Mere Christianity

A Commentary of C. S. Lewis' Mere Christianity
by Paul Jacobsen

I am calling this article a "commentary" as I don't have the "chutzpah" to call it a "critique". I am well aware of Lewis' writing talent and he is clearly an intelligent individual, so I feel unqualified to "critique" Mr. Lewis. However, I would like to comment on why, at least for me, Lewis' arguments for the existence of God are uncompelling.

The book is divided into four books, and at this time I'm only intending on commenting on the first two. The reason being that the latter two books are for Christians. The first two are for those that are contemplating Christianity.

Lewis starts out his argument for the existence of God by first attempting to prove the existence of what he calls "The Moral Law". It seems that a reader's perception of the strength of Lewis' argument for the existence of God completely stands or falls based on whether said reader is convinced by the argument of the existence of this purported Law. Lewis argues that it seems that everybody has some innate understanding of a proper, moral behavior. He says that if we didn't, it would make no sense to say that Nazi's behaved "badly". Saying they behaved "badly" only makes sense if you have a fundamental understanding of what it would mean to behave well.

My first complaint is that I feel he trivializes the differences of morality amongst different cultures. He agrees that there are differences but says "these have never amounted to anything of a total difference... Men have differed as to whether you should have one wife or four. But they have always agreed that you should not simply have any woman you liked." Considering how much to do Christians (including Lewis himself) usually make of the properness of the biblical "one man, one woman" concept, it seems odd to have him say that isn't a real difference. Also, Lewis neglects to mention that some cultures have found it acceptable for men to kill their wives if they find them displeasing. This isn't a real difference?

However, I do agree that at least most cultures have had some form of "The Golden Rule". In fact, Lewis himself later refers to "The Golden Rule of the New Testament (do as you would be done by)". So, if I accept that at least most cultures have had some form of this, the question then becomes, where did it come from? Lewis discusses two naturalistic possibilities, instinct and learned behavior. Lewis acknowledges these play a part, but dismisses these as being the complete answer. To dismiss instinct, Lewis discusses the scenario where somebody sees someone in trouble. They may have the instinct to run away to protect themselves. And he says they may have the instinct to help the other person. Yet somehow the person must make a choice between the two instincts, and the means that one employs to make that choice must be The Moral Law. It seems to me that it is more likely to be learned behavior even though Lewis dismisses that possibility.

I shouldn't say that Lewis completely dismisses that The Moral Law as being learned behavior. In fact, he agree that it is, much like the multiplication tables are something that you learn. But we couldn't have arbitrarily made up the multiplication tables. Nor, he argues, could we have arbitrarily decided The Moral Law. For evidence of this, he again reiterates his claim that all cultures have had similar morality; and if morality were arbitrary then that wouldn't be so. As I've said, I'm not convinced this is the case. But I have agreed that most cultures have had some form of The Golden Rule. So Lewis would say that I'm agreeing with him. Well, not really. Is there any other possible explanation for the universitality of The Golden Rule? I think there is. For my own self preservation, it seems obvious that I would want other people to not to decide to arbitrarily kill me. It also seems obvious that I would have no reason to have such expectation of other people, if I won't likewise arbitrarily go kill them. It doesn't seem to me that it requires a God to have told me this. So "The Golden Rule" seems to me to not require a God to have created it. Granted, in today's society, the concept of treating others as you would have them treat you sometimes seems to be in amazingly short supply. Yet I'd still say that it really shouldn't take a rocket scientist, let alone God, to figure this out.

Lewis accepts some desire to help others is instinct. He calls it the "herd instinct". I'd prefer to call it "empathy". Many Christians ask why would this evolve? If we evolved, wouldn't we evolve primarily the instinct to save ourselves? However, Lewis doesn't ask this question and accepts that we do in fact have such an instinct. But he believes that the self-preservation is a stronger instinct and that therefore if someone chooses to help someone instead of saving themselves, it must be because of The Moral Law. However, he doesn't seem to offer any proof that the self-preservation instinct would be stronger than empathy. But even if he is correct and self-preservation is the stronger instinct, the combination of learned behavior plus empathy seems to me to be quite capable of being stronger than the self-preservation instinct, at least in some individuals in some situations. Maybe I can't prove that my explanation is correct. But I assert that Lewis has not proven it to be wrong.

If Lewis were alive today, I'd like to ask him that if God did invent The Moral Law, what mechanism did He use to make it universally understood by man, as he claims it is? The answer to this question could not be the Bible or even Jesus as he asserts his concept of The Moral Law transcends all cultures and religions. So, I assume that Lewis is saying God somehow implanted it into our "soul" or deep into our subconscious. The problem to me is that as soon as Lewis would put a finger on "where" The Moral Law is "stored" in us, then I'd think he'd have to then answer how he can be certain that this "storage" of the Moral Law could only have been done by God. For example, if this Law exists in our subconscious, how can we be certain that God put it there instead of it somehow evolving? Basically, even if I accept Lewis' Moral Law concept, I don't feel he has proven it could only come from God. So in summary, I'm saying that to me, Lewis hasn't proven the existence of this purported Law. And even if it does exist, he hasn't proven its origin to be God.

Lewis acknowledges that if God created the Moral Law, it raises questions. "If a good God had made the world why has it gone wrong? And for many years I simply refused to listen to the Christian answers to this question, because I kept on feeling, 'whatever you say and however clever your arguments are, isn't it much simpler and easier to say the world was not made by any intelligent power? Aren't all your arguments simply a complicated attempt to avoid the obvious?'" These are indeed quite good questions, questions that I wish I could return to Mr. Lewis as the answer he provides in the book seems to me to be inadequate. His answer is simply back to his Moral Law concept. He says that for us to say that things are just or unjust must mean that we know what just and unjust are and they would have no meaning without God. However, as I noted above, it seems to me that the concept of The Golden Rule is sufficiently obvious that it doesn't require a God to have invented it. And I believe that all of our concepts of "good," "evil," "just," "unjust," etc., stem from the simple obviousness of The Golden Rule. (Plus, of course, the instincts Lewis' acknowledges, the instinct of self-preservation and the "herd-instinct" or empathy.)

Lewis explains how Christianity is different from Dualism. (The "Dualism" Lewis refers to is the belief system that good and evil are two completely independent and equal powers.) In Lewis' view, the problem with Dualism is that there is then no reason to prefer one over the other, except perhaps one "suits your fancy". He then goes on to explain why in his view, "good" can exist on its own, but "evil" can only exist as a perversion of something good. He then agrees that leads to more questions, such as why does God allow evil? He asks, "is this state of affairs in accordance with God's will, or not? If it is, He is a strange God, you will say; and if it is not, how can anything happen contrary to the will of a being with absolute power?" Again, these are good questions by Mr. Lewis. His answer is the "Free Will" answer. God gave people (and Satan) free will. And it is because of free will that things can happen that are contrary to God's will.

Lewis uses an analogy where a mother may tell a child to keep his room tidy. But rather than force the child to do so, she may decide that if the child does otherwise, acts against her will, she will let the child live with his consequences. Lewis enjoys use of analogies. I do too. They can be helpful in explaining concepts. The problem with analogies is they may or may not really resemble the object of the analogy. I believe that Lewis' analogy here is disingenuous. To show why, let me make a similar analogy. Would we have expected Hitler's mother to say, "now Adolph, I really don't approve of you exterminating the Jews, but I guess its not my place to interfere." I know you probably think I'm trivializing and insulting the tragedy of the holocaust. My point is, isn't that what Lewis' theology does? Isn't he saying that God could have prevented the holocaust but didn't want to interfere in Hitler's free will and the free will of his followers? My basic point is that while I might be willing to buy the concept of God allowing some transgressions against His will in the name of allowing free will, but I don't buy the concept that He could allow just anything to happen in the name of free will.

And then the next question is, exactly when can God do any interventions? Any Jews in WWII praying for an end to Hitler's reign must have been praying in vain as God couldn't interfere with Hitler's free will. So, exactly when can God do any intervention? Isn't all prayer in vain as asking God to intervene is asking God to interfere and God will not do that?

So, as I said, I find that God just allowing anything to happen in the name of free will to be hard to believe. But say I'm wrong and that is what God does. So then I have another question. What does God think about when somebody else interferes in somebody's free will? Didn't Hitler interfere with the free will of his victims? Does Satan interfere in the free will of people when he does whatever evil things he does? If God, as the agent of good won't interfere in someone's free will to do good, but allows the agents of evil to interfere in the free will of people to do evil, doesn't that give the upper hand to the agents of evil? Isn't God "tying His own hands" whilst leaving the hands of the agents of evil free? In fact, in this scenario, it would seem that evil should have completely taken over by now.

Lewis says that God will, at some point, come down "in force" and put an end to Satan's evil. But then it will be too late to make a choice. If, at the time God comes down in force, a man were to say he's now on God's side, it would be like "a Frenchman who waited till the Allies were marching into Germany and then announced he was on our side." What I'm not understanding is what stopping Satan's evil necessarily has to do with us humans. If God were to decide right now to confine Satan and his minions to where they could do no more evil, what impact would that have on man? Man would still have free will and could still choose to do good or to do evil, right? I guess what I'm trying to ask is evil possible without Satan? Based on Lewis' presentation of evil being due to free will, then I would assume so. So Lewis seems to unnecessarily be tying God's ending Satan's evil to ending all evil. So, back to my question, why is God ending Satan's evil reign relevant to man's free will?

As I said from the beginning, I understand Lewis was a very intelligent, gifted writer. In my piece here, I wouldn't be so audacious to claim I have "debunked" Lewis. All I claim to have done is explain why, at least from my perspective, Lewis has not proved his case.

If you found this article of interest, you may also enjoy my other articles related to Satan.