Mere Christianity

Mere Christianity is the title under which the Christian apologetic works of the British literary scholar and writer CS Lewis first published in German language, whose original title Mere Christianity is and is considered a classic of apologetics. Modern German editions bear the title Pardon, I am a Christian and the subtitle " My arguments for the faith."

Genesis

The book goes back to a series of radio addresses, which held the declared enemy of this medium Lewis in 1943 as moral contribution to the Second World War for the BBC. 1944 Lewis refused the continuation of the series of lectures on the grounds that he had " said it all ". The transcripts of his lectures first appeared in three volumes with the titles The Case for Christianity, Christian Behaviour and Beyond Personality. In 1952 they were merged under a new title.

Intention

Lewis' intention was in highlighting the common ground of the often fractious Christian denominations. This is also the title of the original edition, the literal translation of " sheer Christianity " is. He intended both for people rather low level of education and to the intellectuals of his time, from their point of view the language of the official theology had moved away from the actual content of the faith.

Starting points

He comes from the existence of a " natural law " from a " rule regarding right and wrong ", whose main features is intuitively known to all people and their principles are commonly accepted. This law, he shall, on as a non- man-made, but corpus of reality, however, the extent is different from a natural law than that man should be able to ignore it or to break. According to Lewis, this is the only law that man know of itself and not just reveal Himself to him by observation. As an example of the general awareness of the moral law at all times and in all cultures Lewis argues that the penalties for theft is indeed a distinction, will not stay anywhere and nowhere but do not punish the unauthorized appropriation of another's belongings good. Only the consternation that detected the man when he realize that he is unable on its own to meet the relentless demands of the moral law, it allowed him to Lewisburg at all to understand the Christian faith. Without this insight the people stay Christianity then closed inevitably.

In addition, Lewis is due to the human experience of the numinous on the theory that, since for all other human needs existed the means of their satisfaction that man can not have a longing for God, if it does not also exist.