This is a beautiful passage from one of my favourite books - C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity.
In this passage, C.S. Lewis considers Christianity in the light of the marriage of natural life (Bios) with supernatural life (Zoe), or the life and Spirit of God. It is also an excellent example of how C.S. Lewis illuminates his faith with reason and his reason with faith. It's a challenge I hope to also emulate. Many will also notice that C.S. Lewis makes space for evolution in his conception of man and salvation.
I found this entire passage both exciting and challenging. It's been a while since I've read Lewis, so it was a delight to be reminded of how he still challenges me to examine what I believe with reverence and careful thought. I hope that you will also not take it at face value, but wrestle with it and consider it for yourself.
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Perhaps a modern man can understand the Christian idea [of transformation] best if he takes it in connection with Evolution. Everyone now knows … that man has evolved from lower types of life. Consequently, people often wonder, “What is the next step?” “When is the thing beyond man going to appear?” … [Some suppose a] “Superman” [will appear] with extra legs or arms … [P]opular guesses at the Next Step [envision] men developing great brains and getting greater mastery over nature … [But] I cannot help but think that the Next Step will be really new … I should expect the next stage not to be a stage in Evolution [as science studies it] at all. And I should not be surprised if, when the thing happened, very few people noticed that it was happening.
[T]he Christian view is precisely that the Next Step has already appeared. And it is really new. It is not a change from brainy men into brainier men: it is a change that goes off in a totally different direction—a change from being creatures of God to being sons of God. The first instance appeared in Palestine two thousand years ago. In a sense, the change is not “Evolution” at all, because it is not something arising out of the natural process of events but something coming into nature from outside. But that is what I should expect. We arrived at our idea of “Evolution” from studying the past. If there are real novelties in store then of course our idea, based on the past, will not really cover them …
At the earlier stages living organisms … had … no choice or very little choice about taking the new step … But the next step … of being turned from creatures into sons is voluntary … I have called Christ the “first instance” of the new man. But of course He is something much more than that … He is … the new man [who takes Bios up into Zoe] …
At the beginning I said there were Personalities in God. I will go further now. There are no real personalities anywhere else. Until you have given up your self to Him you will not have a real self … But there must be a real giving up of the self. You must throw it away “blindly” so to speak … Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.
("Mere Christianity", pp. 218-227)
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I found this C.S. Lewis quote on the biologos.org blog, an online presence of theistic evolutionists.
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