Arcane & Germane Reviews #16
“After reading a new book, never allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between”(C.S. Lewis).
The Abolition of Man, 1943 – C.S. Lewis
The Author and His Book
The Abolition of Man was first published in book form in 1943. As with much of C.S. Lewis’ work, his argument has proven to be remarkably prescient. While not a ‘Reformed theologian,’ Lewis was at heart a Bible man, sharing much in common with the presuppositional apologetics of theologians such as Herman Bavinck (e.g. The Philosophy of Revelation (1909)).
Lewis provides the following disclaimer.
…though I myself am a Theist, and indeed a Christian, I am not here attempting an indirect argument for Theism. I am simply arguing that if we are to have values at all we must accept the ultimate platitudes of Practical Reason as having absolute validity (p.25).
Lewis argues for the existence and the necessity of absolutes; what writer Marilynne Robinson has more recently termed ‘the givenness of things.’[1] He diagnoses a deadly revolt against reason and prognosticates where such an intellectual (and finally spiritual) revolution might lead.
I. Men without Chests – Post-modernism prophesied
In what seems at first an obscure beginning Lewis critiques a 1940s English textbook aimed at school leavers. In it the unnamed writers assert that whenever an author makes a statement of moral value, he/she makes a purely subjective statement. Any emotional response a reader might make to what they read, is against reason.
‘Their words are that we “appear to be saying something very important” when in reality we are “only saying something about our own feelings’ (pp.4-5).
For Lewis’ opponents, later described as ‘Conditioners,’ human emotion and human reason are in an inevitable conflict with the outside world.
On this view, the world of facts, without one trace of value, and the world of feelings without one trace of truth or falsehood, justice or injustice, confront one another, and no rapprochement is possible (p.12).
What in Lewis’ view would be the consequence for education if such a philosophy became the norm? The inculcation of ever evolving -isms and -ologies.
…the difference between the old education and the new education will be an important one. Where the old initiated, the new merely ‘conditions.’ The old dealt with its pupils as grown birds deal with young birds when they teach them to fly: the new deals with them more as the poultry-keeper deals with young birds- making them thus or thus for purposes of which the birds know nothing (p.13).
The ‘old’ way of learning is about ‘growing up’ into what it means to be human (‘propagation’). Whereas the ‘new’ is essentially about ‘propaganda,’ producing people whom Lewis strikingly terms ‘Men without chests’ (p.14). The tragedy, as Lewis saw it, was that while people clamoured for the old virtues of ‘drive, dynamism, self-sacrifice,’ (remember Lewis was writing four years into WWII), that the philosophy of the Conditioners pulled the rug out from their feet:
In a sort of ghastly simplicity, we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful (p.14).
In our own time such a denial of reality has led not only to confusion in the life of the mind, but tragically in our physical bodies, leading in some cases to literal ‘castration.’ The irony lies in the fact that new theories which purport to set human beings free from the tyranny of old absolutes, themselves become authoritarian, just as God-denying fascist and communist -ologies did in the 20th century. G.K. Chesterton had made a similar point. ‘When men stop believing in God they don’t believe in nothing; they believe in anything.’ Jesus teaches that everyone necessarily worships someone/thing. But only our strong and gracious Maker is qualified to be God, and only Jesus our Lord (e.g. Matthew 6:24; 1Corinthians 8:6; Psalm 115:8).
II) The Way – Moral Relativism
Lewis continues by asserting that if we reject moral absolutes, we will inevitably obey instinct. This is exemplified clearly in the ‘modern’ sexual ethic.
Modernity permits and demands a new sexual morality. For of course sexual desire, being instinctive, is to be gratified. It looks, in fact, as if an ethics based on instinct will give the Innovator all he wants and nothing that he does not want (p.18).
The problem with an instinct-based ethic is that there are many different human instincts, and they don’t all ‘get along.’
Telling us to obey instinct is like telling us to obey ‘people.’ People say different things: so do instincts. Our instincts are at war (p.19).
Each instinct – if listened to – will claim it must be acted on in preference to others. Therefore, there must be a ‘higher court of appeal’ than the instinct itself. The indicative does not imply the imperative; is does not imply ought. Just because I feel an urge very deeply, sexual or otherwise, does not mean that I should act upon it. There must be something ‘outside of myself’ that enables me to assess my various instincts.
Paradoxically, the ‘Innovator’ assumes an unspoken ‘higher order.’ That is, his assumed ism/-ology is in effect an ersatz religion and a substitute god. By contrast, Christians point to the Creator who in Christ has revealed himself as Judge and Saviour.
Because God has made the world and us in his image, there are ‘givens,’ self-evident truths, the foundation for our reason. Without such ‘givens’ there is only chaos.
…you must allow that Reason can be practical. If nothing is self-evident, nothing can be proved. Similarly, if nothing is obligatory for its own sake, nothing is obligatory at all (p. 21).
Despite his best efforts, the Innovator cannot completely leave behind ‘the Way,’ in things. That is, he cannot in practice escape the fact that he is made Imago Dei, living in a world made by God. The Apostle Paul speaks of sin as a kind of revolt against reason; a willful suppression of the truth we all know about ourselves, the world, and our Maker (Romans 1:18-21). Herman Bavinck called all (godless) philosophies ‘heresies,’ part truths, and distorted echoes of the original. Lewis put it this way:
What purport to be new systems or (as they now call them), ‘ideologies,’ all consist of fragments from the ‘Way’ itself, arbitrarily wrenched from their context in the whole and then swollen to madness in their isolation, yet still owing to the Way and to it alone such validity as they possess. The rebellion of new ideologies against the ‘way’ is a rebellion of the branches against the tree: if the rebels could succeed they would find that they had destroyed themselves (p. 23).
Despite the warnings of Lewis and others, the voices of twentieth century thought have been strong and persistent. We have opened Pandora’s Box. Why not question the conscience with its arbitrary moral mores? This could be the final frontier of human progress and reinvention.
Let us decide for ourselves what man is to be and make him into that: not on any ground of imagined value, but because we want him to be such. Having mastered our environment, let us now master ourselves and choose our destiny (p.26).
III) The Abolition of Man – The Myth of Progress
Lewis concludes with a discussion of the ‘myth of progress,’ in connection to human mastery over Nature. Lewis rejects the notion that as we are set free from tradition gaining control over (our) nature, human power will inevitably increase. For when ‘value judgments’ become just another phenomenon, then moral givens may be rejected and replaced by mere instinct.
When all that says ‘it is good’ has been debunked, what says ‘I want’ remains (p.32).
When this happens the ‘Conditioners’ are free to make of people what they please.
Human nature will be the last part of Nature to surrender to Man. The battle will then be won (p.29).
Liberation from the One True God who made and loves us, turns out to be slavery to a legion of gods, both spiritual and human, that would remake us in their image, leave us in our own sin and finally consume us.
We shall in fact be the slaves and puppets of that to which we have given our souls. It is in Man’s power to treat himself as a mere ‘natural object’ and his own judgments of value as raw material for scientific manipulation to alter at will… not raw material to be manipulated, as he fondly imagined, by himself, but by mere appetite, that is, mere Nature, in the person of his de-humanized Conditioners (p. 36).
Such statements may have seemed excitable to Lewis’ first hearers. While not all of his ‘predictions’ have eventuated, there are strong resonances between his writing and our own time. A great deal of ‘human manipulation’ occurs in a society driven by greed and consumption, where persons are recoined ‘consumers.’ In a culture so embedded in computer technology, we may see a potential danger in the easy delegation of both our thought and creative processes to the all-powerful AI machine.[2] The newly enshrined value of an open-ended concept of gender, leading to endless solipsistic re-definition, reflects a conscious challenge to thenarrow thought that ‘God created them male and female’ (Genesis 1:27). While paradoxically, in other ways (not least in the areas of medicine, sport, and feminisms), we instinctively cling to the truth of female and male identity, even as we debate its expression.
How are we to access and assess what we hear and see and feel?’ C.S. Lewis argues for reason and for conscience, and for base level values that ultimately come from our Maker.
A dogmatic belief or objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery (p. 36).
Because we are creatures in time and space, made by and for God, we cannot get back to, much less establish, our own ‘ground zero,’ and start over. In Lewis’ words, we cannot go on ‘seeing through everything and explaining away forever.’
The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond it is opaque. How if you saw through the garden too? It is no use trying to see through first principles (p.40).
Concluding Appreciation
Calvin spoke of putting on the ‘spectacles’ of the word of God, to bring the reality of God and man into focus. The apologetic value of The Abolition of Man lies in its description of reality and the possibility of being able to access it. While philosophical, it presents a common-sense appeal to reason and first principles. It is pre-evangelistic in that unlike much of his writing he does not attempt to explain Christ and his gospel. However, Lewis provides a helpful framework for understanding the world and ourselves. We cannot successfully reject absolutes based on what we do or do not want to be the case. We did not come from nowhere, and we do not create ourselves. All that we are and all that we have comes from the hand of our loving Creator. Our meaning and identity, our purpose and destiny, are found in God, who in Christ has become our wisdom (1 Cor 1:30).
[1] M. Robinson, ‘The Givenness of Things,’ 2016.
[2] One wonders what Lewis would make of the AI phenomenon, both the eagerness of our FOMO-driven uptake, and our unquestioning willingness to delegate the first principles of our thought and creativity to its all-powerful algorithms. With every minute AI grows in power, reach and speed, consuming ever-increasing stores of energy and other resources, while producing consequences that no one can now imagine or foresee.
