C. S. Lewis And Natural Law Essay, Research Paper

THE HUMAN RACE is haunted by the idea of doing whatis right. In the first

five chapters of Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewisdiscusses the fact that people

are always referring to some standard ofbehavior that they expect other

people to know about. People are alwaysdefending themselves by arguing that

what they have been doing does notreally go against that standard, or that

they have some special excuse forviolating it.

What they have in mind is a law of fair play or a rule of decent

behavior.Different people use different labels for this law–traditional

moralityor the Moral Law, the knowledge of right and wrong, or Virtue, or

the Way.We choose to call it the Natural Law. This law is an obvious

principle thatis not made up by humans but is for humans to observe. Lewis

claims thatall over the earth humans know about this law, and all over the

earth theybreak it; he further claims that there is Something or Somebody

behind thisNatural Law.

According to Lewis, we find out more about God from Natural Law thanfrom the

universe in general, just as we find out more about a person bylistening to

his conversation than by looking at a house he built. We cantell from

Natural Law that the Being behind the universe is intensely interestedin

fair play, unselfishness, courage, good faith, honesty and

truthfulness.However, the Natural Law does not give us any grounds for

assuming thatGod is soft or indulgent. Natural Law obliges us to do the

straight thingno matter how painful or dangerous or difficult it is to do.

Natural Lawis hard: “It is as hard as nails” (Mere Christianity 23).

This last sentence also appears as the central thought in Lewis’s movingpoem

“Love.” In the first stanza he tells us how love is as warmas tears; in the

second, how it is as fierce as fire; in the third, howit is as fresh as

spring. And in the final stanza he tells us how love isas hard as nails.

Love’s as hard as nails,Love is nails;Blunt, thick, hammered

throughThemedial nerve of OneWho, having made us, knewThe thing He had

done,Seeing(with all that is)Our cross, and His. (Poems 123)

In Lewis’s first chronicle of Narnia, The Lion, The Witch and TheWardrobe,

this hardness of the love of God was predicted by the lionAslan when he

promised to save Edmund from the results of treachery. Hesaid “All shall by

done. But it may be harder than you think”(104). When he and the White Witch

discussed her claim on Edmund’s life,she referred to the law of that

universe as the Deep Magic. Aslan wouldnot consider going against the Deep

Magic; instead, he gave himself to diein Edmund’s place, and the next

morning came back to life. He explainedto Susan that though the Witch knew

the Deep Magic, there is a far deepermagic that she did not know. This

deeper magic says that when a willingvictim is killed in place of a traitor,

death itself would start workingbackwards. The deepest magic worked toward

life and goodness. In Narnia,and in this world as well, if the universe is

not governed by an absolutegoodness all our efforts and hopes are doomed.

But if the universe is ruledby perfect goodness, says Lewis, we are falling

short of that goodness allthe time; we are not good enough to consider

ourselves allies of perfectgoodness (Mere 4). In Narnia Edmund fell so far

short of goodness that hefinally realized with a shock of despair that he

needed forgiveness.

At the end of the chapter entitled “Right and Wrong As A Clue tothe Meaning

of the Universe” in Mere Christianity, Lewis claimedthat until people repent

and want forgiveness, Christianity won’t make sense.Christianity explains

how God can be the impersonal mind behind the NaturalLaw and yet also be a

Person. It tells us how, since we cannot meet thedemands of the law, God

Himself became a human being to save us from ourfailure.

Lewis was of course aware that the presence of natural and moral evilin the

world makes the governance of the world by absolute goodness

seemquestionable, to say the least. He understood Housman in his bitter

complaintagainst “whatever brute and blackguard made the world.” But

Lewisasks by what standard the creator is judged a blackguard. The very

lamentfor Moral law or rejection of Moral Law itself implies a Moral Law.

Lewis was deeply concerned about the fact that many people in this

centuryare losing their belief in Natural Law. He spoke about this in the

RiddellMemorial Lectures given at the University of Durham, published in

1947 asThe Abolition of Man.

In Abolition he used “the Tao” as a shorthand term for theNatural Law or

First Principle. A clarification may be helpful. The term”Tao” in the West

is most often associated with Chinese Taoism.According to its scripture, the

Tao Te Ching, the Tao (though ineffable)can best be described with words

such as “the Flow,” “theway things change,” “the Life,” “the Source.”

Itslocus is first of all in nature. To follow the Tao is indeed to live

morally,for it requires respect for the lowly and avoidance of oppression or

pride.However, the Tao is ultimately a way of accepting what is, whether

tendingtoward life or death. Confucianists see the locus of the Tao as first

ofall in human society, expressed primarily in the respect of inferiors

forpatriarchal superiors, the responsibility of superiors for inferiors,

andthe subordination of the individual to the welfare of the group.

Neitherof these uses quite corresponds to what Lewis seems to intend in

Abolition.Perhaps the Chinese concept that comes closest to Lewis’s apparent

intentwould be “The Way of Heaven.”

Lewis claimed in Abolition that until quite recent times everyonebelieved

that objects could merit our approval or disapproval, our reverenceor our

contempt. It was assumed that some emotional reactions were moreappropriate

than others.

This conception is vividly represented in The Lion, The Witch andthe

Wardrobe; Edmund had inappropriate emotional responses from thevery

beginning. His brother and sisters imagined pleasant creatures theywould

like to meet in the woods, and Edmund hoped for foxes; but Lewis

changedEdmund’s choice to snakes for readers of the Macmillan version in the

UnitedStates. In both versions, when the children met the wise old

professor,Edmund laughed at his looks. When Edmund met the White Witch, his

initialfear quickly turned to trust; and when she gave him a choice of

foods, hestuffed himself with Turkish Delight candy. His attitude toward his

sisterLucy was resentful and superior; he was even suspicious of the good

Robinand Beaver who came to guide the children to safety. Instead of

noticingthe Beaver’s house, he noticed the location of the Witch’s castle in

thedistance. When the name Aslan was first spoken to the four children,

theyall had wonderful feelings except Edmund; he had a sensation of

mysterioushorror. Later events would educate Edmund to respond as the others

did.

Lewis pointed out that according to Aristotle the aim of education,

thefoundation of ethics, was to make a pupil like and dislike what he

ought.According to Plato, we need to learn to feel pleasure at pleasant

things,liking for likeable things, disgust for disgusting things, and hatred

forhateful things. In early Hindu teaching righteousness and correctness

correspondedto knowing truth and reality. Psalm 119 says the law is

“true.”The Hebrew word for truth here is “emeth,” meaning intrinsic

validity,rock-bottom reality, and a firmness and dependability as solid as

nature.

This meaning is reflected in the final book of Narnia, The Last Battle,where

Lewis introduced a young man named Emeth who had grown up in an

oppressivecountry where people worship the evil deity Tash. In spite of his

upbringing,Emeth was a man of honor and honesty who sought what was good. He

died worshippingTash and found himself in the presence of Aslan instead. He

responded withreverence and delight. All that he thought he was doing for

Tash could becounted as service to Aslan instead. He was one of Aslan’s

friends longbefore he knew it because he liked what was likeable and hated

what washateful.

Lewis was alarmed by all the people in our day who deny that some thingsare

inherently likeable, debunking traditional morality and the NaturalLaw,

thinking that there can be innovation in values. Some of them try

tosubstitute necessity, progress or efficiency for goodness. But in fact

necessity,progress or efficiency have to be related to a standard outside

themselvesto have any meaning. In many cases that standard will be, in the

last analysis,the preservation of the person who thinks of himself as a

moral innovator,or the preservation of the society of his choice. Such

people direct theirscepticism toward any values but their own, disparaging

other values as”sentimental” (Abolition 19).

But Lewis’s analysis shows that if Natural Law is sentimental, all valueis

sentimental. No factual propositions such as “our society is indanger of

extinction” can give any basis for a system of values; noobservations of

instinct such as “I want to prolong my life” giveany basis for a system of

values. Why is our society valuable? Why is mylife worth preserving? Only

the Natural Law, asserting that human life isof value, gives us a basis for

a coherent system of values.

“If nothing is self evident, nothing can be proved,” Lewisclaimed. “If

nothing is obligatory for its own sake, nothing is obligatoryat all” (27).

He means that if we do not accept Natural Law as self-evidentand obligatory

for its own sake, then all a person’s conceptions of valuefall away. There

are no values that are not derived from Natural Law. Anythingthat is judged

good is such because of values in the Natural Law. The conceptof goodness

springs from no other source.

Thus, modern innovations in ethics are just shreds of the old NaturalLaw,

sometimes isolated and exaggerated. If any values at all are retained,the

Natural Law is retained. According to Lewis, there never has been andnever

will be a radically new value or value system. The human mind hasno more

power of inventing a new value than of inventing a new primary color.

Admittedly, there are imperfections and contradictions in

historicalmanifestation and interpretations of Natural Law. Some reformers

help usto improve our perceptions of value. Butonly those who live by the

Law knowits spirit well enough to interpret it successfully. People who live

outsidethe Natural Law have no grounds for criticizing Natural Law or

anythingelse. A few who reject it intend to take the logical next step as

well:they intend to live without any values at all, disbelieving all values

andchoosing to live their lives according to their whims and fancies.

Lewis’s poem “The Country of the Blind,” published in Punchin 1951, presents

an image of people who have come to this. He describeswhat it would be like

to live as a misfit with eyes in a country of eyelesspeople who no longer

believe that vision ever existed.

This poem tells of “hard” light shining on a whole nation ofeyeless men who

were unaware of their handicap. Blindness had come on graduallythrough many

centuries. At some transitional stage a few citizens remainedwho still had

eyes and vision after most people were blind. The blind werenormal and

up-to-date. They used the same words that their ancestors hadused, but no

longer knew their meaning. They spoke of light still, meaningan abstract

thought. If one who could see tried to describe the grey dawnor the stars or

the green-sloped sea waves or the color of a lady’s cheek,the blind majority

insisted that they understood the feeling the sightedone expressed in

metaphor. There was no way he could explain the facts tothem. The blind

ridiculed such a person who took figures of speech literallyand concocted a

myth about a kind of sense perception that no one has everreally had.

If one thinks this is a far-fetched picture, Lewis concluded, one needonly

go to famous men today and try to talk to them about the truths ofNatural

Law which used to stand huge, awesome, and clear to the inner eye.

One of those famous men is B. F. Skinner, who answered in his book

BeyondFreedom and Dignity that the abolition of the inner man and

traditionalmorality is necessary so that science can prevent the abolition

of the humanrace. Lewis had already exclaimed in Abolition, “The

preservation ofthe species?–But why should the species be preserved?” (40)

Skinnerdoes not provide an answer, but welcomes Lewis’s scientific

“Controllers”who aim to change and dehumanize the human race in order more

efficientlyto fulfill their purposes.

Lewis satirized this kind of progress in his poem “EvolutionaryHymn,” which

appeared in The Cambridge Review in 1957. UsingLongfellow’s popular hymn

stanza form from “Psalm of Life,” Lewisexclaimed: What do we care about

wrong or justice, joy or sorrow, so longas our posterity survives? The old

norms of good and evil are outmoded.It matters not if our posterity turns

out to be hairy, squashy, or crustacean,tusked or toothless, mild or

ruthless. “Goodness is what comes next.”His conclusion is that our progeny

may be far from pleasant by present standards;but that matters not, if they

survive.

Lewis has often been carelessly accused of being against science. Infact, he

gives us an admirable scientist in Bill Hingest in That HideousStrength.

Significantly, Hingest was murdered by order of the supposedscientists who

directed the NICE. The enemy is not true science, which isfueled by a love

of truth, but that applied science whose practitionersare motivated by a

love of power. In Lewis’s opinion the technological developmentsthat are

called steps in Man’s Conquest of Nature in fact give certain menpower over

others. Discarding Natural Law will always increase the dangersof having

some people control others. Only Natural Law provides human standardswhich

over-arch rulers and ruled alike. Lewis went so far as to claim, “Adogmatic

belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rulewhich is

not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery.” (Abolition46)

The Magician’s Nephew, the tale of the creation of Narnia, givesus two

characters who exemplify the Controllers–Jadis and Uncle AndrewKetterley.

Both claimed to be above Natural Law; they had “a high andlonely destiny.”

Jadis was a monarch and Uncle Andrew was a magician,but both were strongly

suggestive of modern science gone wrong. They bothheld that common rules are

fine for common people, but that singular greatpeople must be free-to

experiment without limits in search of knowledge,to seize power and wealth.

The result was cruelty and destruction. In contrast,the wise men of old had

sought to conform the soul to reality, and the resulthad been knowledge,

self-discipline, and virtue.

Two examples from Lewis’s verse illustrate this traditional wisdom. The1956

poem “After Aristotle” praises virtue, stating that in Greecemen gladly

toiled in search of virtue as their most valuable treasure. Menwould

willingly die or live in hard labor for the beauty of virtue.

Virtuepowerfully touched the heart and gave unfading fruit; virtue made

thosewho love her strong.

A second example is “On a Theme from Nicolas of Cusa,” publishedin the Times

Literary Supplement in 1955. In the first stanza Lewisnotes how physical

foods are transformed by our bodies when we assimilatethem; in the second,

he points out that when we assimilate goodness andtruth they are not

transformed, but we are.

At the end of Abolition Lewis implores his readers to pause before

consideringNatural Law only one more accident of human history in a wholly

materialuniverse. To “explain away” this transcendent reality is perhapsto

explain away all explanations. To “see through” the NaturalLaw is the same

as not to see at all.

The idea that some things are inherently good and others are not is alsothe

basis for Lewis’s approach to literature in An Experiment in Criticism.His

thesis is that the work of art, and particularly the literary work,is to be

received for its own sake, not used for other purposes. Each detailis to be

savored and, if good, enjoyed. We are to look at the work, notto use it as a

mirror to reflect ourselves and our own fantasies or as alens through which

we look at the world.

This principle is a particular application of the Natural Law. We approacha

work of literature, as we might a person or flower, with the assumptionthat

here is something good for its own sake, something worth attendingto. After

we have looked at it attentively, objectively, either our effortswill have

been rewarded or we may decide it is not of much value after all;but in any

case we will have given it a fair try, done it justice.

In Experiment Lewis contrasts the principle of the inherent valueof works of

literature with the habits of people who use literature (andthus misuse it),

who prostitute the work to some other purpose.

The unliterary read a work only for the excitement they can get fromthe plot

(as in an adventure story), for the provocation and satisfactionof their

curiosity (as in a detective story), or for vicarious emotionalfulfillment

(as in a love story). Such readers use literature much as achild uses a toy,

or a worshiper a crucifix: as a starting point for a journeyinward or

beyond. Unlike the child or the worshiper, who cherish their objectand use

it many times over, the unliterary usually use a story only once;then it is

used up, discarded.

There are also users among the literary. There are the status seekers,who

read the academically fashionable literature in order to impress

themselvesand others. There are the self-improvers, whose concern with their

mentalenrichment takes the place of a focus on the work itself.

And there are the wisdom-seekers, who value a work for the Statementabout

Life that it presents. But, says Lewis, works of art do not give usadequate

world views. Too much selection is involved. In life, sufferingis not often

grand and noble and attributable to Tragic Flaws; matters donot end at

points of satisfying finality, but go drizzling on. Works ofliterature may

in fact make us wiser, but that is really incidental to theirtrue function;

and the wisdom we think came from a particular Great Workmay in fact have

come largely from within ourselves. Wisdom seeking is carriedto absurdity in

a particularly keen group he calls the Vigilants (he issurely referring to

F.R. Leavis and friends) who will place their stampof approval only on those

few works that express their own conception ofhow life should be lived. They

form a kind of Committee of Public Safety,lopping a new head every month.

By contrast with the users, the receivers surrender to a work of

literature,getting themselves out of the way, attending closely to each part

and itsrelationship to other parts, for the time being taking the author’s

viewpointas their own. Their refusal of a subjective reading enables them to

enlargethe narrow prison of the self and see with others’ eyes. The

temporary annihilationof the self that takes place actually serves to heal

the loneliness of theself. Lewis overtly compares the process to what

happens in the pursuitof knowledge, or of justice, or the experience of

love: we temporarily rejectthe facts as they are for us in favor of the

facts as they are. In the workof literature we are experiencing the

(morally) good or evil data, the (aesthetically)good or poor data, that

really are out there and really possess the qualitieswe perceived. Lewis

does not deny that our perception and judgment are sometimesflawed. But good

and bad are real.

Lewis’s aesthetic provides a necessary and refreshing corrective to

rigorouslydutiful approaches that have ruined the enjoyment of literature

for manyfrom student days onward. For those Christians to whom literary

pleasureshave seemed frivolous or dangerous temptations that might lead away

fromthe Straight Path, Lewis affirms their goodness. He also exposes the

sortof single-issue criticism that darkens counsel by words without

knowledge.Unless we can put ourselves to one side for a time and see what is

actuallyin the text, we ought not to say anything about a work; and in many

instanceswe might be better off not reading it at all.

Having gratefully accepted Lewis’s basic aesthetic enterprise, we

mustexpress a few reservations. Of course it is true that any work of

imaginativeliterature is too selective to present an adequate philosophy of

life. Butmuch the same could be said of any essay or multi-volumed work in

discursiveprose. Any time we want to speak of the whole, of universals (or

the absencethereof), we must be selective. Most formal treatises on Being,

Becomingor Causality leave out the terror and the joy of the world. The

supposedlyuniversal human experience of Reality discussed in nearly all of

theologyturns out to be male reality. Humans are limited; we may intend the

universal,but any reflection upon it is bound to be limited.

The need for selectivity does not prohibit a work of literature frombeing

intended, or taken, as a dramatized world view. This is particularlyevident

when a work gives support to oppressive social structures. For example,a

story whose few Jewish characters are rapacious schemers or (if

admirable)get baptized, may well give generous minds such as Lewis’s the

enlargingexperience of finding out what it is like to be antisemitic.

Unfortunately,it will also cause certain readers to come away with sharpened

convictionsthat the Jewish Conspiracy is the fountainhead of the world’s

evil. Likewise,a work whose achieving and admirable characters are all male,

with its femalesfrothy, manipulative, passive, victimized, and/or marginal,

is saying somethingabout the relative value of male and female.

Lewis in fact acknowledges, in an exchange of letters in

Theology(1939-1940), that there are (morally) bad books that corrupt people

by makingfalse values attractive (Christian Reflections 30-35). He does not

referspecifically to fiction, nor does he exclude it. Surely, then a

(morally)bad work of literature can be bad because it presents a dangerously

falseview of life, quite possibly by its selections. In contrast, a

(morally)good work of literature can present true values. There is no reason

whywe cannot receive such a work with diligent and delighted care, and

alsouse it as a parable. Surely what is objectionable is, in Kant’s

language,to make the work a means only and not an end also. It is ironic

that Lewisshould have rejected the concept of the literary work as a

parable, in viewof the fact that his own novels (especially the Narnian

tales) are parablesof such enormous power and wisdom.

This, of course, is not to say that every work of literature offers aworld

view. The comedy is not necessarily saying that life is finally ajoke, nor

is the whodunit perforce telling us that the ills of the worldhave a neat

and gratifying solution right at hand, if we could only be perceptiveenough

to see. Even Freud realized that sometimes a cigar is just a goodcigar.

We have affirmed, with minor reservations, Lewis’s reasoning that a workof

literature possesses value in itself. Now we turn back to his thesisof

intrinsic value as applied to all of life, his corrective to a

totallyrelativistic value (or rather nonvalue) system. Sensitive persons who

havefelt their meaning-world collapse around them know how dehumanizing

feltmeaninglessness is. Lewis knew whereof he spoke. (People who

experiencethis collapse without pain are even more dehumanized.) As to the

end resultof consistent subjectivism, the world of the Controllers, Lewis’s

portraitsof Jadis and the directors of the NICE tell us more vividly than

his discursiveprose just how nightmarish such a world would be.

Within the context of a basic agreement, once more we offer a

qualifier.Consistent and total subjectivism we certainly do not want, and we

knowwhy. But subjectivism and relativism can be good things sometimes;

theycan be freeing. People with a sharp and absolute vision are not often

asbroad in mental sympathies and as rich in charity as Lewis; they tend

moretowards psychological imperialism. Many of us, Lewis included, would

ratherlive among people who hold firmly that “Love thy neighbor as

thyself”is the only universally binding principle in personal morality,

leavingto the individual’s own judgment this rule’s application to sexual

ethics,the role of women, or to political allegiance- than among people who

knowin detail God’s will for other private lives as well as for their own

andare busy trying to bring about theocracy. Theocracy is one of our

oldestbanes, and one that Lewis particularly detested.

In conclusion, Lewis’s teaching about Natural Law has acquired uniqueurgency

since his day. He published Abolition in 1947; since thenthere have been

radical shifts in the locus and imminence of threat to theworld. The danger

of nuclear armaments was obvious in 1947, but there werenot enough in

existence then to destroy all life on earth. Only part ofthe public foresaw

the cancer-like proliferation of nuclear weapons thatwould soon threaten to

destroy human life (and our libraries and literaryheritage), and to cause a

nuclear winter. This scenario sounds like theend of the world as foretold in

the Norse mythology that Lewis found socompelling.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the threat of worldwide

destructioncaused by weaponry is far more diffuse. Biological and nuclear

tools ofmodern death technology (as well as possible new alternatives) are

soughtby power-hungry men with many motives. In 1932 Lewis published the

allegoricalPilgrim’s Regress, in which he warned that savage dwarfs called

“theCruels” were then multiplying; communists, fascists, organized

crimesyndicates, and many other sub-species that value violence and a

perversekind of heroism. It seems reasonable to assume that he would have

includedcontemporary perpetrators of genocide and terrorist groups of all

kindsas sub-species of the Cruels.

Lewis sensed, by 1955, the increasing power of modern death technology.In

The Magician’s Nephew Jadis decided to use the Deplorable Word,a weapon she

had paid a terrible price to obtain. A moment later every livingthing in the

world of Charn was dead. She did this in outright defianceof Natural Law.

The fate of Charn can be read as Lewis’s commentary on possiblelarge-scale

use of today’s arsenal.

In 1956 Lewis published The Last Battle, in which the land ofNarnia died

away more gradually than the land of Charn, ending in ice. “Yes,and I did

hope,” said Jill, “That it might go on forever. I knewour world couldn’t”

(160). Lewis always assumed that our earth hasto die eventually, but he

would have been intensely grieved by today’s accelerateddestruction of the

environment caused not by acts of war, but by recklessplundering and

pollution in defiance of the Natural Law. (Obvious examplesare depletion of

the ozone layer, burning of the rain forests, accumulationof nuclear waste,

and contamination of the oceans.)

In Aslan’s beautiful everlasting country Peter found that Lucy was

cryingbecause of the death of Narnia, and he tried to stop her. But Lucy

appealedto the law in all our hearts and said she was sure it was not wrong

to mournthe death of the world they dearly loved. And Tirian, last king of

Narnia,affirmed her. “It were no virtue, but grave discourtesy, if we didnot

mourn” (160).

The Natural Law teaches us to fight to save our world from death, and,should

it die, to mourn its destruction. But C.S. Lewis predicted that theNatural

Law itself will outlast all worlds. And he promises us a new lifethat will

be the Great Story which goes on for ever, in which every chapteris better

than the one before (184). And all who live that story will bereceivers.

The Abolition of Man. New York: Macmillan, 1947.

Christian Reflections. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967.

The Last Battle. London: The Bodley Head, 1956.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. New York: Macmillan, 1950.

Mere Christianity. New York: Macmillan, 1953.

Poems. New York: Harcourt, 1964.