Aslan

I've been reading C.S. Lewis lately. I picked up The Screwtape Letters on a lark--from a 10-year old at a yardsale, no less. Also by chance, I happened to have taken Mere Christianity from my parents house years ago, and (chance heaped upon chance) to have kept it with me through various moves.

Reading it this morning, I came across the following passage: "People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bagain in which God says, 'If you keep a lot of rules I'll reward you, and if you don't I'll do the other thing.'" This is the most humorous reference to hell I've ever seen.

More important, though, is that it contradicts Christianity as generally presented (by crazy old men in subway stations with pamphlets) in that it assumes "keeping rules," or acting morally, will be sufficient to earn the fare for Charon's Ferry (or whatever). After all, I've been informed, ad nauseam, that salvation comes from "the gift of God— not by works." Ephesians 2:8-9.

So why not live like a bandit? The rub, at least as C.S. explains it, comes thusly: You can't accept this gift unless you have conditioned yourself to receive it. C.S. compares it to the creation of a statue out of stone. Each stroke of the hammer and chisel forms you into either a creature worthy of accepting the proffered gift, or ... not.

Which makes sense. Pretty obvious, really.

So why'd I have to go through two C.S. Lewis books and 27 years to grasp this basic tenet of Christian theology?