C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952; from the BBC talks of 1941–44)
C. S. Lewis
Plain, warm, and speaking to you across the kitchen table.
Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.
The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.
STAMINA — Solid. It began as thirty-three radio talks and it holds together as a single book.
CONTEND — High. It starts from a fact every listener knows, the sense of right and wrong, and leads from there.
DEFEND — Solid. It avoids the ground where the denominations differ, which leaves little to attack.
POPULARITY — Very high. It is probably the most widely read book of Christian apologetics of the century.
Mere Christianity began as thirty-three wartime radio talks. Lewis began from the fact that people everywhere feel that some things are right and some wrong, and asked what that implies about the universe. His word “mere” meant pure, as in old English: the faith the denominations share. It is a Natural Theology book and a Christology book, and the game lets it be both.
A book develops as it is read — the fragment becomes the work, the work becomes the corpus.
By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.
| Lv | Move | Type | Cat. | Pwr | Acc | PP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Random Verse | Bible | Argument | 10 | 100% | 30 |
| 1 | Right and Wrong as a Clue | Natural Theology | Argument | 84 | 100% | 15 |
| 14 | Affirm | — | Status | — | — | 1 |
| 30 | Chapter… | Bible | Scripture | — | — | 12 |
| 42 | Where Did I Get Just and Unjust? | Natural Theology | Argument | 94 | 100% | 10 |
| 54 | Liar, Lunatic or Lord | Christology | Argument | 92 | 100% | 10 |
How to read these. In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other. Each thing a book can do in a debate is a move, and most moves carry a real quotation — the words the book puts on the table when it uses that move.
Strong against lists the opposing books and arguments a move was written to answer. Used against one of them, it hits much harder than usual: ×2 means twice the normal force, ×4 four times. It is the game’s way of saying: this is the sentence that answers that argument. Open an entry to read why.
“For in him we live, and move, and have our being. As some of your own poets have said.”
Acts 17:28 (WEB) — Paul at the Areopagus, quoting the Athenians’ own poets back to them.
In the gamePick the part of the opponent’s case that is true and affirm it. That point can no longer be used against you, and the opponent’s Defend falls sharply. It deals no damage. Affirm something false and you have only agreed with an error.
“But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? . . . Atheism turns out to be too simple”
C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Book 2, Part 1, as quoted by Tim Keller, The Gospel Coalition, “The Faith to Doubt Christianity” (2012). Short excerpt from an in-copyright work, used under fair use.in copyright · fair use
In the gameLewis was an atheist because the universe seemed cruel and unjust. Then he stopped and asked where his idea of just and unjust had come from. To call the world unfair he needed a standard outside the world, and an atheist has no such standard to offer.
Sartre says there is no good a priori, and he honestly bears the cost. Lewis asked how he had got his idea of unjust in the first place, and found that atheism was too simple to account for it. A universe with no good in it could not have given anyone the idea.
Lewis was an atheist because the universe seemed cruel. Then he asked where he got his idea of cruel. Camus’s anger at a silent universe is real, and it needs a standard the silence cannot supply. Lewis found the standard was the thing pointing past the silence.
“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice.”
C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 56, as quoted by Kevin DeYoung, The Gospel Coalition, “The Power of the Poached Egg” (2011). Short excerpt from an in-copyright work, used under fair use.in copyright · fair use
In the gameThe most quoted paragraph in twentieth-century apologetics. Lewis says nobody may call Jesus a great moral teacher and stop there, because a man who said what Jesus said would be either mad or worse. Kevin DeYoung adds an honest note: Lewis was writing for readers who did not doubt the Gospel accounts, and today the argument may need to start one step earlier.
