never teach the book again (being that, of course, I’m no longer working in Christian schools).
It was 30 years ago I first read Mere Christianity—30 years. Wow. If you read all my posts, I hope you enjoyed them. I hope you pick up the book and read the whole thing. It certainly is just in my blood—it has helped shape virtually everything in my Christian worldview. Once you read Mere Christianity, you’ll be able to see these ideas running through all of his other fiction books.
Fini.
Thank you for compiling your many years of contemplating and teaching this book, it has been a blessing to me and, I am sure, to many others who have not yet typed it out directly.