THE ABOLITION OF MAN

By Jill Roberts and Michael Canale

Back in 1995, I attended a seminary named Simon Greenleaf School of Christian Apologetics. As a Christian, believing strongly in the Great Commission, and, as an attorney, accustomed to being an advocate for my legal position in court, this school met all of my needs. In this academic setting, I learned to take my lawyering skills and apply them to being a better spokesperson for the Faith or a prepared Christian apologist. As part of my coursework, I took a seminar on C.S. Lewis, probably the most brilliant Christian apologist of the twentieth century. One of my assignments in this course, was to write a paper on Lewis’ masterpiece, “The Abolition of Man.” During my recent move to Santa Monica, I ran across this paper among other forgotten things. This past week, Michael and I read this work, and he suggested that its subject is highly relevant in today’s world and that we should write our next blog with it as its centerpiece. Thus, here it is – a voice from the past, covering a topic that is timely, speaking through the decades a warning about our world as it presently exists.

For a paper which ultimately concerns itself with transcendent philosophical themes, “The Abolition of Man,” begins in a manner so simple and unassuming as to cause us to wonder what this genius author is going to write:

“I doubt we are sufficiently attentive to the importance of elementary text-books.”

It is a very ordinary beginning to an extraordinary text. The backstory of this statement is that two writers of a school textbook had gifted Lewis with a copy of their most recent schoolbook. Probably expecting kudos, they must have been extremely surprised that Lewis wrote a book about their book, i.e. “The Abolition of Man,” in which he ascribes the general content of this textbook as containing a course of study, if taken to heart and applied in one’s life, as something that would literally bring down civilization as we know it. While Lewis protects the identities of these two textbook authors, he, in no way, offers the slightest quarter to their methods of learning. His treatise is a worthy central theme for our blog.

What is it, then, that so offended C.S. Lewis and should offend and aggrieve us today? In summary, these textbook writers wrote that there is no objective truth, no objective value. They espouse the idea that truth can vary, as subjective opinions do, and that this is both valid and good. In response, Lewis wrote in “The Abolition of Man,” that,

“The head rules the belly through the chest…In a sort of ghastly simplicity, we remove the organ and demand function. We make men without chests and expect virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.”

Lewis says that such textbooks as this have the disastrous effect of producing, as just stated, “what may be called men without chests.”

How does such a consequence play out in the lives of a society? How often today, do we hear people say, “You have your truth; good for you; you need this.” (Usually, this is related to one’s religious belief.) The implication is that this other person is saying, “I have my truth, too, and it differs greatly from yours.” Lewis would say and logic mandates that two “truths,” which are diametrically opposed to each other, cannot both be true, regardless of how sincerely that belief is held.

For example, in math, 4+4 is 8, and someone who sincerely believes it is 9 is just sincerely wrong. Subjective feelings do not constitute truth unless they meet the necessary standard of an objective truth or value, and, to Lewis, a noble one at that.

The title of his book, “The Abolition of Man,” is not at all an exaggeration of the consequences of a world without core, objective value. Lewis states that mankind will be abolished in a society that lacks this. While he, as strong a Christian as ever lived, does not, in this book, focus on any given religion in support of his premise, he, instead, says that all religions have some standard value system against which truth, or the lack of it, must be measured. His proposition, which advances the conclusion that we are in danger of being abolished, is, nonetheless, on bedrock Biblically. It is unquestionable and self-evident that Scripture, itself, stands for nothing less than the existence of an absolute standard. There are many examples of this in the Bible.

First, as a recent  blog discussed, we have the Ten Commandments and Jesus’ further fulfillment of them in the New Testament accounts of his teaching. These are anything but subjective moral codes. They are direct objective rules, not open to our own personal tastes or opinions. They are the North Star and not susceptible to alteration or humanity’s feelings that would circumvent their precepts.

Secondly, in Scripture, moral decline has always possessed a common thread. It is well set forth in Judges 17:6 and 21:25:

“In those days, there was no King in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” NIV

“Wait a minute!”  you may be saying. A few blogs ago, didn’t we study that it was God who decried the fact that Israel desired a King, loudly asking, “…appoint a King to lead us as all the other nations have.” (1 Samuel 8:5) NIV Yes. God even said, “They’ve rejected me as their King.” (1 Samuel 8:7) The Message.  How then, could the absence of a King, as described in the Judges’ verse, be a negative force in society? The answer is that this verse contemplated something much more profound than an Earthly King. It is, instead, about the word ”King,” as meaning God, the ultimate leader and authority with regard to objective truth, the gold standard C.S. Lewis is speaking of in “The Abolition of Man.” Because Israel was without a King in THIS sense, every man did what seemed right in his own eyes. Morally, they were rudderless and applying subjective ideas of their own – a debacle!

Michael points out that, during this Biblical era, the twelve tribes of Israel went against each other for lack of a King, i.e., a solid and uncompromising law which would have stopped short such behavior. The result was a split between eleven of the tribes and the Benjaminites and an enormous death toll on each side. As Michael says, this was a disaster, one in which the country was morally adrift. The conditions were such that there was no rule and the people were completely unruly and lawless.

And were God’s people happy at this point in their history? No, for several reasons, they were not. It was a bloodbath. There was little unity. Also, we are not created by God to be happy without the structure of an unassailable moral code. He purposely formed us to be discontented in such a state. Michael uses the word “mire,” to describe the bog that we find ourselves in without a system of objective guidelines to keep us on high ground, ethically and behaviorally. The alternative is situational ethics where the path, on which God has put us, becomes blurred for lack of the light of reliable, unchanging, principled, noble doctrine. Brought up outside such rules, mankind is necessarily narcissistic, looking only to his feelings for guidance in moral questions – never a dependable compass for determining our best direction in life.

Lewis states that even one taught wrong dogma is in a better position than those without any objective moral rudder. He gives, as the most iconic example of that, the life of Saul/Paul, a man perfect “as touching the law.” God looked down at Saul and viewed a zealot for a misguided law, but a zealot nonetheless. He clearly concluded, “Here is a man I can use,” though, at the time, Saul was literally jailing and murdering the followers of His Son, Jesus. Saul was given what he ultimately recognized as true doctrine, i.e., Christianity,  after his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus. He became a zealot again, the only personality trait he had ever known, but, this time, for great good. “All in” for Jesus, he wrote two-thirds of the New Testament, converted countless people into the Faith and died a martyr’s death for his Savior.

The problem, in Lewis’ estimation, is following gods or rules of our own making, once again, a subjective paradigm. He states that, “before an adult can discern the truth or falsity of any law or value system, he must first be steeped in some objective values.” He extends the danger zone from our schools and the textbooks they employ into society in general. The schools are only the tip of the ethical iceberg. Doing whatever one feels is right, at the time, without benefit of an objective truth learned at home, in church or at school, sets the stage for moral catastrophe.

Today, what we call moral relativism, or the idea that there is no universal or absolute system of truth, has infiltrated our world. It was a problem in Biblical times, in 1943, when Lewis wrote “The Abolition of Man,” and, as we say, today. Lewis’ warning that this could bring down civilization is no exaggeration.  “Men Without  Chests” is code for the problem. If, as he writes, we “laugh at honor,” or at other true objective values, why are we shocked to find “traitors in our midst?” As Michael wisely says, “This book is so relevant because we’re watching the internal decay of our world.” God’s eternal truths have been put aside and substituted with the subjective, the varying reign of feelings.

History tells us that society can be undone when there is an absence of inner values. Lewis described the inhabitants of such a world as “Men Without Chests.” In Judges, they were described as “Doing what was right in their own eyes.” Today, many have revised the Ten Commandments to be the “Ten Suggestions,” if these laws are acknowledged at all. God help us to open our eyes so that books like “The Abolition of Man,” are perceived in their true light, guiding us in the way everlasting.