Tag: Morality

Mere Christianity – Book III – Chapter 4 (“Morality and Psychoanalysis”)

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Book-3

Picking back up my notes for C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity”…

Notes & Quotes

1. Building a Christian society requires a multi-pronged approach

It means that we must begin both jobs at once – (1) the job of seeing how “Do as you would be done by” can be applied in detail to modern society, and (2) the job of becoming the sort of people who really would apply it if we saw how.

2. Christian morality claims to fix the human machine, but so does psychoanalysis

(a) We must distinguish between psychoanalysis and the philosophical views added to them by men such as Freud

“…when Freud is talking about how to cure neurotics he is speaking as a specialist on his own subject, but when he goes on to talk general philosophy he is speaking as an amateur”

(b) Psychoanalysis is not contrary to Christianity and, in fact, has some overlap, albeit different ends

“…psychoanalysis itself…is not in the least contradictory to Christianity. Its technique overlaps with Christian morality at some points…but it does not run the same course all the way, for the two techniques are doing rather different things”

3. A moral choice involves two different things:

(a) The raw materials involved in choosing

“…the various feelings, impulses and so on which his psychological outfit presents him with”

These raw materials may be:

(i) Normal

“…the sort of feelings that are common to all men”

(ii) Unnatural

“…unnatural feelings due to things that have gone wrong in his subconscious”

The job of psychoanalysis is to make these raw materials better:

“…psychoanalysis undertakes to do is to remove the abnormal feelings…to give the man better raw material for his acts of choice…bad psychological material is not a sin but a disease. It does not need to be repented of, but to be cured…morality is concerned with the acts of choice themselves“

(b) The act of choosing itself

“However much you improve the man’s raw material, you have still got something else: the real, free choice of the man, on the material presented to him, either to put his own advantage first or to put it last. And this free choice is the only thing that morality is concerned with”

4. Human judgements and Divine judgement are very different

(a) We judge by actions, God judges by moral choices

“Human beings judge one another by their external actions. God judges them by their moral choices. When a neurotic who has a pathological horror of cats forces himself to pick up a cat for some good reason, it is quite possible that in God’s eyes he has shown more courage than a healthy man may have shown in winning the V.C.* When a man who has been perverted from his youth and taught that cruelty is the right thing, does some tiny little kindness, or refrains from some cruelty he might have committed, and thereby, perhaps, risks being sneered at by his companions, he may, in God’s eyes, be doing more than you and I would do if we gave up life itself for a friend… 

* Victor Cross, a medal awarded in the military

(b) At death, all will become clear

Some of us who seem quite nice people may, in fact, have made so little use of a good heredity and a good upbringing that we are really worse than those whom we regard as fiends…

Most of the man’s psychological make-up is probably due to his body: when his body dies all that will fall off him, and the real central man. The thing that chose, that made the best or the worst out of this material, will stand naked. All sorts of nice things which we thought our own, but which were really due to a good digestion, will fall off some of us: all sorts of nasty things which were due to complexes or bad health will fall off others. We shall then, for the first time, see every one as he really was. There will be surprises.”

5. Our choices matter

(a) They prepare us for Heaven or Hell

“…every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature… Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other”

(b) This is why Christian writers seem so strict one moment and easy at another

“They talk about mere sins of thought as if they were immensely important: and then they talk about the most frightful murders and treacheries as if you had only got to repent and all would be forgiven… What they are always thinking of is the mark which the action leaves on that tiny central self which no one sees in this life but which each of us will have to endure-or enjoy-for ever. One man may be so placed that his anger sheds the blood of thousands, and another so placed that however angry he gets he will only be laughed at. But the little mark on the soul may be much the same in both. Each has done something to himself which, unless he repents, will make it harder for him to keep out of the rage next time he is tempted, and will make the rage worse when he does fall into it. Each of them, if he seriously turns to God, can have that twist in the central man straightened out again: each is, in the long run, doomed if he will not. The bigness or smallness of the thing, seen from the outside, is not what really matters”

(c) These choices change our sensitivity to good and evil

“When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse, he understands his own badness less and less. A moderately bad man knows he is not very good: a thoroughly bad man thinks he is all right… Good people know about both good and evil: bad people do not know about either”

Discussion Questions

1. What is Jack’s opinion regarding psychoanalysis?

2. What are the two different different components of a moral choice? Which one benefits from psychoanalysis

3. What is the difference between man’s judgements and God’s judgements? How will death make the truth clearer?

4.  In what way do our choices prepare us for Heaven and Hell? How do they affect our sensitivity to good and evil?

C.S. Lewis Doodle

No doodle!

Mere Christianity – Book III – Chapter 3 (“Social Morality”)

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Book-3

Picking back up my notes for C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity”…

Notes & Quotes

1. Christ did not preach a brand new morality

“The Golden Rule of the New Testament (Do as you would be done by) is a summing up of what everyone, at bottom, had always known to be right… As Dr. Johnson said, ‘People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed'”

2. Christianity is not a political programme

(a) It is not a detailed set of rules

“…Christianity has not, and does not profess to have, a detailed political programme for applying “Do as you would be done by” to a particular society at a particular moment”

(b) It is, instead, meant to act as a guide

“It was never intended to replace or supersede the ordinary human arts and sciences: it is rather a director which will set them all to the right jobs, and a source of energy which will give them all new life…”

4. It is up to every Christian to bring the Golden Rule to his/her domain of responsibility and excellence

“…when they say that the Church should give us a lead, they ought to mean that some Christians – those who happen to have the right talents – should be economists and statesmen…[and] be directed to putting “Do as you would be done by” into action.

…Christian literature comes from Christian novelists and dramatists – not from the bench of bishops getting together and trying to write plays and novels in their spare time”

5. The New Testament hints at what a fully Christian society would be like

(a) It seems to be an odd mix

“We should feel that its economic life was very socialistic and, in that sense, ‘advanced,’ but that its family life and its code of manners were rather old-fashioned-perhaps even ceremonious and aristocratic”

(b) Few of us would like everything

“Each of us would like some bits of it, but I am afraid very few of us would like the whole thing… every one is attracted by bits of it and wants to pick out those bits and leave the rest. That is why we do not get much further: and that is why people who are fighting for quite opposite things can both say they are fighting for Christianity”

6. Greek, Jewish and Early Christian communities rejected usury

“…the ancient heathen Greeks, and by the Jews in the Old Testament, and by the great Christian teachers of the Middle Ages… told us not to lend money at interest: and lending money at interest – what we call investment – is the basis of our whole system. Now it may not absolutely follow that we are wrong…”

7. Charity is essential

“Charity – giving to the poor – is an essential part of Christian morality: in the frightening parable of the sheep and the goats it seems to be the point on which everything turns”

(a) Some may advocate for producing a society which doesn’t need charity

“They may be quite right in saying that we ought to produce that kind of society. But if anyone thinks that, as a consequence, you can stop giving in the meantime, then he has parted company with all Christian morality”

(b) We should probably give more than we do

“I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare… If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small”

(c) Fear of insecurity is our greatest obstacle

“…the great obstacle to charity lies not in our luxurious living or desire for more money, but in our fear-fear of insecurity… Sometimes…we are tempted to spend more than we ought on the showy forms of generosity (tipping, hospitality) and less than we ought on those who really need our help”

8. We approach this question badly

(a) Some thing it is too far to the left, some to the right

“My guess is that there are some Leftist people among them who are very angry that it has not gone further in that direction, and some people of an opposite sort who are angry because they think it has gone much too far”

(b) We’re seeking validation, not understanding

“Most of us are not really approaching the subject in order to find out what Christianity says: we are approaching it in the hope of finding support from Christianity for the views of our own party”

(c) It begins with me

“I may repeat ‘Do as you would be done by’ till I am black in the face, but I cannot really carry it out till I love my neighbour as myself: and I cannot learn to love my neighbour as myself till I learn to love God: and I cannot learn to love God except by learning to obey Him. And so, as I warned you, we are driven on to something more inward -driven on from social matters to religious matters. For the longest way round is the shortest way home”

Discussion Questions

1. Did Christ teach a new morality?

2. How does Christianity relate to politics? What does Christianity give us and what does it not give us?

3. How does Jack envisage the making of a Christian society?

4. What hints does the New Testament give us about a Christian society?

5. What is Jack’s concern about usury?

6. What advice does he have for us about charity?

7. How will most people react to this chapter?

C.S. Lewis Doodle

No doodle!

Mere Christianity – Book III – Chapter 1 (“The Three Parts of Morality”)

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Book-3

Picking back up my notes for C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity”…

Notes & Quotes

1. Many people think of morality as something which interferes, particularly with our enjoyment.

(a) However, morality is there for our own good.

“…moral rules are directions for running the human machine. Every moral rule is there to prevent a breakdown, or a strain, or a friction, in the running of that machine”

(b) What might initially seem right to us will cause problems.

“When you are being taught how to use any machine, the instructor keeps on saying, ‘No, don’t do it like that,’ because, of course, there are all sorts of things that look all right and seem to you the natural way of treating the machine, but do not really work”

2. Some people prefer to talk about “ideals” and “idealism” rather than “rules” and “obedience”.

(a) However, it is misleading to call moral perfection an ideal because it implies that it’s a private taste and therefore not binding on all

“When a man says that a certain woman…is ‘his ideal’ he does not mean…that everyone else ought to have the same ideal. In such matters we are entitled to have different tastes and, therefore, different ideals”

(b) It could lead to pride…

“It might lead you to become a prig and to think you were rather a special person who deserved to be congratulated on his ‘idealism'”

(c) …and this is as foolish as being congratulated in trying to not make a mistake in your arithmetic

“…you might just as well expect to be congratulated because, whenever you do a sum, you try to get it quite right. To be sure, perfect arithmetic is ‘an ideal’; you will certainly make some mistakes in some calculations. But there is nothing very fine about trying to be quite accurate at each step in each sum.

It would be idiotic not to try; for every mistake is going to cause you trouble later on. In the same way every moral failure is going to cause trouble, probably to others and certainly to yourself. By talking about rules and obedience instead of “ideals” and ‘idealism’ we help to remind ourselves of these facts”

3. Morality can be expressed in the metaphor of a fleet of ships

(a) The ships must have internal integrity and external integrity in relation to one another

“The voyage will be a success only, in the first place, if the ships do not collide and get in one another’s way; and, secondly, if each ship is seaworthy and has her engines in good order

…you cannot have either of these two things without the other. If the ships keep on having collisions they will not remain seaworthy very long. On the other hand, if their steering gears are out of order they will not be able to avoid collisions”

(c) Additionally, the final destination is fundamentally important

“…however well the fleet sailed, its voyage would be a failure if it were meant to reach New York and actually arrived at Calcutta”

4. An alternative metaphor is that of a musical band

“…think of humanity as a band playing a tune. To get a good result, you need two things. Each player’s individual instrument must be in tune and also each must come in at the right moment so as to combine with all the others.

…The instruments might be all in tune and might all come in at the right moment, but even so the performance would not be a success if they had been engaged to provide dance music and actually played nothing but Dead Marches”

5. We may therefore conclude that morality concerns three things:

(a) Exterior: Social relations with other humans

(b) Interior: The harmonising of the interior life

(c) Teleological: In relation to the purpose of man and his creator

6. When speaking about morality, modernity tends to ignore the last two

“When people say in the newspapers that we are striving for Christian moral standards, they usually mean that we are striving for kindness and fair play between nations, and classes, and individuals; that is, they are thinking only of the first thing”

(a) It is quite natural to focus on the first one because its effects are obvious and there is general agreement

“…the results of bad morality in that sphere are so obvious and press on us every day: war and poverty and graft and lies and shoddy work. And also, as long as you stick to the first thing, there is very little disagreement about morality”

(b) However, we can’t stop there…

“Unless we go on to the second thing-the tidying up inside each human being-we are only deceiving ourselves.

What is the good of telling the ships how to steer so as to avoid collisions if, in fact, they are such crazy old tubs that they cannot be steered at all? What is the good of drawing up, on paper, rules for social behaviour, if we know that, in fact, our greed, cowardice, ill temper, and self-conceit are going to prevent us from keeping them?”

(c) We must consider the individual’s morality (the “second thing”) because we rely upon it

“…nothing but the courage and unselfishness of individuals is ever going to make any system work properly

It is easy enough to remove the particular kinds of graft or bullying that go on under the present system: but as long as men are twisters or bullies they will find some new way of carrying on the old game under the new system. You cannot make men good by law: and without good men you cannot have a good society. That is why we must go on to think of the second thing: of morality inside the individual”

(d) We must also consider our purpose (the “third thing”)…

“…religion involves a series of statements about facts, which must be either true or false. If they are true, one set of conclusions will follow about the right sailing of the human fleet: if they are false, quite a different set”

(i) …because the answer to this question may reveal responsibilities 

“…If somebody else made me, for his own purposes, then I shall have a lot of duties which I should not have if I simply belonged to myself”

(ii) …and because it makes a difference whether we live forever

“…there are a good many things which would not be worth bothering about if I were going to live only seventy years, but which I had better bother about very seriously if I am going to live for ever”

(A) Moral Trajectory

“Perhaps my bad temper or my jealousy are gradually getting worse – so gradually that the increase in seventy years will not be very noticeable. But it might be absolute hell in a million years: in fact, if Christianity is true, Hell is the precisely correct technical term for what it would be”

(B) The individual and society

“If individuals live only seventy years, then a state, or a nation, or a civilisation, which may last for a thousand years, is more important than an individual. But if Christianity is true, then the individual is not only more important but incomparably more important, for he is everlasting and the life of a state or a civilisation, compared with his, is only a moment”

7. Jack is going to assume the Christian point of view moving forward

“For the rest of this book I am going to assume the Christian point of view, and look at the whole picture as it will be if Christianity is true”

Discussion Questions

1. How do many people view morality? How does Jack present it?

2. Why should we not be surprised when we find that morality “interferes”?

3. What is the problem with talking about morals as “ideals”?

4. What are the two metaphors Jack uses to explain the different components of morality?

5. What are these three parts of morality? Around which parts are there consensus?

6. What can we not just stop at inter-personal morality? Why does interior morality matter? What are the consequences for society?

7. Why does it matter if we live forever?

C.S. Lewis Doodle

Mere Christianity – Book I – Chapter 1 (“The Law of Human Nature”)

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Book 1

Notes & Quotes

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?

C.S. Lewis Doodle

Sunday School: Good, Evil and God

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Have you accepted the modern two story world narrative as your own? What story are you living in?

Our Faith is the greatest love story ever and it’s being written as we speak. It is a story about God and his people, us. We are immersed in it and we have a chance to shape it. It’s a life that leads to union with the creator God and deep, profound happiness. It isn’t a life of hopelessness awaiting a miraculous transformation at the end of time. The immense gift of our Byzantine Faith is lived experience of God here and now transforming, sanctifying, healing the sickness of our fallen humanity. We must tell ourselves, our friends and even someday, perhaps, our children this story.

The video for this week starts by posing the question; can we be good, without God? More importantly though, can we know what good is without God?

As the video demonstrates, without God, there is no objective reference point for determining what is moral or immoral. Just as our senses convince us of the reality of the physical world, so our moral sense convinces us that moral values are objectively real. It’s not a matter of preference or opinion.

Some ask; is something good because God wills it, or because God wills it therefore it is good. The reality is good, or moral acts, are characteristics of Gods nature. The more our actions align with them, the more we are becoming like God. As Byzantine Catholics we believe this is much more than an intellectual exercise. We believe that when we “do good” we are actually being transformed toward Christ-like holiness. We can and are participating with God in the act of our own and humanity’s redemption.

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The Moral Argument

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Before I took a break for Advent I posted a quotation from Ravi Zacharias which related to what is known as “The Moral Argument” for the existence of God. I had intended to do a longer post on this subject at some point in the future because I think it’s one of the more interesting arguments in favour of theism.

While on Facebook these last few weeks, I was talking with an atheist and, try as I might, I couldn’t get him to even understand the argument itself.

Was I saying that atheists couldn’t tell the difference between right and wrong? No.

Was I saying that atheists were incapable of doing good deeds? No.

In the end I found the following video from Reasonable Faith. Although it didn’t appear to help in that particular conversation, I think it’s one of the most accessible explanations of this argument for the existence of God:

The Problem of pain

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One of the books I read on my sabbatical was Jesus Among Other gods by Ravi Zacharias. The part of the book which I found most engaging was the chapter in which he addresses the problem of evil and suffering. Over the next week or so, I’ll be posting a few short extracts from the book from this section, together with a comment or two.

The “Problem of pain” is an understandably common reason given by Agnostics and Atheists for doubting or even denying the existence of God. However, as Zacharias points out, one can only really talk about the problem of pain if there is a moral law:

…[some] protest that God cannot exist because there is too much evil evident in life… [The Atheist says that] evil exists; therefore the Creator does not…

But here, Christianity provides a counterchallenge… If evil exists, then one must assume that good exists in order to know the difference. If good exists, one must assume that a moral law exists by which to measure good and evil.

– Ravi Zacharias, Jesus Among Other gods

Okay, so to talk about “good” and “evil”, a moral law must exist. So what? How does that point to theism?

But if a moral law exists, must not one posit an ultimate source of moral law, or at least an objective basis for a moral law? By an objective basis, I mean something that is transcendently true at all times, regardless of whether I believe it or not. 

– Ravi Zacharias, Jesus Among Other gods

What could possibly be the objective basis of this law? The Theist answers “God”.

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