In The Poison of Subjectivism C.S. Lewis attacks the postmodern idea that the moral law can be subject depending on the person and the culture. Lewis says,
“Out of this apparently innocent idea comes the disease that will certainly end our species if it is not crushed; the fatal superstition that men can create values, that community can choose its “ideology” as men choose their clothes.”
In a way, Lewis is furthering his argument about the moral law that he starts in Mere Christianity and the Abolition of Man. During the class one of the students made a comment that in this particular reading, it seems that Lewis has grown a bit more impatient. I have to agree on that comment as look at how Lewis progresses his ideas in this reading.
Lewis says, “This whole attempt to jettison traditional values as something subjective and to substitute a new scheme of value for them is wrong. It is like trying to lift yourself by your own coat collar.” Lewis says that it is impossible start coming up with new values without putting the traditional moral values first. In fact, he says, “the human mind has no more power of inventing a new value than of planting a new sun in the sky…” Lewis goes on to explain that any attempt to come up with a new value would only be an isolated and blown-out-of-proportion version of the traditional morality.
“The trunk to whose root the reformer would lay the axe is the only support of the particular branch he wishes to retain.”
If the standard of good is subjective, then how do we measure goodness? How do even know if we are making progress? Lewis says,
“If good is a fixed point, it is at least possible that we should get nearer and nearer to it; but if the terminus is as mobile as the train, how can the train progress towards it?”
I’m still trying to see what kind of applications I can take away from this reading by Lewis. I definitely know that what he is saying is crucial in defending my faith. The fact that there is a definite moral seen throughout all of humanity is the starting point of which Lewis starts his argument in Mere Christianity. So it is extremely important that we are able to clearly define and defend the fact that moral subjectivism is false.
I think you are right that what Lewis says is crucial to defending our faith. But because his idea are sometimes complex, they're difficult to redefine in our own words. You have the right idea though; moral subjectivism gets us nowhere. Only the one true moral law of God can.
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