MereChristianity: "The Invasion "

2. The Invasion


     Very well then, atheism is too simple. And I will tell you another view

that is also too  simple.  It is the view I call Christianity-and-water, the

view  which simply says there is a good God in Heaven and everything is  all

right-leaving  out all  the difficult and  terrible  doctrines about sin and

hell and the devil, and the redemption. Both these are boys' philosophies.

    

It  is no good asking for a simple religion. After all, real things are

not simple. They  look simple, but they are not.  The table I  am sitting at

looks simple: but ask a  scientist to tell you what it is really made of-all

about the atoms and how the light waves rebound from them and hit my eye and

what they do to the optic nerve and what it does to my brain-and, of course,

you find that what  we  call "seeing  a table" lands you  in  mysteries  and

complications  which  you can hardly  get to  the end of. A  child saying  a

child's prayer looks simple.  And if you are content to stop there, well and

good. But if you are  not-and the modern world usually is not-if you want to

go on  and ask  what  is really  happening-  then you  must  be prepared for

something difficult. If  we ask  for something  more than simplicity,  it is

silly then to complain that the something more is not simple.

    

Very often, however, this silly procedure is adopted  by people who are

not  silly,  but  who,  consciously  or   unconsciously,   want  to  destroy

Christianity. Such  people  put up a  version of Christianity suitable for a

child  of six and make that  the  object of  their  attack. When you  try to

explain the Christian doctrine as it is really held by an  instructed adult,

they then complain that you are making their heads turn round and that it is

all too  complicated  and that if there really were  a God they are sure  He

would have made "religion" simple, because simplicity  is so beautiful, etc.

You must be  on  your guard  against these people for they will change their

ground every minute and only waste your tune. Notice, too, their idea of God

"making religion simple": as if "religion" were something  God invented, and

not His  statement to us of certain  quite unalterable facts  about His  own

nature.

    

Besides  being complicated, reality, in  my experience, is usually odd.

It is not  neat,  not obvious, not what you expect. For instance,  when  you

have grasped that the earth and the other planets all  go round the sun, you

would naturally expect that all the planets were made  to match-all at equal

distances from each other, say,  or  distances that regularly increased,  or

all the same size, or else getting bigger or smaller as you go  farther from

the sun. In fact, you find no rhyme or reason (that we can see) about either

the sizes or  the distances; and  some of them  have one moon, one has four,

one has two, some have none, and one has a ring.

    

Reality, in fact, is usually something you could not have guessed. That

is one of the reasons I believe Christianity. It is a religion you could not

have  guessed. If it  offered us  just  the kind  of universe we had  always

expected,  I should feel we were making it up. But, in fact, it is  not  the

sort of thing anyone would have  made up. It has just that queer twist about

it  that  real  things  have.  So  let  us  leave  behind  all  these  boys'

philosophies-these over-simple answers. The problem is  not  simple and  the

answer is not going to be simpler either.

    

What  is the  problem? A universe that contains much that  is obviously

bad and apparently meaningless, but containing creatures like  ourselves who

know that it is bad and  meaningless. There are only two views that face all

the facts. One is the Christian view that this is a good world that has gone

wrong, but still retains the memory of what it ought to have been. The other

is  the view  called  Dualism.  Dualism means the belief that there are  two

equal and independent powers at the back of everything, one of them good and

the other bad, and that this universe is the battlefield in which they fight

out an endless war. I personally think that next  to Christianity Dualism is

the manliest and most sensible creed  on the market. But it  has  a catch in

it.

    

 The two powers, or  spirits, or gods-the good  one  and the bad one-are

supposed  to  be quite  independent. They  both  existed from all  eternity.

Neither of  them made the other, neither of them has any more right than the

other to  call itself God. Each  presumably thinks it is good and thinks the

other  bad. One of them  likes hatred and cruelty, the  other likes love and

mercy, and  each backs its own view. Now what do we mean when we call one of

them the Good Power and the other the Bad Power? Either we are merely saying

that  we  happen to  prefer  the  one  to  the other-like preferring beer to

cider-or else we are saying that,  whatever the two  powers  think about it,

and  whichever we humans,  at the moment,,  happen to like,  one of them  is

actually wrong, actually  mistaken, in  regarding itself as good. Now it  we

mean merely that we happen to prefer the first, then we must give up talking

about good and evil at  all.  For good means what you  ought to prefer quite

regardless of what you happen to like  at any given moment.  If "being good"

meant  simply  joining the  side you happened to  fancy, for no real reason,

then good would not deserve to be called good. So we  must  mean that one of

the two powers is actually wrong and the other actually right

    

 But the moment you say that, you are putting  into the universe a third

thing  in addition to the two Powers: some  law or standard or rule of  good

which one of the powers conforms  to and the  other fails to conform to. But

since the two powers are judged by this standard, then this standard, or the

Being who made this  standard, is  farther back and higher up than either of

them, and He will be the real God.  In  fact, what we meant  by calling them

good and bad turns out to be that one of them is  in a right relation to the

real ultimate God and the other in a wrong relation to Him.

    

 The same point can be made in a different way. If Dualism is true, then

the bad Power must  be a being who likes  badness for  its  own sake. But in

reality we have no experience  of anyone liking  badness just because  it is

bad. The nearest we can get to it is in cruelty. But in real life people are

cruel for one  of two reasons- either  because  they  are  sadists, that is,

because they have a sexual perversion which makes cruelty a cause of sensual

pleasure  to  them, or else for the sake of something  they are going to get

out of it-money, or power, or safety. But pleasure, money, power, and safety

are  all, as  far as they go, good things. The  badness consists in pursuing

them by  the wrong method, or  in the wrong way, or too much. I do not mean,

of course, that the people who do this are not desperately wicked. I do mean

that wickedness, when you examine  it, turns  out to  be the pursuit of some

good  in  the wrong way. You can be good for the mere sake of goodness:  you

cannot be bad for the mere sake of badness. You can do  a  kind  action when

you are not feeling  kind and when it gives you no pleasure, simply  because

kindness is right; but no one ever did a cruel action simply because cruelty

is  wrong-only because cruelty was pleasant or useful to him. In other words

badness cannot succeed even in being bad  in the same  way in which goodness

is good. Goodness is, so to speak, itself: badness is only spoiled goodness.

 

And  there must be something good first before it can be  spoiled.

 

We called

sadism  a  sexual perversion;  but you must first have the idea of a  normal

sexuality  before you can talk of its being perverted; and you can see which

is the perversion, because  you  can explain  the perverted from the normal,

and cannot explain the normal  from the perverted. It follows that this  Bad

Power, who is supposed to be on an equal footing with the Good Power, and to

love badness  in the same  way as  the Good Power loves goodness, is a  mere

bogy. In order to be bad he must have good things to want and then to pursue

in the wrong way: he  must have impulses which were originally good in order

to be able to pervert them. But if he is bad he cannot supply himself either

with good  things to  desire or with good  impulses to pervert.  He  must be

getting both from the Good  Power. And if so, then he is not independent. He

is part  of the Good Power's world: he was made either  by the Good Power or

by some power above them both.

    

 Put  it  more  simply  still.  To  be  bad,  he  must  exist  and  have

intelligence  and   will.  But  existence,  intelligence  and  will  are  in

themselves good. Therefore he must be getting them from the Good Power: even

to be bad he must borrow or steal from his opponent. And do you now begin to

see why Christianity has always said that the devil is a fallen angel?  That

is not a mere story  for the children. It is a real recognition of  the fact

that evil is a parasite, not an original thing. The powers which enable evil

to carry on are powers given it by goodness. All  the things which  enable a

bad man to  be  effectively  bad  are in themselves  good things-resolution,

cleverness, good  looks, existence  itself. That is why Dualism, in a strict

sense, will not work.

    

But  I  freely  admit  that   real  Christianity  (as   distinct   from

Christianity-and-water)  goes much nearer  to Dualism than people think. One

of the  things  that  surprised  me when  I  first  read  the  New Testament

seriously was that it talked so  much about  a Dark  Power in the universe-a

mighty evil spirit who was held to be the  Power behind  death  and disease,

and  sin.  The difference  is that Christianity thinks  this Dark Power  was

created  by  God, and  was  good  when  he  was  created,  and  went  wrong.

Christianity agrees with Dualism that this universe is at  war. But  it does

not think this is a war between  independent powers. It thinks it is a civil

war,  a rebellion, and that we are living in a part of the universe occupied

by the rebel.

    

Enemy-occupied  territory-that is what this world  is.  Christianity is

the  story  of  how the rightful king has  landed,  you might say  landed in

disguise,  and  is  calling  us  all to  take part in a  great  campaign  of

sabotage. When you  go to church you  are  really listening-in to the secret

wireless from our friends: that is why the enemy is so anxious to prevent us

from  going. He  does  it  by  playing  on  our  conceit  and  laziness  and

intellectual snobbery. 

 

I know someone will ask me, "Do you really  mean, at

this  time  of day,  to reintroduce our old friend the devil-hoofs and horns

and all?" Well, what the time of  day has to do with it I do not know. And I

am not particular about the hoofs and horns. But in other respects my answer

is  "Yes,  I  do." 

 

I do  not  claim  to know  anything  about  his personal

appearance. If anybody really wants  to know  him better I would say to that

person, "Don't worry. If you really want to, you will Whether you'll like it

when you do is another question."