Monday, July 10, 2006
The Meaning of the Universe
Key To Understanding The Meaning of the Universe
I’m reading Mere Christianity.
CS Lewis wrote that every culture has the same moral laws in common. He labels moral law as one of the keys to understanding the meaning of the universe.
"Now this Law or Rule about Right and Wrong used to be called the Law ofNature. Nowadays, when we talk of the 'laws of nature' we usually meanthings like gravitation, or heredity, or the laws of chemistry. But whenthe older thinkers called the Law of Right and Wrong 'the Law of Nature,'they really meant the Law of Human Nature. The idea was that, just as allbodies are governed by the law of gravitation, and organisms by biologicallaws, so the creature called man also had this law - with this greatdifference, that a body could not choose whether it obeyed the law ofgravitation or not, but a man could choose either to obey the Law of HumanNature or to disobey it."
Two examples (of hundreds), there is no culture that honors theft over work or cowardice over bravery. And since this moral law is common in all culture, it is as certain as the law of gravity. Although with gravity, man has no choice of whether he can obey it-and with moral law man can choose whether or not to obey it.
I conclude then, that though the difference between people's ideas of Decent Behaviour often make you suspect that there is no real natural Law of Behaviour at all, yet the things we are bound to think about these differences really prove just the opposite. But one word before I end. I have met people who exaggerate the differences, because they have not distinguished between difference of morality and differences of belief about facts. For example, one man said to me, 'Three hundred years ago people in England were putting witches to death. Was that what you call the Rule of Human Nature or Right Conduct?' But surely the reason we do not execute witches is that we do not believe there are such things. If we did — if we really thought that there were people going about who had sold themselves to the devil and received supernatural powers from him in return and were using these powers to kill their neighbors or drive them mad or bring bad weather — surely we would all agree that if anyone deserved the death penalty, then these filthy quislings did? There is no difference of moral principle here: the difference is simple about matter of fact. It may be a great advance in knowledge not to believe in witches: there is no moral advance in not executing them when you do not think they are there. You would not call a man humane for ceasing to set mousetraps if he did so because he believes there were no mice in the house.”
So where does moral law come from? Certainly we learn from our parents, but it is not enough to say it is learned if it is true of all of us.
I believe it begins with God. It is one of the reasons I have little trouble believing that God created the world as it is described in Genesis. We learn that everything God created was good. He made man and woman in His image. We gained knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Evil. It may be too simple for some, but it makes perfect sense to me.
I’m reading Mere Christianity.
CS Lewis wrote that every culture has the same moral laws in common. He labels moral law as one of the keys to understanding the meaning of the universe.
"Now this Law or Rule about Right and Wrong used to be called the Law ofNature. Nowadays, when we talk of the 'laws of nature' we usually meanthings like gravitation, or heredity, or the laws of chemistry. But whenthe older thinkers called the Law of Right and Wrong 'the Law of Nature,'they really meant the Law of Human Nature. The idea was that, just as allbodies are governed by the law of gravitation, and organisms by biologicallaws, so the creature called man also had this law - with this greatdifference, that a body could not choose whether it obeyed the law ofgravitation or not, but a man could choose either to obey the Law of HumanNature or to disobey it."
Two examples (of hundreds), there is no culture that honors theft over work or cowardice over bravery. And since this moral law is common in all culture, it is as certain as the law of gravity. Although with gravity, man has no choice of whether he can obey it-and with moral law man can choose whether or not to obey it.
I conclude then, that though the difference between people's ideas of Decent Behaviour often make you suspect that there is no real natural Law of Behaviour at all, yet the things we are bound to think about these differences really prove just the opposite. But one word before I end. I have met people who exaggerate the differences, because they have not distinguished between difference of morality and differences of belief about facts. For example, one man said to me, 'Three hundred years ago people in England were putting witches to death. Was that what you call the Rule of Human Nature or Right Conduct?' But surely the reason we do not execute witches is that we do not believe there are such things. If we did — if we really thought that there were people going about who had sold themselves to the devil and received supernatural powers from him in return and were using these powers to kill their neighbors or drive them mad or bring bad weather — surely we would all agree that if anyone deserved the death penalty, then these filthy quislings did? There is no difference of moral principle here: the difference is simple about matter of fact. It may be a great advance in knowledge not to believe in witches: there is no moral advance in not executing them when you do not think they are there. You would not call a man humane for ceasing to set mousetraps if he did so because he believes there were no mice in the house.”
So where does moral law come from? Certainly we learn from our parents, but it is not enough to say it is learned if it is true of all of us.
I believe it begins with God. It is one of the reasons I have little trouble believing that God created the world as it is described in Genesis. We learn that everything God created was good. He made man and woman in His image. We gained knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Evil. It may be too simple for some, but it makes perfect sense to me.
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