"C.S.Lewis. Mere christianity " - читать интересную книгу автора

John?' They meant well. To be honourable and courteous and brave is of
course a far better thing than to have a coat of arms. But it is not the
same thing. Worse still, it is not a thing everyone will agree about. To
call a man 'a gentleman' in this new, refined sense, becomes, in fact, not a
way of giving information about him, but a way of praising him: to deny that
he is 'a gentleman' becomes simply a way of insulting him. When a word
ceases to be a term of description and becomes merely a term of praise, it
no longer tells you facts about the object: it only tells you about the
speaker's attitude to that object. (A 'nice' meal only means a meal the
speaker likes.) A gentlemany once it has been spiritualised and refined out
of its old coarse, objective sense, means hardly more than a man whom the
speaker likes. As a result, gentleman is now a useless word. We had lots of
terms of approval already, so it was not needed for that use; on the other
hand if anyone (say, in a historical work) wants to use it in its old sense,
he cannot do so without explanations. It has been spoiled for that purpose.
Now if once we allow people to start spiritualising and refining, or as
they might say 'deepening', the sense of the word Christian, it
too will speedily become a useless word. In the first place, Christians
themselves will never be able to apply it to anyone. It is not for us to say
who, in the deepest sense, is or is not close to the spirit of Christ. We do
not see into men's hearts. We cannot judge, and are indeed forbidden to
judge. It would be wicked arrogance for us to say that any man is, or is
not, a Christian in this refined sense. And obviously a word which we can
never apply is not going to be a very useful word. As for the unbelievers,
they will no doubt cheerfully use the word in the refined sense. It will
become in their mouths simply a term of praise. In calling anyone a
Christian they will mean that they think him a good man. But that way of
using the word will be no enrichment of the language, for we already have
the word good. Meanwhile, the word Christian will have been spoiled for any
really useful purpose it might have served.
We must therefore stick to the original, obvious meaning. The name
Christians was first given at Antioch (Acts 11:26) to 'the disciples', to
those who accepted the teaching of the apostles. There is no question of its
being restricted to those who profited by that teaching as much as they
should have. There is no question of its being extended to those who in some
refined, spiritual, inward fashion were 'far closer to the spirit of Christ'
than the less satisfactory of the disciples. The point is not a theological
or moral one. It is only a question of using words so that we can all
understand what is being said. When a man who accepts the Christian doctrine
lives unworthily of it, it is much clearer to say he is a bad Christian than
to say he is not a Christian.
I hope no reader will suppose that 'mere' Christianity is here put
forward as an alternative to the creeds of the existing communions -as if a
man could adopt it in preference to Congregationalism or Greek Orthodoxy or
anything else. It is more like a hall out of which doors open into several
rooms. If I can bring anyone into that hall I shall have done what I
attempted. But it is in the rooms, not in the hall, that there are fires and
chairs and meals. The hall is a place to wait in, a place from which to try
the various doors, not aplace to live in. For that purpose the worst of the
rooms (whichever that may be) is, I think, preferable. It is true that some