前些天看C. S. Lewis的Mere Christianity看到这段,如醍醐般:
The niceness, in fact, is God*s gift to you, not your gift to God.
Of course, He regards a nice nature as a good thing - good like bread, or sunshine,
or water. But these are the good things which He gives and we receive. He created
your sound nerves and good digestion, and there is plenty more where they came
from. It costs God nothing, so far as we know, to create nice things: but to convert
rebellious wills cost His crucifixion.
Christ said *Blessed are the poor* and *How hard it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom,*
and no doubt He primarily meant the economically rich and economically poor. But do
not His words also apply to another kind of riches and poverty? One of the dangers of
having a lot of money is that you may be quite satisfied with the kinds of happiness
money can give and so fail to realise your need for God. If everything seems to come
simply by signing cheques, you may forget that you are at every moment totally
dependent on God. Now quite plainly, nature gifts carry with them a similar danger.
If you have sound verves and intelligence and health and popularity and a good
upbringing, you are likely to be quite satisfied with your character as it is. *Why drag
God into it?* you may ask. A certain level of good conduct comes fairly easily to you.
Your are not one of those wretched creatures who are always being tripped up by
sex, or dipsomania, or nervousness, or bad temper. Everyone says you are a nice
chap and (between ourselves) you agree with them. You are quite likely to believe
that all this niceness is your own doing: and you may easily not feel the need for
any better kind of goodness. Often people who have all these natural kinds of
goodness cannot be brought to recognise their need for Christ at all until, one day,
the natural goodness lets them down and their self-satisfaction is shattered. In other
words, it is hard for those who are *rich* in this sense to enter the Kingdom.
The niceness, in fact, is God*s gift to you, not your gift to God.
Of course, He regards a nice nature as a good thing - good like bread, or sunshine,
or water. But these are the good things which He gives and we receive. He created
your sound nerves and good digestion, and there is plenty more where they came
from. It costs God nothing, so far as we know, to create nice things: but to convert
rebellious wills cost His crucifixion.
Christ said *Blessed are the poor* and *How hard it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom,*
and no doubt He primarily meant the economically rich and economically poor. But do
not His words also apply to another kind of riches and poverty? One of the dangers of
having a lot of money is that you may be quite satisfied with the kinds of happiness
money can give and so fail to realise your need for God. If everything seems to come
simply by signing cheques, you may forget that you are at every moment totally
dependent on God. Now quite plainly, nature gifts carry with them a similar danger.
If you have sound verves and intelligence and health and popularity and a good
upbringing, you are likely to be quite satisfied with your character as it is. *Why drag
God into it?* you may ask. A certain level of good conduct comes fairly easily to you.
Your are not one of those wretched creatures who are always being tripped up by
sex, or dipsomania, or nervousness, or bad temper. Everyone says you are a nice
chap and (between ourselves) you agree with them. You are quite likely to believe
that all this niceness is your own doing: and you may easily not feel the need for
any better kind of goodness. Often people who have all these natural kinds of
goodness cannot be brought to recognise their need for Christ at all until, one day,
the natural goodness lets them down and their self-satisfaction is shattered. In other
words, it is hard for those who are *rich* in this sense to enter the Kingdom.