Friday, January 2, 2009

The Abolition of Man

By way of an opening disclosure, I am a shameless fan of the writings of C.S. Lewis.  If you are not a fan, I would advise you in the same fashion that Lewis often "sign posted" his own works and move on to the next blog entry which may be of use to you.  
Most of us are familiar with Lewis's metaphorical gospel story presented in The Chronicles of Narnia.  They are great books for children and I admit I have re-read them again as an adult couched in the excuse that I was "doing it for the kids".  Recently, I have grown to appreciate other writings of Lewis in Christian thought and apologetics.  I have been reading The Abolition of Man - a compilation of 3 essays originally published in 1944 in which Lewis discusses the relevance and importance of objective universal values like courage, honour etc.  What I found interesting was the striking relationship of the ideas in this book to more recently published works on moral relativism and ethical issues like Beckwith and Koukl's Relativism - Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air.  From the second essay "The Way" Lewis states
This thing which I have called for convenience The Tao, and which others may call Natural Law or Traditional Morality or  the First Principles of Practical Reason or the First Platitudes, is not one among a series of possible systems of value.  It is the sole source of all value judgements.  If it is rejected, all value is rejected.  If any value is retained, it is retained.  The effort to refute it and raise a new system of value in its place is self-contradictory... The human mind has no more power of inventing a new value than of imagining a new primary colour, or, indeed, of creating a new sun and new sky for it move in.

For those of you who find Lewis's writing style a little wordy, most of his works are available in audio book format through iTunes.  Having someone else reading kept some of  those long sentence structures a little more understandable!  Not to mention I managed to get through Mere Christianity while driving around Christmas shopping.

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