Man or Rabbit?

In this selection C.S. Lewis addresses one question.  This question is "Can't you lead a good life without believing in Christianity?"  He says that this question is the wrong one to ask because what this person is really saying is:
"I don't care whether Christianity is true of no.  I am not interested in finding out whether the real universe is more like what the Christians say than what the Materialists say."
The questioner is not seeking the truth, but rather only concerned with living a good life.  This person chooses beliefs not because they are true but because they are helpful.  Lewis says that this mentality probably comes from foolish preachers who preach Christianity as a band-aid for the world's problems and not as the truth.

I can see the mentality that Lewis is addressing in the church today.  There is so much emphasis on the positive things that Christianity can do for people that many may come to think these positive things are the sole purpose of Christianity.  I feel that this mentality has been further perpetuated by the "health and wealth gospel" that is preached in many churches.  The faith is portrayed as some kind of exchange where a person has faith and in return God fixes all their problems.  This is a complete misunderstanding of the Bible, all one has to do is read the stories of the early church to see that they had either health nor wealth.  What they did have was the truth, regardless of how helpful it is in this earthly life.

Lewis then goes on to talk about men who evade the gospel.  They do not what to find out whether Christianity is true or not because they foresee that if it is it has some implications that are not desirable to them.  Lewis says that this is like a man who will not look at his bank account because he is afraid of what will be there.  He compels people to seek the truth when he says this:
"Here is a door, behind which, according to some people, the secret of the universe is waiting for you.  Either that's true, or it isn't.  And if it isn't, then what the door really conceals is simply the greatest fraud, the most colossal 'sell' on record.  Isn't it obviously the job of every man (this is a man and not a rabbit) to find out which, and to devote his full energies either to serving this tremendous secret or to exposing and destroying this gigantic humbug?"

Lewis is compelling people to seek for themselves whether this thing we call Christianity is true.  It does not matter if it has implications that some people might not like.  If it is indeed true and they ignored it because of these implications they will find themselves much worse off.  All of this goes back to many other Lewis writings.  He is passionate about people seeking knowledge and truth.  This passion is very clear in "Our English Syllabus" and "Learning in Wartime."  He concludes by saying that Christianity would do these questioners good because it will hammer into their head that 'morality' or 'good' cannot be done without God.  He says, "Morality is a mountain which we cannot climb by our own efforts."