'A recovery of the old sense of sin is essential to Christianity. Christ takes it for granted that men are bad. Until we really feel this assumption of His to be true, though we are part of the world He came to save, we are not part of the audience to whom His words are addressed. We lack the first condition for understanding what He is talking about. And when men attempt to be Christians without this preliminary consciousness of sin, the result is almost bound to be a certain resentment against God as to one always inexplicablt angry. Most of us have at times felt a secret sympathy with the dying farmer who replied to the Vicar's dissertation on repentance by asking "What harm have I ever done Him?" There is the real rub. The worst we have done to God is to leave Him alone - why can't he return the compliment? Why not live and let live? What call has He, of all beings, to be "angry"? It's easy for Him to be good?'
CS Lewis, The Problem of Pain, p.42.
