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NICE PEOPLE OR NEW MEN

He meant what He said Those who put themselves in His hands will become perfect, as He is perfect-perfect in love, wisdoe will not be completed in this life, for death is an ione before death in any particular Christian is uncertain

I think this is the right moment to consider a question which is often asked: If Christianity is true why are not all Christians obviously nicer than all non-Christians? What lies behind that question is partly so that is not reasonable at all The reasonable part is this If conversion to Christianity makes no improvement in a man&039;s outward actions - if he continues to be just as snobbish or spiteful or envious or ambitious as he was before - then I think we inary and after one&039;s original conversion, every time one thinks one has s, new insights, greater interest in &039;religion&039;unless they make our actual behaviour better; just as in an illness `feeling better&039; is not ood if the ther up In that sense the outer world is quite right to judge Christianity by its results Christ told us to judge by results A tree is known by its fruit; or, as we say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating When we Christians behave badly, or fail to behave well, we areChristianity unbelievable to the outside world The wartime posters told us that Careless Talk costs Lives It is equally true that Careless Lives cost Talk Our careless lives set the outer world talking; and we give the in a way that throws doubt on the truth of Christianity itself

But there is another way of deical They may demand not merely that each man&039;s life should improve if he becomes a Christian: they may also demand before they believe in Christianity that they should see the whole world neatly divided into two camps - Christian and non-Christian - and that all the people in the first caiven moment should be obviously nicer than all the people in the second This is unreasonable on several grounds

(I) In the first place the situation in the actual world is much more complicated than that The world does not consist of 100 per cent Christians and 100 per cent Non-Christians There are people (a greatto be Christians but who still call they Christians though they do not yet call themselves so There are people who do not accept the full Christian doctrine about Christ but who are so strongly attracted by Him that they are His in a much deeper sense than they theions who are being led by God&039;s secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agree to Christ without knowing it For exaood will may be led to concentrateabout ht still say he believed) the Buddhist teaching on certain other points Many of the good Pagans long before Christ&039;s birth may have been in this position And always, of course, there are a great many people who are just confused in ether Consequently, it is not ements about Christians and non-Christians in the s, or even men and women, in the mass, because there one knows definitely which is which Also, an ani into a cat But e are coeneral, we are usually not thinking about real people e know at all, but only about two vague ideas which we have got from novels and newspapers If you want to coood Atheist, you must think about two real specimens whom you have actually met Unless we co time

(2) Suppose we have coinary Christian and an iinary non-Christian, but about two real people in our own neighbourhood Even then we ht question If Christianity is true then it ought to follow (a) That any Christian will be nicer than the same person would be if he were not a Christian (b) That any man who becomes a Christian will be nicer than he was before Just in the same way, if the advertiseht to follow (a) That anyone who uses it will have better teeth than the same person would have if he did not use it (b) That if anyone begins to use it his teeth will improve But to point out that I, who use Whitesmile&039;s (and also have inherited bad teeth froot as fine a set as soro who never used any toothpaste at all, does not, by itself, prove that the advertisements are untrue: Christian Miss BatesDick Firkin That, by itself, does not tell us whether Christianity works The question is what Miss Bates&039;s tongue would be like if she were not a Christian and what Dick&039;s would be like if he became one Miss Bates and Dick, as a result of natural causes and early upbringing, have certain temperaments: Christianity professes to put both teeht to ask is whether that ement, if allowed to take over, ied in Dick Firkin&039;s case is ed in Miss Bates&039;s That is not the point To judge the ement of a factory, youthe plant at Factory A itthe first-class outfit at Factory B its output, though high, oodto put in new machinery as soon as he can, but that takes time In the meantime low output does not prove that he is a failure

(3) And now, let us go a little deeper Theto put in new machinery: before Christ has finished with Miss Bates, she is going to be very &039;nice&039; indeed But if we left it at that, it would sound as though Christ&039;s only aim was to pull Miss Bates up to the sa We have been talking, in fact, as if Dick were all right; as if Christianity was so nasty people needed and nice ones could afford to do without; and as if niceness was all that God demanded But this would be a fatal mistake The truth is that in God&039;s eyes Dick Firkin needs &039;saving&039; every bit as much as Miss Bates In one sense (I will explain what sense in a moment) niceness hardly comes into the question

You cannot expect God to look at Dick&039;s placid temper and friendly disposition exactly as we do They result fro merely teestion alters The niceness, in fact, is God&039;s gift to Dick, not Dick&039;s gift to God In the sa in a world spoiled by centuries of sin, to produce in Miss Bates the narrow led nerves which account for ood tiht But that is not, for God, the critical part of the business It presents no difficulties It is not what He is anxious about What He is watching and waiting and working for is so that is not easy even for God, because, from the nature of the case, even He cannot produce it by afor it both in Miss Bates and in Dick Firkin It is soive Him or freely refuse to Him Will they, or will they not, turn to Him and thus fulfil the only purpose for which they were created? Their free will is tre inside them like the needle of a compass But this is a needle that can choose It can point to its true North; but it need not Will the needle swing round, and settle, and point to God?

He can help it to do so He cannot force it He cannot, so to speak, put out His own hand and pull it into the right position, for then it would not be free will any more Will it point North? That is the question on which all hangs Will Miss Bates and Dick offer their natures to God? The question whether the natures they offer or withhold are, at that moment, nice or nasty ones, is of secondary importance God can see to that part of the probleards a nasty nature as a bad and deplorable thing And, 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 Dick&039;s sound nerves and good digestion, and there is plenty , so far as we know, to create nice things: but to convert rebellious wills cost His crucifixion And because they are wills they can - in nice people just as much as in nasty ones - refuse His request And then, because that niceness in Dick was o to pieces in the end Nature herself will all pass away Natural causes coical pattern, just as they coether in a sunset to make a pleasant pattern of colours Presently (for that is how nature works) they will fall apart again and the pattern in both cases will disappear Dick has had the chance to turn (or rather, to allow God to turn) that momentary pattern into the beauty of an eternal spirit: and he has not taken it

There is a paradox here As long as Dick does not turn to God, he thinks his niceness is his own, and just as long as he thinks that, it is not his own It is when Dick realises that his niceness is not his own but a gift from God, and when he offers it back to God-it is just then that it begins to be really his own For now Dick is beginning to take a share in his own creation The only things we can keep are the things we freely give to God What we try to keep for ourselves is just e are sure to lose

Wethe Christians some people who are still nasty There is even, when you coht be expected to turn to Christ in greater numbers than nice ones That hat people objected to about Christ during His life on earth: He seemed to attract &039;such awful people&039; That is what people still object to and alill Do you not see why? Christ said &039;Blessed are the poor&039; and &039;How hard it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom,&039; 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 ive and so fail to realise your need for God If everything seeet that you are at every ifts carry with theence and health and popularity and a good upbringing, you are likely to be quite satisfied with your character as it is &039;Why drag God into it?&039; you ood conduct comes fairly easily to you You 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 oodness 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 &039;rich&039; in this sense to enter the Kingdom

It is very different for the nasty people - the little, low, timid, warped, thin-blooded, lonely people, or the passionate, sensual, unbalanced people If they oodness at all, they learn, in double quick ti for the-or else despair They are the lost sheep; He came specially to find them They are (in one very real and terrible sense) the &039;poor&039;: He blessed theoes about with - and of course the Pharisees say still, as they said fro in Christianity those people would not be Christians&039;

There is either a warning or an encouragement here for every one of us If you are a nice person - if virtue comes easily to you-beware! Much is expected froiven If you ifts to you through nature, and if you are contented with siifts will only make your fall more terrible, your corruption more complicated, your bad exael once; his natural gifts were as far above yours as yours are above those of a chimpanzee

But if you are a poor creature- poisoned by a wretched upbringing in soar jealousies and senseless quarrels saddled, by no choice of your oith soed day in and day out by an inferiority complex that makes you snap at your best friends-do not despair He knows all about it You are one of the poor who to drive Keep on Do what you can One day (perhaps in another world, but perhaps far sooner than that) He will fling it on the scrap-heap and give you a new one And then you may astonish us all-not least yourself: for you have learned your driving in a hard school (Some of the last will be first and some of the first will be last)

&039;Niceness&039;- wholeso We must try by every medical, educational, economic, and political means in our power to produce a world where as row up `nice&039;; just as we must try to produce a world where all have plenty to eat But weeveryone nice we should have saved their souls A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a ht even be more difficult to save

For h redemption always improves people even here and now and will, in the end, iine God became man to turn creatures into sons: not simply to produce better men of the old kind but to produce a new kind ofa horse to jued creature Of course, once it has got its wings, it will soar over fences which could never have been juainning to grohen it cannot do so: and at that stage the lu at theive it an aard appearance

But perhaps we have already spent too long on this question If what you want is an arguerly I looked for such arguan to be afraid it was true) you can easily find some stupid and unsatisfactory Christian and say, &039;So there&039;s your boasted new un to see that Christianity is on other grounds probable, you will know in your heart that this is only evading the issue What can you ever really know of other people&039;s souls-of their teles? One soul in the whole creation you do know: and it is the only one whose fate is placed in your hands If there is a God, you are, in a tense, alone with Him You cannot put Hihbours or memories of what you have read in books What will all that chatter and hearsay count (will you even be able to re which we call &039;nature&039; or `the real world&039; fades away and the Presence in which you have always stood becomes palpable, immediate, and unavoidable?