Category: Philosophy

Mere Christianity, Day 4: We Have Cause to be Uneasy

1/4/2015

Chapter four concludes with the idea that the Moral Law is evidence of a Power that created the universe, evidence of an intelligent mind that exists outside of creation. Lewis then begins chapter five with an acknowledgment of the frustration or irritation some may be experiencing at this point:

The three things he goes on to share in response to this annoyance or frustration are...

"We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be." Looking at the present state of humanity, it seems pretty clear that we are on the wrong road, making a mistake. The best way to undo a mistake is to go back to the beginning and rework the problem. If you are taking a trip and find yourself on the wrong road, the most "progressive" solution is not to continue going in the wrong direction but rather to turn back and figure out where you went wrong so that you can get to your intended destination.
"We have not yet got as far as the God of any actual religion, still less the God of that particular religion called Christianity." We have only gone far enough to say that there is Someone or Something who created the Moral Law, and we only really have two clues as to what this Someone is like:
A. The universe he has created indicates he is a "great artist (for the universe is a very beautiful place) but also that He is quite merciless and no friend to man (for the universe is a very dangerous and terrifying place)."
B. The Moral Law he has put into our minds indicates that he is intensely interested in right conduct, but not in an indulgent or sympathetic way because there is nothing soft about the law of morality. "If it is pure impersonal mind, there may be no sense in asking it to make allowances for you or let you off, just as there is no sense in asking the multiplication table to let you off when you do your sums wrong."
"Christianity simply does not make sense until you have faced the sort of facts I have been describing." The Moral Law reveals the weakness of humanity and our tendency toward immorality, toward selfishness and deceit and manipulation and hatefulness and pride, breaking the very laws of morality we feel everyone else should be keeping. Christianity offers answers to the questions that arise from the dilemma of the Moral Law and the Power behind it, but the Moral Law also underscores our need for the answers that are offered by Christianity.

In the end, Lewis acknowledges that the potential reality of Christianity, or even of just a Divine Creator/Intelligence, may be discomforting for many, but he concludes that we could never gain comfort by looking for comfort. Instead, he says, look for Truth and you may also find comfort along with it. "If you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth - only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair."

On what do you base your beliefs about the universe, about the meaning of life, or even about God? The things that make you feel comfortable? Or the truth?
How has our culture been seemingly successful at creating the illusion that Christianity and logical, rational, scientific Truth are at odds with one another?

*This post is part of a 31 day series on C.S. Lewis' book Mere Christianity. If this is your first stop along the way, I am so glad you’re here! I would love to interact with you in the comments, or you can email me by clicking on the "Contact Me" tab at the top right of the page. All of the blog posts in this series will be linked together on the intro page if you are interested in reading more. Click here to be taken to the introduction post, and if you want to follow along with the whole series, enter your email address in the box toward the top right corner to subscribe to the blog. Thanks for reading!

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Mere Christianity, Day 3: What Lies Behind the Law

1/3/2015

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To summarize the first three chapters:

There is a Moral Law that governs humanity and that we all seem to abide by at the most basic level, even if we are not conscious of it.
This Moral Law was not made up by humans but seems to be a transcendent, unchanging rule, existing apart from and not subject to the limitations of the material world.

If you are in agreement with all that Lewis has said up to this point, then he takes you one step further with chapter four (if you aren't in agreement, I'd love for you to comment or contact me and let me know the weaknesses/problems you find in his arguments). So because we have this Rule of Right and Wrong that he discussed in chapter three, a rule that we did not invent and that we know we ought to obey, we must consider what this tells us about the universe.

Lewis says there are two general views* on what the universe is and how it came to be:

1. Materialist View

Matter and space just happen to exist and always have existed and no one knows why
The Laws of Matter, by a sort of fluke or random alignment, just happened to create everything in existence
Everything was due to chance

2. Religious View

There is something like an intelligent mind behind the universe, with a conscious purpose and preferences
This mind made the universe, partly for reasons we do not know and partly to create thinking creatures like itself

He points out that we should not make the mistake of thinking that one of these views existed for a long time until the other gradually took its place. Wherever we find evidence of thinking minds throughout history, both views seem to be in play. He also makes note of the fact that one is not the "scientific view" and the other "unscientific" because science cannot prove either view as the right one. Science is, at its essence, merely the observation of facts. It works by experiments and watches how things behave, but it does not explain why anything has come to be there in the first place or whether there is something behind the things it observes.

Now, back to the Moral Law. Lewis says the only way we know about the Moral Law is because we are human and experience it firsthand. Mere outside observation of humans would not show what we ought to do, only what we actually do. "In the same way, if there were anything above or behind the observed facts in the case of stones or the weather, we, by studying them from outside, could never hope to discover it."

Then he poses the question:

Does the universe simply happen to be what it is for no reason?
<or>
Does the universe have a power behind it that makes it what it is?

If there does exist some power behind the universe, it would have to be something beyond the observable facts that it created and could not be found by mere observation. "If there was a controlling power outside the universe, it could not show itself to us as one of the facts inside the universe - no more than the architect of a house could actually be a wall or staircase or fireplace in that house." But we do have this Moral Law, something outside of ourselves that seems to have been put into each of us, and Lewis says this is evidence of that power behind the creation of the world, evidence of a Mind directing the universe and guiding Man's conscience.

Does one view of the universe require more "faith" than the other?
Is it fair to say that the Materialist view of the universe is the proven scientific view,
and the Religious view stands in opposition to science?

Footnote:
*Lewis notes at the end of the chapter that there is a third view that is kind of in between the Materialist and Religious Views, what he calls the Life-Force philosophy or Creative Evolution. He says,

"People who hold this view say that the small variations by which life on this planet 'evolved' from the lowest forms to Man were not due to chance but to the 'striving' or 'purposiveness' of a Life-Force. When people say this we must ask them whether by Life-Force they mean something with a mind or not. If they do, then 'a mind bringing life into existence and leading it to perfection' is really a God, and their view is thus identical with the Religious. If they do not, then what is the sense in saying that something without a mind 'strives' or has 'purposes'? This seems to me fatal to their view. One reason why many people find Creative Evolution so attractive is that it gives one much of the emotional comfort of believing in God and none of the less pleasant consequences. When you are feeling fit and the sun is shining and you do not want to believe that the whole universe is a mere mechanical dance of atoms, it is nice to be able to think of this great mysterious Force rolling on through the centuries and carrying you on its crest. If, on the other hand, you want to do something rather shabby, the Life-Force, being only a blind force, with no morals and no mind, will never interfere with you like that troublesome God we learned about when we were children."

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Mere Christianity, Day 2: The Reality of the Law

1/2/2015

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C.S. Lewis begins chapter three by noting the differences between the laws of nature and the laws of human nature...
- Laws of Nature: Describe what nature does (not what it ought to do; only explains the observable facts)
- Law of Human Nature: Describes what men actually do (how they behave, the observable facts) as well as what men ought to do (moral expectations)

Take, for example, a tree. A tree functions as a tree because of the laws of nature. We may view it as a good or bad tree based on its usefulness or convenience to us, but we do not actually blame the tree if it does not shade us properly or if it does not produce healthy fruit after a drought. The tree is only obeying the laws of nature and could not have consciously chosen to do anything different.

On the other hand, a man behaves in a certain way, but that is not the whole story because over and above his behavior are the expectations the rest of us have for his behavior; a feeling that he ought to behave a certain way and that he makes the choice whether to obey or disobey the standard. A person's behavior is not good or bad because of its inconvenience or usefulness to others but because of some external framework, some other kind of reality; as Lewis puts it, "a real law, which none of us made, but which we find pressing on us."

Here you might disagree and say that good or bad behavior is only based on whether the majority finds it acceptable or agreeable. You may feel that behaviors are determined to be good or bad based on their convenience or usefulness to others. In other words, you are more inclined to Moral Relativism, the idea that what is right for one may not be right for another, and what is wrong for your neighbor may be acceptable for you because it is all based on the individual and his/her ideas of good and bad. Lewis gives an incredibly simple (but rational) example of why this is not likely:

"A man occupying the corner seat in the train because he got there first, and a man who slipped into it while my back was turned and removed my bag, are both equally inconvenient. But I blame the second man and do not blame the first. I am not angry - except perhaps for a moment before I come to my senses - with a man who trips me up by accident; I am angry with a man who tries to trip me up even if he does not succeed. Yet the first has hurt me and the second has not."

So Lewis concludes there is something in the universe that he refers to as the Rule of Right and Wrong. This rule is a real thing, not merely made up or decided on by man, but rather something that appears to be embedded in the minds of humans that we generally seem to operate by. It is not a "fact" in the ordinary sense though because it is not the same as our actual, observable behavior. It is something above and beyond the facts.

What do you think? Does our society seem to operate under moral absolutes?
Or does moral relativism make more logical sense?
Do we ever have the ability to say something is definitely right or wrong?

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Mere Christianity, Day 1: The Law of Human Nature (and) Some Objections

1/1/2015

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Book One (the first five chapters) of Mere Christianity starts at the literal beginning. Lewis does not operate under the assumption that his audience/readers all believe in the existence of God, so he uses the first section to sort of defend and explain how we can actually develop the rationale for a Divine Creator. The overarching theme of these chapters is "Right and Wrong as a Clue to the Meaning of the Universe," and he starts chapter one with the Law of Human Nature*. So here we go...

Chapter One+
Humans impose standards of behavior on ourselves and on each other. Lewis uses examples like this:

That's my seat; I was there first.
Give me a bite; I gave you a bite of mine.
Come on, you promised.
How would you like it if anyone did the same to you?

Statements like these are things we all have, no doubt, said or heard at least once and probably on a regular basis. And if we make one of those statements and direct it in a negative way toward someone who has violated the standard of the statement, they will usually provide a defense for themselves or attempt to justify their actions to prove that they did not actually violate the standard. They argue their perspective. For example:

Person A: "That's my seat; I was there first."
Person B: "Well, you weren't sitting here, and you didn't have anything in the seat, so how could I have known it was yours. It was fair game."

Lewis says the very act of arguing one's point in a situation like this means that we are trying to differentiate between right and wrong. When we make statements like these, we are appealing to a standard of behavior that we expect our fellow man to know about, and very rarely does the other man say (as Lewis puts it), "To hell with your standard" because we all seem to operate on this idea of fair play / decent behavior. If we had no sort of basic agreement about Right and Wrong, there would be no point in defending oneself when we violate the standard. There would also be no point in accusing someone of violating the standard because how can you tell someone they have done "wrong" unless "right" is a real, objective thing.

So the purpose of chapter one is to point out that Right and Wrong are real concepts that we all believe in, even if we do not consciously do so. We are all operating under the Law of Morality, just as matter is subject to Gravitational Law and just as our bodies are governed by Biological Laws. The only difference is that the Moral Law is one we can choose to obey or disobey (which also distinguishes humans from all other matter because we are the only ones with the capacity for moral thought). In fact, we often fail at obeying the moral law on a daily basis. He says:

"None of us are really keeping the Law of [Morality]. If there are any exceptions among you, I apologize to them. They had much better read some other book, for nothing I am going to say concerns them. And now, turning to the ordinary human beings who are left... I am only trying to call attention to a fact; the fact that this year, or this month, or more likely, this very day, we have failed to practice ourselves the kind of behavior we expect from other people."

So he summarizes chapter one with the following two points:

1. Human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it.
2. They [often] do not in fact behave in that way.

Chapter Two
Having made his two points in chapter one, Lewis uses chapter two to address some objections that people often have about the Moral Law.

Objection One:
Moral Law is just a Herd Instinct that has been developed over time like all our other instincts.

Response to Objection One:
Moral law is not an instinct but rather the thing that judges between two instincts.

Lewis compares this distinction to the difference between piano music and piano keys. Just as the sheet music is needed to tell us which keys to play, the Moral Law is not one of our instincts but rather the thing that tells us which instincts to follow and which ones to suppress.
If the Moral Law was not present, our stronger impulses (such as self-preservation) would always win, yet we often choose the weaker impulse over the stronger one (for example: choosing our herd instinct to help someone in danger rather than following our self-preservation instinct to flee danger).
Also, no instinct we have is ever fully good at all times; all of them need to be encouraged or suppressed at different times, so it is a mistake to view our impulses as good and bad. A mother's love for her child (what we might say is a good instinct) can become overly indulgent and preferential toward the child. A man's fighting instinct (what we might say is a bad instinct) sometimes needs to be encouraged in order to protect others. The Moral Law is what encourages or suppresses those impulses to be used appropriately. Just like none of the keys on the piano is necessarily 'right' or 'wrong'. "Every single note is right at one time and wrong at another."

Objection Two:
Moral Law is just a social convention, put into us by education.

Response to Objection Two:
Just because we learn something from our parents/teachers/ancestors does not make that thing merely a human invention.

We all learned our multiplication tables at school. A person living alone on a deserted island would not have learned those multiplication tables, but that does not make the principle behind them any less real or factual, so it does not follow that the multiplication table is merely something humans made up for themselves.
The laws of morality belong to this same class as mathematics because
A. Though there are some differences in the moral ideas of one time period or country and another, the differences are not as great as one would expect if the moral laws were merely a social construct made to fit each group's likes or dislikes. Even with the differences that do exist, we can see the same moral thread running through each culture and generation.
B. The moment you say one set of moral ideas can be better than another (such as, the current American perspective on slavery versus that of the 1860s Civil War era), you are measuring them both by a standard and describing how closely they come to that standard. So saying that one generation's morals is better than the previous generation's implies that there is an overarching standard of morality, and a standard is something above and separate from the things it measures. (If I measure the length of a string incorrectly, that does not change the standard of measurement on the ruler I was using; it only means I used the ruler incorrectly.)
We should also be careful not to confuse advances in knowledge with advances in morality. There is a distinction between differences of morality and differences of beliefs about facts. Just as 2+2 always equals 4, even if we sometimes get the answer wrong as we are learning to add, so the Moral Law remains constant, even if we humans sometimes get it wrong. Lewis writes:

"One man said to me, 'Three hundred years ago people in England were putting witches to death. Was that what you call the Rule of Human Nature or Right Conduct?' But surely the reason we do not execute witches [today] is that we do not believe there are such things... There is no difference of moral principle here: the difference is simply about matter of fact. It may be a great advance in knowledge not to believe in witches: there is no moral advance in not executing them when you do not think they are there. You would not call a man humane for ceasing to set mousetraps if he did so because he believed there were no mice in the house."

So what do you think? Let's have a conversation...
What objections do you have to the idea of a standard of morality?
Can we say that there is objective Right and Wrong in the world?

*Lewis refers to the Moral Law in different ways, using the term "Law of Nature" most often but also interchanging it with law of morality, law of human nature, law of right and wrong, etc. I will generally refer to it as the Law of Morality in order to avoid confusing it with what our culture generally thinks when we hear the term "laws of nature" (gravity, biology, physics, etc.)

+This first post will be somewhat longer since I am combining chapters one and two in order to follow the 31-day framework for going through the book. The two chapters on Faith will also be combined into one post later on. Otherwise each post will cover only one chapter at a time from the book.

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Mere Christianity, Day 4: We Have Cause to be Uneasy

Mere Christianity, Day 3: What Lies Behind the Law

Mere Christianity, Day 2: The Reality of the Law

Mere Christianity, Day 1: The Law of Human Nature (and) Some Objections

About Shelby
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"Not the End"?

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Mere Christianity, Day 4: We Have Cause to be Uneasy

Mere Christianity, Day 3: What Lies Behind the Law

Mere Christianity, Day 2: The Reality of the Law

Mere Christianity, Day 1: The Law of Human Nature (and) Some Objections

About Shelby and why this is"Not the End"?

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About Shelby
and why this is
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