Tag: Beyond Personality: Or First Steps In the Doctrine of the Trinity

January 9, 2026 – Mere Christianity, Book Four: Chapters 7-11

January 9, 2026 /

Read along: http://www.ntslibrary.com/PDF%20Books/Mere%20Christianity%20-%20Lewis.pdf

This section concludes “Mere Christianity” by C.S. Lewis. Next week I will do a complete review of the book per my usual methodologies. I also want to introduce that the next book is going to be “Then Talent Code” by Daniel Coyle if you want to get a jump start on reading that book. I am doing my best to keep up considering all of my free time is directed toward packing and moving.

In case you weren’t reading along, below is a one bullet summary of each chapter.

  • The Lords Prayer is to be spoken by the son of god.
  • Following Christian rules is not good enough because we will never be able to execute perfectly. Only once we accept that will Christianity work and we will be on our way to perfection.
  • People would prefer to be good enough rather than perfect. Perfect is only achieved through strict adherence to Christianity, see above.
  • If Christians are supposed to be nice than why aren’t all equally perceived as that? Think of where they would be without Christianity. All traits are gifts regardless of believer status or not.
  • Evolution can only take us so far and it is God’s plan to evolve us into better humans

The thing that I found interesting in this week’s reading was Lewis’ argument using evolution. In fact, I find Christianity’s general stance on evolution just plain wrong. It seems like it has been positioned so that you can only be on one side or the other. While I absolutely do not believe that humanity came from an amoeba or something, I see no reason why all life has not adapted to the environment. We even apply the same principles to livestock, pets and food with selective breeding. We even see the results in our lifetime.

The fact that Lewis acknowledges evolution at all seems novel. Not only that, by his writing he has accepted evolution as scientifically viable and uses it in a debate about Christianity is certainly unique. The idea that if we pick a point in time and think about evolution was an astute point. His point was that if we were guessing what evolution would lead to in dinosaur times is bigger, stronger and better dinosaurs. Nobody saw that the brain would be the better weapon then claws and spikes.

Lewis is a proponent of humanity evolving more toward godliness. I think my view is a little myopic but it seems like it is a hard stretch to say the Hitler is an evolution of Ceaser. I am more than sure that Ceaser was racist as he was brutal, making him and Hitler pretty much on par, just with different body counts and abilities to execute their vision at scale. The difference I see is that Ceaser was a product of his culture which was universally racist and brutal where as Hitler rose to that position.

I think that if we buy the evolution argument, it didn’t start at the birth of Christ. It should have started with creation. As a matter of fact, we started with near perfect beings that were of God. All the Moses, Solomon, David or pick your old testament hero had some character faults as we all do. But my point is that we should be much closer to the evolvement into Godly beings and I just don’t see it.

Another point that I mostly agree with was Lewis’ evolution of species argument. I think where this works is the time frame of the human life. He states that no matter low long we wait, a field of grass will not evolve into a field of wheat. The only way to get wheat is to plow up the field to start over. The point being is that we need to make drastic changes when we want drastic results.

My problem with that argument is the actual comparison. I think a more effective argument would have been you can’t get wheat from an apple orchard. Because both grass and wheat are grasses and I suspect that they diverged from one another at some long, distant point. But, the message is still clear and said by Einstein in a little more effective way. “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.”

End Your Programming Routine: Many of those other points I didn’t talk about today are standard Christian doctrine. Maybe if you are Atheist or Agnostic then discussing those items might do more than the impact on me. However, subverting a dyed in the wool non-Christian argument to support your argument is brilliant. Finding common ground is a surefire way to persuade someone to your argument.

January 2, 2026 – Mere Christianity, Book Four: Chapters 1-6

January 2, 2026 /

Read along: http://www.ntslibrary.com/PDF%20Books/Mere%20Christianity%20-%20Lewis.pdf

I think I am on the wagon again. Maybe it is just that the holidays have actually provided a little bit of downtime and so I have been able to find a little time to read. That being said, I only have twelve more chapters to go. I am going to do my darndest to see this book through, in successive weeks. This week makes six out of twelve, so only one more week to go.

So far, I admire Lewis’ attempt to do something that has seemingly been impossible over 2000 years of history. That would be make a logical argument for the existence of God. Although I am already a believer, I cannot say that this book would have done it for me, yet. This section might tip the scales one way or the other. What I can say is that theology from an Anglican point of view probably won’t get it done.

Before I get ahead of myself, I want to throw a super quick summary of this week. Once again, this is a chapter per bullet Point.

  • Introduction to Lewis’ take on theology
  • The terms Bios – earthly life and Zoe – spiritual life
  • Lewis chooses the idea of predestination over free will
  • An introduction to the trinity – father, son and holy ghost
  • Jesus is of God, man is from god.
  • Salvation takes work. This is on purpose given that god could have created a perfect species, like Jesus.

I grew up going to church in a moderate, protestant denomination. In contrast, the Anglican church is a highly nuanced slice off of Catholism. This means that there are some relatively significant differences in Theology between the Christian belief poles of Catholics and Protestants. I would say now I lean toward more evangelical Protestantism which is probably even more different. One of those beliefs is in the trinity: Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Conservative sects treat each one of the trinity as individual units whereas the contemporary Protestants consider them one and the same.

I would say that is not worth going to battle over. But it is illustrative of something that is so fundamental in one interpretive of Christianity. For that reason, it is going to be difficult for a non-Anglican to take theology from an Anglican.

My family on my mom’s side is French. My grandfather was the son of two French immigrants. That makes me one quarter if you are doing the math. But the point being is that he was a dyed in the wool Catholic, church every Sunday no matter where you at. He even refused communion for almost forty years because of his divorce. I took a church official in Europe to re-instate him.

My mom has explained that the family felt that attending church was punitive growing up. It didn’t mean that she didn’t believe, it meant that she wanted to go about it in a different way. For that reason, she got caught up in the early 1970s crusader movement of the likes of Billy Graham. That is when she moved from Catholism to Protestantism. It never struck my Grandfather well as leaving the one and true religion. In fact, when I introduced my girlfriend as of Mexican descendance, he was over joyed that we might come back into the fold. He kept giving me Catholic publications to read and get educated. Sadly for him, her family also switched to Protestantism in the same time frame.

This is no slight at Catholism. I have a ton of respect for what the church continues to do for society, I just don’t quite go along with all of their beliefs. I would also be remissed to say that this is an organization that is made of people and has done a ton of bad things as well. That doesn’t take away from the potential to do good by acknowledging bad and working to be better. That is true Christianity.

All those words above are to say the it is difficult to take theology from only one perspective, especially one that I am already not totally jiggy with. Again, I should reiterate that Anglican is not Catholic, but it is so darn close. But heck, I should be giving Lewis props for attempting something so high brow.

There is more to this week than disagreeing over theology. I found some of his arguments very intriguing. Specifically over the word beget. God beget Jesus, meaning Jesus was of God. Whereas man is from god. This is why we are imperfect. If we were of God, then sin would not be an issue. The challenge to live a godly life is the test for immortality and it is not easy.

End Your Programming Routine: Some day, we will all know the answer to all of this. Rather than throwing the baby out with the bath water, I think it is best if I just read on and form my complete opinion after I have gotten the whole context. That is the fair thing to do. I had never considered that God could have just made a world of him and then none of this would be a discussion. I wonder why? I think we will find Lewis’ answer this week.