Don’t we all have a favorite C.S. Lewis story, essay, or book?  My favorite comes from the book, “God in the Dock.”  The essay is titled “Man or Rabbit?”

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The purpose of the essay is for C.S. Lewis to answer the question, “Can I live a good life without Christianity?”  I believe Lewis nails it.  Here are the main points and I will leave it for you to read or listen to the whole of the essay.  Again it can be found in the book, “God in the Dock.”

1.  Simply asking the question of whether or not you can lead a good life without Christianity is a wrong question.  If Christianity is true then it must be lived out.  Modern man is utilitarian, but what has always separated humans from animals is that humans want to know what reality is, simply for knowledge’s sake, whether it is helpful or not.  The question of can you live a good life without Christianity is a bad question.  Rather the question should be, is Christianity true.
2. If someone believes Christianity to be true or false then there are similar and diverging ideas on what is good and bad.
3. If you are a Christian you believe that “true and lasting happiness is being united with God.”  If you believe union with God is impossible then true happiness can only be found in the materials, organizations, and social services offered by society, and these are judged good or bad if they attain the goal of making someone happy. (or the largest amount of people happy)
4. There is common ground between what a Christian and non-Christian would find good, but the act of good would look completely different.  Lewis gives an example of education.  Christian and non-Christian think education is good–but what type of education, and to what end should education lead?
5. The person who is asking the question of “Can I live a good life without Christianity?” is one who is trying to ignore Christianity.  They do not want to be bothered by it.  There are people who have rejected Christianity after examing it and they would never ask such a question.  Christians already agree with the statement.  Lewis says, “Honest rejection of Christ, however mistaken, will be forgiven and healed “Whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him.” But to evade the Son of Man, to look the other way, to pretend you haven’t noticed, to become suddenly absorbed in something on the other side of the street, to leave the receiver off the telephone because it might be He who was ringing up, to leave unopened certain letters in a strange handwriting because they might be from Him-this is a different matter. You may not be certain yet whether you ought to be a Christian; but you do know you ought to be a Man, not an ostrich, hiding its head in the sand.”
6. Humans weren’t made to be moralistically good.  We were made to be Children of God.  We weren’t meant to climb a mountain of morality.  We were made to fly!