| First Four Chapters of C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity | ||||||||
| I. The Law of Human Nature A. Standards of behavior 1. When people quarrel, the basis of their claim is that the other person violated some standard that both he and the offender know about, not that he simply did somthing to inconvenience him. 2. This points to some objective set of standards that all people are expected to follow. Whether the person fully understands the origin of the rules or not, they're simply common moral standards that anyone could follow. B. The Law 1. Just as all bodies are governed by scientific laws, all humans are governed by the law of human nature. - One important fundamental difference, while bodies have no choice in obeying scientific laws, humans can choose to disobey the law of human nature. 2. Without this law, there could be absolutely no judging of other people's actions. If someone did something that we thought of as bad, we could disagree with them but couldn't rightfully call immoral. 3. No human is truly following the law of human nature. Many people strive to, but no one can claim to flawlessly adhere to it. Everyone has room for improvement. II. Some Objections A. Couldn't the law of human nature just be our herd instinct? 1. The herd instinct may tell us to help someone in need, but it doesn't tell us that a particular action is the correct one. The law of human nature strictly pulls us in a direction, urging us that this action is moral. 2. Instincts may give us desires to do things, but the law of human nature decides which of these desires to follow. B. Isn't this moral law really just a law of society put into us by education? 1. While the law of human behavior may be put into us by education, it isn't something simply man made any more than scientific laws are. 2. This law would exist rather or now we learned it, all cultures throughout history have followed it in one way or another. III. The Reality of the Law A. Difference of the Law from scientific laws 1. What makes the law of human behavior unique is that it's never fully followed and yet it is always the right course of action. Everyone is pulled to obey it but no one fully does. 2. It's not a fact the way the law of gravitation is, but it isn't just a fancy. Everyone is pulled by it and no one can fully escape it no matter how much they try. B. If we're all pulled by this law, yet it isn't forced on us, it points to the idea that all people are being governed by a rule that we didn't create. IV. What Lies Behind the Law A. Two views on the universe 1. Religious - The universe was created by a conscious being with some purpose in mind 2. Materialist - The universe was created by a series of chance occurences B. We can view parts of the universe but not understand their purpose because we see any intentions they have, on the other hand we know about what humans do and what they're pulled to do. 1. Since there we concluded that humans are governed by the law of nature, which can't have been created by humans, it appears that some other force had a hand in our creation. 2. While not proving the existence of God in the common sense, this certainly points to the religious view of the origin of the universe. |
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| How can anyone make statements that supposedly apply to all people everywhere without knowing everyone? What would C.S. Lewis say? |
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| The key in analyzing all people is breaking down your analyzations to the things that are constant in all people. Aspects of there lives that they have simply by virtue of being human. When looking at something like universal rights that all people should be given, you must examine the most basic rights each person deserves anywhere in the world and in any situation. The first article of the U.N. declaration of universal rights says, "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood." This is taking humanity at its most basic form, without any details of individual lives or cultures. Since every person is born with reason and conscience, they deserve to be treated with brotherhood. There is no human that doesn't fit into this article. For the most part, this was what Aristotle worked from when deciding upon the right plan for happiness for all people around the world. He builds off of the central fundamental aspects of human life that all people everywhere share. C.S. Lewis operates in much the same way, but he looks at cultures. Although there may be individuals that truly believe that no morality should exist, every single culture throughout history has shared the same essential rights. Each person has a right to life. Even in cases such as human sacrifice or the execution of a slave, in which the person being persecuted may not have done something specific to deserve their treatment, the people killing them still felt that it was following the rules. They weren't saying that the rule didn't exist, they were saying that the particular case didn't in fact break the rule for whatever reason. When looking at the basic similarities in all human lives and cultures, it is safe to determine a human condition that fits all people just as it is possible to make the assumption that if I drop a rock it will fall because every other rock in history that's been dropped has similarly fallen. | ||||||||