We finally come to the last chapter of Book I of “Mere Christianity”! The chapter bears the ominous title “We have cause to be uneasy”. Thus far, C.S. Lewis has demonstrated that there is a Moral Law which we did not create and that we violate this Law continually. Now Jack explains why this should give us cause for concern…
Our penultimate chapter of Book I of “Mere Christianity” is Chapter 4 and is entitled “What lies behind the Law”. In this episode, Jack digs into the consequences of the Moral Law and, in particular, what we can know about the universe in which we live.
Unfortunately, there were some small issues in this episode with my microphone, a bit of a crackle, but hopefully I’ll have it sorted out by the next time Matt and I record agin.
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Moving on to Chapter 3 of “Mere Christianity”, Jack speaks further to “The reality of the Law”. Do we imagine a Moral Law because it is convenient to us? Or does it arise due to its good for society? In today’s episode, together with some help from C.S. Lewis, we tackle these and other questions…
If you enjoy this episode, you can subscribe using iTunes or Google Play. As always, if you have any objections, comments or questions, please send us an email through my website or tweet us @pintswithjack.
In today’s episode, we look at Chapter 2 of “Mere Christianity” which is entitled “Some Objections”. In this chapter, C.S. Lewis responds to some issues raised by listeners in response to his assertion that there is this Moral Law.
If you enjoy this episode, you can subscribe using iTunes or Google Play. As always, if you have any objections, comments or questions, please send us an email through my website or tweet us @pintswithjack.
These are my notes from reading through “Mere Christianity” with a local San Diego book club.
Notes & Quotes
1. The Moral Law points to something beyond the material universe
“…in the Moral Law somebody or something from beyond the material universe…[is] getting at us”
2. Some readers might complain that Lewis tricked them
“…that I had been carefully wrapping up to looking like philosophy what turns out to be one more ‘religious jaw’…but if it turns out to be only religion…the world has tried that and you cannot put the clock back”
(a) Sometimes you have to go back to go forward
“…progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer…it is pretty plain that humanity has been making some big mistake”
(b) We have not yet reached “religion”
“We have not yet got as far as the God of any actual religion… We have only got as far as a Somebody or Something behind the Moral Law…“
(i) We are trying to discover more about this Something behind the Moral Law from the universe. From this, we see the Being is…
(A) An Artist
“…we should have to conclude that He was a great artist (for the universe is a very beautiful place)…”
(B) Dangerous
“…but also that He is quite merciless and no friend to man (for the universe is a very dangerous and terrifying place)”
(ii) We are also trying to discover more about this Being from the Moral Law itself.
(A) The Being cares about Right and Wrong
“…the Being behind the universe is intensely interested in right conduct…”
(B) We cannot yet call this being forgiving
“The Moral Law does not give us any grounds for thinking that God is ‘good’ in the sense of being indulgent, or soft, or sympathetic. There is nothing indulgent about the Moral Law. It is as hard as nails… if there does exist an absolute goodness it must hate most of what we do”
(C) He’s not a tame lion
“God is the only comfort, He is also the supreme terror: the thing we most need and thing we most want to hide from”
(c) Christianity doesn’t make sense until you understand the questions it attempts to answer
“Christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. It there has nothing…to say to people who do not know they have done anything to repent of and who do not feel that they need any forgiveness…. When you know you are sick, you will listen to the doctor”
Discussion Questions
1. Given what you’ve learned in Book I, what can you say to friends and family to make the case for Christianity? What illusions can keep us from recognizing the truth of this book?
2. Why does a God behind the Moral Law both attract and terrify us?
3. How does the Moral Law make sense within the context Christianity specifically?
Here are my notes for Chapter 2 (Book 1) of Mere Christianity. In this chapter, Jack outlines objections which might be raised in response to his assertion that there is a Moral Law of which we all fall short…
Objection #1: “Isn’t what you call the Moral Law simply our herd instinct?
There is a difference between instinct and the Moral Law.
“…feeling a desire to help is quite different from feeling that you ought to help whether you want to or not”
The Moral Law judges between instincts.
“…[there is] a third thing which tells you that you ought to follow the impulse to help, and suppress the impulse to run away. Now this thing that judges between two instincts…cannot itself be either of them…it usually seems to be telling us to side with the weaker of the two impulses…[and] often tells us to try to make the right impulse stronger”
No instinct dominates, every instinct has its place.
“The Moral Law tells us the tune we have to play: our instincts are merely the keys…[a piano] has not got two kinds of notes on it, the ‘right’ notes and the ‘wrong’ ones… There is none of our impulses which the Moral Law may not sometimes tell us to suppress, and none which it may not sometimes tell us to encourage”
Objection #2: “Isn’t what you call the Moral Law just a social convention, something that is put into us by education?”
Learning something doesn’t automatically make it a convention.
“…[this takes] for granted that if we have learned a thing from parents and teachers, then that thing must be merely a human invention. We all learned the multiplication table at school…but surely it does not follow that the multiplication table is simply a human convention…[which] might have made different if they had liked?”
Some things we learn are only convention, but others are not.
“…some of the things we learn are mere conventions…to keep to the left of the road…and others of them, like mathematics, are real truths. The question is to which class the Law of Human Nature belongs”
The Law of Human Nature is real truths:
1. It is universal
“…the differences are…not nearly so great as most people imagine…mere conventions…may differ to any extent”
2. We compare moralities, thinking one better than another
“We do believe that some moralities are better than others… The moment you say that one set of moral ideas can be better than another, you are, in fact, measuring them both by a standard, saying that one of them conforms to that standard more nearly than the other…real Right, independent of what people think”
Objection #3: “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?”
There is a difference between belief about facts and morality.
“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”
In India they don’t eat cows. In America we do. The morality is the same (don’t eat your ancestors), but the understanding is different (cows are not your ancestors)
Discussion Questions
1. How does Jack make a distinction between the Law of Human Nature and heard instinct?
2. How does Jack distinguish between social convention and real truth, like Mathematics? Why might we think that the Law of Human Nature fall into the latter category?
Here are my notes for the first chapter of Mere Christianity. In this chapter, Jack argues two main points:
1. There is a Law of Human Nature
“…the man who makes [these objections] is not merely saying that the other man’s behaviour does not happen to please him. He is appealing to some kind of standard of behaviour which he expects the other man to know about”
“Quarrelling means trying to show that the other man is in the wrong. And there would be no sense in trying to do that unless you and he had some sort of agreement as to what Right and Wrong are; just as there would be no sense in saying that a footballer had committed a foul unless there was some agreement about the rules of football”
(a) The Law of Human Nature is the only one which we can choose to disobey
“a body could not choose whether it obeyed the law of gravitation or not, but a man could choose either to obey the Law of Human Nature or to disobey it… As a body [a man] is subjected to gravitation…if you leave him unsupported in mid-air, he has no more choice about falling than a stone has…but the law which is peculiar to human nature…is the one he can disobey if he chooses”
(b) You may still find a few people who don’t really know the Law of Human Nature
“…you might not find an odd individual here and there who did not know it, just as you find a few people who are colour-blind or have no ear for a tune”
(c) Differences in morality are not that great
“…some people say…different civilisations and different ages have had quite different moralities. But this is not true. There have been differences between their moralities, but these have never amounted to anything like a total difference”
“…think what a totally different morality would mean. Think of a country where people were admired for running away in a battle, or where a man felt proud of double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him. You might just as well imagine a country where two and two made five”
(d) Those who deny a real Right and Wrong will accidentally betray themselves
“He may break his promise to you, but if you try breaking one to him he will be complaining ‘It’s not fair’ before you can say Jack Robinson”
We see the presence of the Moral Law more clearly in our reactions, rather than our actions.
2. We do not keep this Law
(a) That doesn’t change the Law itself
“…people sometimes get their sums wrong; but they are not a matter of mere taste and opinion any more than the multiplication table”
(b) Our excuses prove we do not keep the Law
“If we do not believe in decent behaviour, why should we be so anxious to make excuses for not having behaved decently?”
(c) We demonstrate the Law by only make excuses for the bad things, not the good.
“…you notice that it is only for our bad behaviour that we find all these explanations. It is only our bad temper that we put down to being tired or worried or hungry; we put our good temper down to ourselves”
Discussion Questions
1. What does Lewis argue we can we learn from the way people quarrel?
2. Why should we believe that the Law of Human Nature is real?
3. Do you think it’s true that we don’t live according to the Law of Human Nature?
