In God in the Dock (p. 157), Lewis says there are two sides to Jesus: “On the one side clear, definite moral teaching. On the other, claims which, if not true, are those of a megalomaniac, compared with whom Hitler was the most sane and humble of men. There is no half-way house and there is no parallel in other religions.” And he makes a similar argument in Chapter 3 of Mere Christianity.
But in Hinduism there is the doctrine that the Atman, the true inner essence of each one of us, is Brahman, the ultimate reality. Lewis might reply that this is different from what Jesus was saying, because Jesus was saying that he alone among men is the Anointed who has the power to forgive sins, not that all men do. These claims, Lewis argues, are either the ravings of a lunatic or they are true. But a third possibility is that Jesus means that he is the only one so far who truly realizes that God is a loving Father and that we are all his children, so that if only we all realize it, we, too, could say—and mean it—“I am begotten of the One God, before Abraham was, I am,”—and Abraham could have said and meant it, too. Lewis thinks this possibility is ruled out by the creeds (Jesus is the only begotten Son, and we are made by God, not begotten), but how is Jesus’s recognition that he is a child of God so different from our believing Jesus when he says that we are also the children of God? Isn’t this what Paul means by our “putting on Christ”?
On p. 178, in his “Rejoinder to Dr. Pittenger,” Lewis writes: “. . . I think that Jesus Christ is (in fact) the only Son of God—that is, the only original Son of God, through whom others are enabled to ‘become sons of God.’” This is in reply to Dr. Pittenger’s speaking of “the validity of our Lord’s unique place in Christian faith as that One in whom God was so active and so present that he may be called ‘God-Man’” (p. 177). Lewis’s response is that if “may be called” does not equal “is,” then he disagrees.
My question is this: Does Jesus tell us we can become children of God in the same sense and to the same degree that he is, or only in some different sense or to a lesser degree?
On p. 180, Lewis has this to say: “Moderns do not seem startled, as contemporaries were, by the claim Jesus there [in the Synoptic Gospels] makes to forgive sins; not sins against Himself, just sins. Yet surely, if they actually met it, they would feel differently. If Dr. Pittenger told me that two of his colleagues had lost him a professorship by telling lies about his character and I replied, ‘I freely forgive them both’, would he not think this an impertinence (both in the old and in the modern sense) bordering on insanity?” In Chapter 3 of Mere Christianity he makes the same point: “We can all understand how a man forgives offenses against himself. You tread on my toes and I forgive you, you steal my money and I forgive you. But what should we make of a man, himself unrobbed and untrodden on, who announced that he forgave you for treading on other men’s toes and stealing other men’s money? Asinine fatuity is the kindest description we should give of his conduct.” (p. 51)
My answer: For those who saw Jesus as just a boastful liar who was really nothing more than the son of a carpenter from Nazareth, it would fit that he would grandiosely claim to forgive sins not done against him. But those of us who believe Jesus should ask ourselves: Is Jesus telling us, “I am the Son of God and you aren’t and never will be. At best you can be a son or daughter of God in some lesser sense.”? The creeds may suggest this, and Lewis may agree, but I don’t think that is what Jesus is saying in the Gospels. It follows that we, too, can in our better moments forgive others for sins done against others and not ourselves only, without being raving lunatics. If God forgives all sins of everyone, surely it is not lunacy but the height of sanity to try to do the same.
It isn’t clear to me whether or not Lewis believed in universal salvation. I do. What I mean by universal salvation is not that God makes everyone accept His forgiveness and obey the two greatest commandments, because that is logically impossible. No one, not even God, can make someone else accept a gift, because then it wouldn’t be a gift, or love himself or herself or anyone else, because then it wouldn’t be love. When I say I believe in universal salvation I mean I believe that God offers forgiveness and love to everyone, and that everyone, sooner or later, realizes this and accepts it. I also mean that if even one person rejects it and misses out, then no one is saved. The promise is that God will be all in all, not all in some.
The reason to try not to sin and to try to love one’s neighbor as oneself and to do what is fair, decent, and morally right is not fear of everlasting punishment if one doesn’t or hope of heavenly reward if one does. The only good reason is that it is an obligation that one takes on oneself. It comes from inside. This doesn’t mean that it is a mere fancy or a social construct. The obligation we take upon ourselves is as real as anything can be. To say that we are all sinners means that we don’t live up to our ideals. But they are our ideals, not someone else’s. Thus, we don’t need to believe in God in order to account for why we care, not only about being treated fairly, but also about whether we treat others fairly.
The reason to believe in God is to account for the ultimate subjective, personal fact for each one of us that he or she is just this person and nobody else. If there were not these facts—one for each of us—none of us would have any reason to care about what happens, or any ability to do something about it even if we did. And it is not up to any of us to choose which person he or she is, out of all the persons there are (although it is up to each of us to choose what to do given who he or she is). It is just given. It doesn’t make sense to think of this most personal fact as given by an impersonal nature. God, then, who is a person and not a thing or a force or a collection, and who has a power none of us has, is the one who makes it so that each of us is who he or she is, out of all the persons there are.