Mere Christianity part II

This is my second blog post of my response to reading C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. I found out that we do not do 125 word responses for every reading! I wish we did! So, as a compromise, on the days that I do not have a response to post, I will post a favorite quote from the reading comment on it.

This week's response was to Lewis' argument in Book II concerning how God, who in His nature is good and loving, allow for evil to exist. Lewis argues that in order to understand what is truly good, one must already know of that which is evil (or vice versa.) Lewis contends:

A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. (p. 41)

and later, he argues

If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be a word without meaning. (p. 41)

Lewis' conclusion is that God, while loving and ultimately good in nature, must allow for evil to exist if He wants to express His love.

so, here is my response:

Lewis argues that God created beings with the free potential (free will) to choose between right and wrong and that man ultimately chose to do wrong which thereby separated him from God. While several people try to wonder how an all loving, good, and righteous God allow evil into a perfect world he created. It seems illogical, for as the apostle John states, God is Love. It appears to be against God’s nature to allow evil to exist. But alas, in reality

you cannot conceive what is evil without first conceiving what is good. In his perfect nature, God had to allow evil to be an option for man because without evil, God’s true love would not exist.

grace and peace,
jeremy