To the Truth-Seeker…

I think he can save himself time by confining his attention to two systems–Hinduism and Christianity. I believe these are the two serious options for an adult mind. Materialism is a philosophy for boys. The purely moral systems like Stoicism and Confucianism are philosophies for aristocrats.  Islam is only a Christian heresy, and Buddhism a Hindu heresy: both are simplifications inferior to the things simplified. As for the old Pagan religions, I think we could say that whatever was of value in them survives either in Hinduism or in Christianity or in both, and there only: they are the two systems which have come down, still alive, into the present without leaving the past behind them.

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C. S. Lewis, “De Futilitate,” in Christian Reflections (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1995), 71.