This divine humility that Lewis speaks to here is profound.
Under what other faith or worldview does grace extended to the very people that – though their actions – choose other gods every day of their lives?
The concept of grace is a unique thing here.
It pours out from a cup that is always full, no matter how often it is refused.
What a stubborn and insolent people we are.
I call this a Divine humility because it is a poor thing to strike our colours to God when the ship is going down under us; a poor thing to come to Him as a last resort, to offer up ‘our own’ when it is no longer worth keeping. If God were proud He would hardly have us on such terms: but He is not proud, He stoops to conquer, He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to Him, and come to Him because there is ‘nothing better’ now to be had. The same humility is shown by all those Divine appeals to our fears which trouble high-minded readers of Scripture. It is hardly complimentary to God that we should choose Him as an alternative to Hell: yet even this He accepts.
-C.S. Lewis, The Problem Of Pain (Amazon)
