Mere Moral Argument
The moral argument for God as lain out by C.S. Lewis in, Mere Christianity.
by: Samuel Ronicker September 2014
This article will seek to set out the moral argument for God as C. S. Lewis presents it in the first “book” of his momentous work, Mere Christianity. This text was first published in 1952 partly based on a series of radio lectures given from 1942 to 1944. If you have never read it, you should add it to your reading list; it is considered by many to be one of the best apologetics works of the 20th century. Lewis’ style is powerful as he lays out an argument that points to the existence of God based on moral intuition. Lewis was famous as an atheist who set out to disprove Christianity and ended up, as he describes his conversion in Surprised by Joy: “In … 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God … perhaps the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.” In order to cover as much of this work as possible this article will attempt to summarize each chapter of the first section in order, future editions of the Christian Apologetics Alliance newsletter will feature expositions of the rest of the text. Also of note, because there are multiple editions page numbers will not be referenced rather chapter and section headings only as they haven’t changed much through the different revisions. Without further introduction:
Book One; Right and Wrong as a Clue to the Meaning of the Universe
Chapter One; The Law of Human Nature
This section contains the foundation for the rest of the arguments throughout the text. Without a Law of Human Nature any dispute is empty. Lewis uses the example of two people quarreling, and when two people argue, they generally do not dismiss the other person’s standards. They actually agree on a standard that there is such a thing as right behavior. In the typical quarrel, each person attempts to justify his or her actions within an accepted moral standard. As Lewis puts it:
It looks, in fact, very much as if both parties had in mind some kind of Law or Rule of fair play or decent behaviour or morality or whatever you like to call it, about which they really agreed. And they have. If they had not, they might, of course, fight like animals, but they could not quarrel in the human sense of the word. Quarreling means trying to show that the other man is in the wrong. And there would be no sense in trying to do that unless you and he had some sort of agreement as to what Right and Wrong are; just as there would be no sense in saying that a footballer had committed a foul unless there was some agreement about the rules of football.So, if there’s no such thing as right, then there’s also no such thing as wrong. Though this law is not like the Laws of Nature (i.e. gravity). One important difference is that humans can disobey this law. There can be exceptions to the Law of Human nature, just as there are occasionally people who are colorblind or tone-deaf. Lewis handles one important objection right away here. Some skeptics claim that morality is totally different in different cultures, but this is missing an important point. Just because there are differences, does not dismiss that all cultures have a sense of right and wrong. The clearest example is in this simple quote, “Men have differed as to whether you should have one wife or four. But they have always agreed that you must not simply have any woman you liked.”
To read the full article click here: http://www.christianapologeticsalliance.com/2014/10/18/equipped-vol-1-no-1/
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