Synopsis: during the second world war, C.S.Lewis was called upon by the BBC to give a series of lectures broadcasts that would ultimately bring new meaning to the lives of adults in all walks of life. Bringing together these legendary talks, Mere Christianity has become regarded as the most popular and accessible of C.S.Lewis's works, reminding us of the truly important things in life and showing the way to joy and contentment.
Chapter One: The Law of Human Nature
Chapter one expresses C.S.Lewis's stand point on universal moral truths or, as he and a number before him called them, the Law of Nature. Lewis touches on the fact that we commonly associate the Law of Nature with such things as gravity or chemistry, yet previously it was used to describe the topic of morals, or what is right and wrong.
Lewis approaches the Law of nature from a perspective where our morals are innate, in-built in our minds from birth. He talks about how everyone knows what is right and wrong, but there are some hindrances which can prevent people from pursuing the right path, such as tiredness or hunger. 'People may be sometimes mistaken about them, just as people sometimes get their sums wrong;but they are not a matter of mere taste and opinion any more than the multiplication table'. At the end of the day, however, Lewis is saying we can't choose our morals, even when we do go wrong from time to time, the reactions from people following this actually proves that they, firstly, know they've done wrong, and secondly it proves that these morals are universally understood.
Lewis supports his view by explaining that 'whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in real right and wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later'. This perspective can be supported by the scenario of a rich man who likes to party, smoke weed and live life with no cares, declaring 'do whatever makes you happy', 'don't let people tell you what to do' and 'YOLO', then this man gets robbed, and this perspective suddenly shifts...so he calls the police, sues the people behind it and tells them to follow the law. The same person who, one minute ago was talking about freedom, suddenly alters that, due to a situation which affects them personally. What he viewed as being morally free, was actually unawareness. He felt that way all along, it just took theft to realise his stand point.
Lewis explains 'if we do not believe in decent behaviour, why should we be so anxious to make excuses for having behaved decently?'. Every single person in the world aims to please, contribute or benefit a greater good or a person. A terrorist, who some may believe has no morals, and does things for their own selfish purposes, still aspires to please and achieve a goal and a point of satisfaction; whether that is for a god or someone they aspire to be or something that they think needs to be changed to benefit society. If they do their particular task incorrectly, they will feel as though they have failed, underachieved and not reached the goal in which they were aiming for. They are anxious to please, and so if this task was to go wrong, they would strive to find excuses for its failure. They're aware of what is right and wrong. It may be distorted by other factors, but they are still aware of their short comings and still have a particular way they are addressing the task at hand to conform to what they view as the ideal outcome.
Lewis also addresses the issue of cultural relativism, the view that different societies have different moral codes, he challenges the reader to ' think of a country where people were admired for running away in battle, or where a man felt proud for double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him. You might as well try to imagine a country where two and two made five'. Essentially, Lewis is saying that there is no such society where the morals are so outlandish that they cannot be related to or cannot be imagined. Moral codes, whilst they have differences, are built upon the same foundations, that even though they may seem different are actually not overly far fetched because we all have the same understanding of the law of nature.
Chapter one was incredibly interesting to read and very thought provoking.
Chapter 2 will be complete soon.
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