Man or Rabbit

In his essay “Man or Rabbit”, C. S. Lewis says that the difference between man and animals is that man wants to know things. Because man wants this knowledge, he should try to find out about Christianity and the truth of the world. One quote relating to this that caught my interest is, “If Christianity is untrue, the no honest man will want to believe it, however helpful it might be: if it is true, every honest man will want to believe it, even if it gives him no help at all.” There are many honest men that believe in Christianity so is Lewis trying to say that there are no honest unbelievers?

Lewis continues this thought later in his essay when he wonders if a person can lead a good life with being a Christian. A man who has never heard of Christianity wouldn’t ask this question, and the same is true of a man has heard of it, but decided that it was untrue. If someone asks if they can lead a good life without Christianity, he is simply too lazy to bother with it, and with this lack of care, he is no more than a rabbit.

I really enjoyed this point that Lewis made because almost everyone in the United States has heard of Christianity, but yet there is only a small portion of the people who truly believe in it. There are many people who don’t know what to believe or will believe whatever makes them feel good about themselves. Lewis says that people like this are animals because they don’t have a hunger for knowledge. Other people belong to a church, but they don’t know what they believe about God, and they don’t think that it matters. They are too lazy to search the scriptures and develop a deeper understanding of God. In this essay, Lewis points out the importance of gaining and having a thirst for knowledge of God.