Welcome to the Hillsdale College Online Courses podcast. I'm Jeremiah Riegan.

And I'm Juan Davaloz. We're on to the next lecture of CS-Lewis on Christianity, conversion, and new life.

Again, we were talking about last week about good and evil and the idea

that there is this moral law that is objective, that it's outside of us, and that we measure

ourselves against. And why that's important becomes very clear in this lecture when we start

talking about conversion in new life, because Lewis believes that

in order for any person to come to Christianity, to come to God, they first need to understand

that they fall short of that moral law. And if that moral law would just be subjective and would be

within us, then we really wouldn't fall short of it, because it's just whatever we believe. But if that law is outside of us and it's a standard law that comes from God,

then you can measure yourself against it and know that you fall short of it. And then that's when

Christianity feels that need. We see that in normal human behavior. You don't realize you need to get into good shape until you start feeling your knees ache or you feel lethargic, have no energy. You don't realize that you need to go see the doctor until you're sick. I mean, Christ makes an allusion to that, which I think Lewis plays with a little bit in mere Christianity that Jesus came to help the sinner, not the righteous,

he came to help the sick, not the healthy, but who among us is actually righteous and who

among us is actually healthy? If you watch the show House MD, he hates giving full body scans

to try to diagnose a patient because there's always something wrong with someone. It might not be

the thing they're searching for. That's the way human beings are. There's always something wrong with someone. It might not be the thing they're

searching for. That's the way human beings are. There's always something wrong with us. We have to realize it.

And I'd like to read a little bit from Lewis on what he says here, and this is from mere Christianity.

He says, Christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. It therefore has nothing, as far as I know,

says Lewis, to say to people who do not know they have done anything to repent of and who do not

feel that they need any forgiveness. It is after you have realized that there is a real moral law

and a power behind the law and that you have broken that law and put yourself wrong with

that power, it is after all this and not a moment sooner that Christianity begins to talk.

...