I'm a Good Person, Why Do I Need to Become a Christian?
This statement is frequently put to Christians in response to questions about why they aren’t one yet. And I must admit, on its face, this is a good question. In recent times, Christianity has been misunderstood (a process that began a while ago), and as a result, people see Christianity and Jesus as not much more than being nice. While this view is not entirely inaccurate, it does not encompass the entirety of the truth. Christianity is much more than simply nice behaviour, and it should be noted that the very standard that most people use to determine nice versus not-nice behaviour comes from Jesus Christ Himself. But I digress. In this essay, we shall attempt to answer this question with some help from C.S. Lewis.
Let me first note: I am not saying it is not important to be a nice person, but rather a good person. Nice can mean many things, including outward displays of agreeableness while harbouring inward ill intent. The confusion comes when one places niceness as the sole focus of their moral efforts.
Which Standard?
Due to my presuppositional leanings, we must start here. When people talk about being a nice or decent person, they are assuming a standard. Now, we will not go too deep into this concept, but it is important for me to highlight the redundancy of the question put forth in the title if such a person is unable to justify where they get their idea of ‘the good’. In short, when we talk about things being good or bad, we are assuming an unchanging standard that comes before any such judgements. There must be a measuring stick already in place for us to determine how long something is. Similarly, we need to establish a general understanding of what defines the good before we can determine which things align with this definition. C.S Lewis explains:
“Now this Law or Rule about Right and Wrong used to be called the Law of Nature. Nowadays, when we talk of the “laws of nature” we usually mean things like gravitation, or heredity, or the laws of chemistry. But when the older thinkers called the Law of Right and Wrong “the Law of Nature,” they really meant the Law of Human Nature. The idea was that, just as all bodies are governed by the law of gravitation and organisms by biological laws, so the creature called man also had his law—with this great difference, that a body could not choose whether it obeyed the law of gravitation or not, but a man could choose either to obey the Law of Human Nature or to disobey it
This law was called the Law of Nature because people thought that everyone knew it by nature and did not need to be taught it. They did not mean, of course, that you might not find an odd individual here and there who did not know it, just as you find a few people who are colour-blind or have no ear for a tune. But taking the race as a whole, they thought that the human idea of decent behaviour was obvious to everyone. And I believe they were right. If they were not, then all the things we said about the war were nonsense. What was the sense in saying the enemy were in the wrong unless Right is a real thing which the Nazis at bottom knew as well as we did and ought to have practised? If they had had no notion of what we mean by right, then, though we might still have had to fight them, we could no more have blamed them for that than for the colour of their hair.”1
Lewis has thus outlined the basic concept of the moral law. Men at all times have a number of desires they feel as a result of simply being human. These desires are generally the result of our natural tendencies. Our instincts. Yet if we are honest with ourselves, we will find, in addition to these natural instincts, a third component to our being that attempts to guide us towards certain instincts and away from others:
“For example, some people wrote to me saying, “Isn’t what you call the Moral Law simply our herd instinct and hasn’t it been developed just like all our other instincts?” Now I do not deny that we may have a herd instinct: but that is not what I mean by the Moral Law. We all know what it feels like to be prompted by instinct—by mother love, or sexual instinct, or the instinct for food. It means that you feel a strong want or desire to act in a certain way. And, of course, we sometimes do feel just that sort of desire to help another person: and no doubt that desire is due to the herd instinct. But feeling a desire to help is quite different from feeling that you ought to help whether you want to or not.
Supposing you hear a cry for help from a man in danger. You will probably feel two desires—one a desire to give help (due to your herd instinct), the other a desire to keep out of danger (due to the instinct for self-preservation). But you will find inside you, in addition to these two impulses, a third thing which tells you that you ought to follow the impulse to help, and suppress the impulse to run away. Now this thing that judges between two instincts, that decides which should be encouraged, cannot itself be either of them. You might as well say that the sheet of music which tells you, at a given moment, to play one note on the piano and not another, is itself one of the notes on the keyboard. The Moral Law tells us the tune we have to play: our instincts are merely the keys.”2
So we see that there is indeed a law that governs human behaviour, and the only way it makes sense is if we were created by a being that put this law there. It is all well and good to attempt to hide from this reality by asserting such doctrines as cultural relativism, will to power, or simulation theory. But the fact remains that within all of these appeals, there is hidden a certain assumption: that the view is correct, that people should believe it, and that they would be better off doing so. Do you see the problem? While asserting that there is no such thing as an objective law, the protestors are attempting to assert their own supposedly objective view in the belief that it is correct. These words "better" and "should" assume a standard that governs reality, which men should conform themselves to. Thus, we are back at the beginning of the circle. It is impossible to escape this law, no matter how hard one tries. The question is, where did it come from, and how should we react?
It’s Not Up to Us
We now come to the focus of this essay. Having established that there is indeed a law and that it is impossible to escape the effects of its existence, we must now consider the implications of this fact. People often take great pride in their positive behaviour. Even if one is not outwardly boastful, he often, in his quieter moments, pats himself on the back for being a decent fellow. This is understandable, for being a good person is not an easy thing. But is his praise misplaced? In the last section, we established that God instilled this law in man, and the standard we use to judge behaviour is based on its existence. This means that our very notions of good and evil come from our Lord and God. Not man. Not only this, but all of the qualities, the temperament, the upbringing, and the circumstances of his life. All of these things also came from God. Is it not true, then, that it is God we should be thanking? Man is adept at praising himself, yet he struggles to understand that these accomplishments are not truly his own but rather the outcome of numerous circumstances beyond his control.
Here's the crux of the issue, and why our Savior calls us, above all else, to be humble. A simple acknowledgement that he has bestowed on you many gifts and blessings—that were it not for Him, you would not be alive, you would not have these qualities to be proud of, or even a mind to conceive of them. C.S. Lewis again illustrates the situation by describing two people. One who is very nice but is not a Christian, “Dick Firkin,” and a woman who is not very nice but is a Christian:
“And now, let us go a little deeper. The manager is going to put in new machinery: before Christ has finished with Miss Bates, she is going to be very “nice” indeed. But if we left it at that, it would sound as though Christ’s only aim was to pull Miss Bates up to the same level on which Dick had been all along. We have been talking, in fact, as if Dick were all right; as if Christianity was something nasty people needed and nice ones could afford to do without; and as if niceness was all that God demanded. But this would be a fatal mistake. The truth is that in God’s eyes Dick Firkin needs “saving” every bit as much as Miss Bates. In one sense (I will explain what sense in a moment) niceness hardly comes into the question.
You cannot expect God to look at Dick’s placid temper and friendly disposition exactly as we do. They result from natural causes which God Himself creates. Being merely temperamental, they will all disappear if Dick’s digestion alters. The niceness, in fact, is God’s gift to Dick, not Dick’s gift to God. In the same way, God has allowed natural causes, working in a world spoiled by centuries of sin, to produce in Miss Bates the narrow mind and jangled nerves which account for most of her nastiness. He intends, in His own good time, to set that part of her right. But that is not, for God, the critical part of the business. It presents no difficulties. It is not what He is anxious about.
What He is watching and waiting and working for is something that is not easy even for God, because, from the nature of the case, even He cannot produce it by a mere act of power. He is waiting and watching for it both in Miss Bates and in Dick Firkin. It is something they can freely give Him or freely refuse to Him. Will they, or will they not, turn to Him and thus fulfil the only purpose for which they were created? Their free will is trembling inside them like the needle of a compass. But this is a needle that can choose. It can point to its true North; but it need not. Will the needle swing round, and settle, and point to God?”3
You see, God wishes His children to turn to Him completely freely and of their own volition. It is no use forcing someone into a situation they do not desire to be in and calling it “love”. For this would not be love at all. The truest indication that someone truly loves something is given all other options, they still choose it. This is the moment in which God rejoices and a Christian is made. God does not care for outward displays of ‘niceness’. As previously mentioned, these can simply be expressions of our nature which is a result of our circumstances. Rather God wants to see just what you do with this nature:
“It costs God nothing, so far as we know, to create nice things: but to convert rebellious wills cost Him crucifixion. And because they are wills they can—in nice people just as much as in nasty ones—refuse His request. And then, because that niceness in Dick was merely part of nature, it will all go to pieces in the end. Nature herself will all pass away. Natural causes come together in Dick to make a pleasant psychological pattern, just as they come together in a sunset to make a pleasant pattern of colours. Presently (for that is how nature works) they will fall apart again and the pattern in both cases will disappear. Dick has had the chance to turn (or rather, to allow God to turn) that momentary pattern into the beauty of an eternal spirit: and he has not taken it. There is a paradox here. As long as Dick does not turn to God, he thinks his niceness is his own, and just as long as he thinks that, it is not his own. It is when Dick realises that his niceness is not his own but a gift from God, and when he offers it back to God— it is just then that it begins to be really his own. For now Dick is beginning to take a share in his own creation. The only things we can keep are the things we freely give to God. What we try to keep for ourselves is just what we are sure to lose.”4
This is, of course, one of the hardest things for a kind person to do. Our own gifts and good fortune delude us, obfuscating our complete dependence on God. A smart man, a handsome man, a beautiful woman, a rich man, a charming woman. All of these individuals are liable to be deceived by their luck, mistaking God's generosity, His charity, and their own love for their own specialness, thereby lacking the necessary submission to the God-Man. We can, of course, liken these naturally gifted people to the rich and those who are not so lucky to the poor. One reason why our Lord said the poor will inherit the earth:
“Often people who have all these natural kinds of goodness cannot be brought to recognise their need for Christ at all until, one day, the natural goodness lets them down and their self-satisfaction is shattered. In other words, it is hard for those who are “rich” in this sense to enter the Kingdom. It is very different for the nasty people—the little, low, timid, warped, thin-blooded, lonely people, or the passionate, sensual, unbalanced people. If they make any attempt at goodness at all, they learn, in double quick time, that they need help. It is Christ or nothing for them. It is taking up the cross and following—or else despair. They are the lost sheep; He came specially to find them. They are (in one very real and terrible sense) the “poor”: He blessed diem. They are the “awful set” he goes about with—and of course the Pharisees say still, as they said from the first, “If there were anything in Christianity those people would not be Christians.” There is either a warning or an encouragement here for every one of us. If you are a nice person—if virtue comes easily to you beware! Much is expected from those to whom much is given. If you mistake for your own merits what are really God’s gifts to you through nature, and if you are contented with simply being nice, you are still a rebel: and all those gifts will only make your fall more terrible, your corruption more complicated, your bad example more disastrous. The Devil was an archangel once; his natural gifts were as far above yours as yours are above those of a chimpanzee. But if you are a poor creature—poisoned by a wretched upbringing in some house full of vulgar jealousies and senseless quarrels—saddled, by no choice of your own, with some loathsome sexual perversion—nagged day in and day out by an inferiority complex that makes you snap at your best friends—do not despair. He knows all about it. You are one of the poor whom He blessed. He knows what a wretched machine you are trying to drive. Keep on. Do what you can. One day (perhaps in another world, but perhaps far sooner than that) he will fling it on the scrapheap and give you a new one. And then you may astonish us all—not least yourself: for you have learned your driving in a hard school. (Some of the last will be first and some of the first will be last.)”5
C.S Lewis, Mere Christianity, Book 1, Chapter 2: The Law of Human Nature, p5. http://dickyricky.com/books//Mere%20Christianity%20-%20C%20S%20Lewis.pdf
C.S Lewis, Mere Christianity, Book 1, Chapter 2: Some Objections, p9. http://dickyricky.com/books//Mere%20Christianity%20-%20C%20S%20Lewis.pdf
C.S Lewis, Mere Christianity, Book 3, Chapter 2: Nice People or New Men, p211. http://dickyricky.com/books//Mere%20Christianity%20-%20C%20S%20Lewis.pdf
C.S Lewis, Mere Christianity, Book 3, Chapter 2: Nice People or New Men, p212. http://dickyricky.com/books//Mere%20Christianity%20-%20C%20S%20Lewis.pdf
C.S Lewis, Mere Christianity, Book 3, Chapter 2: Nice People or New Men, p214. http://dickyricky.com/books//Mere%20Christianity%20-%20C%20S%20Lewis.pdf