I am working on finishing up an index to the some the classic works of Western civilization. The one I am working on now is C.S. Lewis’s The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses. It is not too much to say that the output of C.S. Lewis has shaped the last 100 years in ways disproportionate to the number of people who have actually read him.
In this particular quote, he is dealing with a phrase that was a part of a recent debate against Christianity. In it, an antagonist says that Christian should “give up the shell and keep the kernel”. That is, “give up your doctrine of the incarnation / resurrection / heaven and hell [the shell] and keep your doctrines of compassion, love, mercy and hope [the kernel]”.
But in the New Testament, it is clear that you can’t have the second if you dispense with the first. Here is Lewis’s three sentence response.
“The earliest Christians were not so much like a man who mistakes the shell for the kernel as a man carrying a nut that he hasn’t yet cracked. The moment it is cracked, he knows which part to throw away. Until then he carries the nut, not because he is a fool but because he isn’t.”
Clive Staples Lewis
The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses
revised and Expanded Edition
(MacMillan, 1980)
Brilliant!
The ethics of Christianity cannot be separated from the essential doctrines of Christianity.
“Thank you Lord, for men and women like C.S. Lewis, who confront nonsense in dialogue with the culture in defense of the the truth of the gospel.”
ChosenRebel's Blog 