“On the other hand, we know that if there does exist an absolute goodness it must hate most of what we do. This is the terrible fix we are in” (31).
Here, Lewis is setting the reader up to understand the purpose and basic tenant of Christianity. As he points out, Christianity really does nothing for the purpose who does not feel that he has in some way gone wrong or departed from what he ought to do or be. Lewis has spent the preceding chapters building toward the premise that there must be some force outside humanity that directs us toward good; yet, in this quote, he claims that if that were true, we are fundamentally at odds with this force. Unless a person has accepted this—has understood that they need to be made right—then they cannot grasp the fundamental tenants of Christianity which Lewis goes on to describe.
“Nobody can always have devout feelings: and even if we could, feelings are not principally what God cares about. Christian Love, either towards God or towards man, is an affair of the will” (132).
In this quote, Lewis is making the distinction between feeling affectionately or fondly towards someone and what he defines as the Christian understanding of Love. He is not only drawing a sharp distinction here between emotions and actions, but is making the claim that emotions are rather irrelevant in God’s eyes in comparison to our actions. Lewis tells us that we are not commanded to feel love toward someone whom we do not; however, we are commanded to act as though we feel love toward them. It is this action, the acting as though we feel love toward someone, that constitutes real love in the Christian sense. Here, Lewis is offering both a consolation and a challenge. On the one hand, it is a relief to know that Christians are not asked to manufacture false feelings, yet at the same time, there is a challenge and a duty in his definition of love: one must act lovingly in all circumstances, even when the feelings are not there.
“We are the statues and there is a rumor going round the shop that some of us are some day going to come to life” (159).
In the pages preceding this quote, Lewis discusses the difference between making and begetting. As we are, humans are made, not begotten as Jesus is, meaning that we are without the spiritual life that He has. We are statues, and though we resemble humans, we are not animated with that same life. However, Lewis argues that Christ has infected humanity with this life, and by becoming what he calls “little Christs” we, too, can be animated by the spiritual life which we are otherwise without. The distinction that “some of us” are coming to life points to the fact that this life is not something inherent to us; in fact, some people will never get it. It is only, Lewis argues, by giving ourselves to Christ and becoming like him that we can share in his life.
"The point is not that God will refuse you admission to His eternal world if you have not got certain qualities of character: the point is that if people have not got at least the beginnings of those qualities inside them, then no possible external conditions could make a 'Heaven' for them--that is, could make them happy with the deep, strong, unshakable kind of happiness God intends for us" (81).
Here, Lewis is making a crucial distinction about the purpose of Christian morality. It is not, as is so commonly assumed, a matter of obeying certain rules in order to "qualify" for Heaven; God is not, according to Lewis, keeping a score sheet in which you must gain a certain number of points. Rather, he argues, every single choice that a person makes pushes them closer to or father from the person God intended them to be. When we practice virtues, we are changing our character into the kind of person God wants us to be and, according to Lewis, God is far more concerned with character than deeds alone. Lewis also asserts that those who do not have "at least the beginnings" of the Christian virtues will not be able to get to Heaven not because God will reject them, but because their character will make it impossible to be happy with the goodness that is God. The farther our character defects from the goodness intended for it, the harder it will be for us to accept any sort of 'Heaven.' The implications of this notion are significant because it suggests that we, not God nor anyone else, have the ultimate say in our salvation. It is not a matter of God deciding we are good enough; it is a matter of our own choosing to be the kind of people who can be with God.
"For Pride is spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense" (125).
In his chapter titled "The Great Sin," Lewis asserts that the worst of all sins is Pride. It is, he argues, the source of every other vice, and it ultimately prevents a person from being able to know God. If Pride is the inability to recognize anything greater than oneself, then one cannot possibly recognize God. It is, unfortunately, a vice that appears in many religious people; it is both more subtle and more destructive than any other vice which appeals to our "animal nature." Since Pride is competitive, it fuels other sins and vices that would otherwise come to an end at a certain point. Lewis gives the example of greed; at a certain point, no increase in money can add anything to a person's life, yet the desire to have more than someone else (pride) can fuel this greed. The same is true for any other sin--pride spurs it on.
"You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it himself" (205).
Here, Lewis is borrowing the analogy of humans to a "living house" which God begins to rebuild far beyond what we have expected. Lewis is illustrating that, when we give ourselves over to God, we have certain expectations about what that will mean. We expect and perhaps want no more than to be made into "nice, decent people," not understanding that God intends to go far beyond that: he intends to make us perfect. There is both excitement and challenge in this. At the same time that he is changing us far more than we wanted or expected to be changed, he is in fact changing us into something far better than we could ever be on our own. Lewis argues that this is the object of Christianity: to give oneself to God, and to be changed into a "little Christ," filled with the spiritual life of God.
