I am reading C.S. Lewis’ Christian Behavior, co.1943.
He speaks about morality, using a ship as an analogy for the human machine. How the human machine is doing morally affects not only himself (he may sink) but others around him (he may crash into them) and if the whole fleet of ships is sea-worthy and unified they may still be heading to the wrong port. In this way, he gives us three things that morality is concerned with: social morality, how the individual is doing in relation to other individuals; individual morality, how one is doing with himself; and ‘the general purpose of human life as a whole’.
He talks about how modern man is almost always concerning himself with the first one – how peace is coming along and whether everyone is taken care of or not – all the while seeming to think that how one is doing inside is a personal affair that does not include anyone else. I would venture to say that while this may have been true of 1943, today, most people are actually concerning themselves with the second. They still believe that how they are doing on the inside is of no consequence to each other but it is of the utmost importance: the human machine should certainly focus on self. Our culture purports the idea that one man’s morality is of no consequence to another man, and we believe this, until one man shoots a lot of other men and then we say: someone should have taken responsibility for how this human was doing inside, someone should have noticed the human machine was broken and fixed it for this is terrible amoral.
And that is where the difficulty begins according to Lewis. For everyone can agree that social morality means being good and kind to each other, but internal morality, according to our culture, cannot be the same for everyone. And yet, in action, they do believe that it should be the same for everyone, that everyone should good and kind inside: for this will facilitate the goodness and kindness they display towards their fellow man. Lastly, the general purpose of human life as a whole is not bothered with in our society. They deny that it has any relevance for the first two kinds of morality. Yet is it the very foundation. His quote is best (naturally):
“Religion involves a series of statements about fact, which must be either true or false. If they are true, one set of conclusions will follow about the right sailing of the human fleet: if they are false, quite a different set. For example, let us go back to the man who says that a thing can’t be wrong unless it hurts some other human being. He quite understands that he mustn’t damage the other ships in the convoy, but he honestly thinks that what he does to his own ship is simply his own business. But does it not make a great difference whether it really is his own ship or not? Doesn’t it make a great difference whether I am, so to speak, the landlord of my own mind and body, or only a tenant, responsible to the real landlord?
Christianity asserts that every individual human being is going to live for ever, and this must be either true or false. Now there are a good many things which wouldn’t be worth bothering about if I were going to live only seventy years…..and immortality makes this other difference, which, by and by, has a connection with the difference between totalitarianism and democracy. If individuals live only seventy years, then a state, or a nation, or a civilization, which may last for a thousand years, is more important than an individual. But if Christianity is true, then the individual is not only more important but incomparably more important, for he is everlasting and the life of the state or a civilization, compared with his, is only a moment.”
-never settle-
He speaks about morality, using a ship as an analogy for the human machine. How the human machine is doing morally affects not only himself (he may sink) but others around him (he may crash into them) and if the whole fleet of ships is sea-worthy and unified they may still be heading to the wrong port. In this way, he gives us three things that morality is concerned with: social morality, how the individual is doing in relation to other individuals; individual morality, how one is doing with himself; and ‘the general purpose of human life as a whole’.
He talks about how modern man is almost always concerning himself with the first one – how peace is coming along and whether everyone is taken care of or not – all the while seeming to think that how one is doing inside is a personal affair that does not include anyone else. I would venture to say that while this may have been true of 1943, today, most people are actually concerning themselves with the second. They still believe that how they are doing on the inside is of no consequence to each other but it is of the utmost importance: the human machine should certainly focus on self. Our culture purports the idea that one man’s morality is of no consequence to another man, and we believe this, until one man shoots a lot of other men and then we say: someone should have taken responsibility for how this human was doing inside, someone should have noticed the human machine was broken and fixed it for this is terrible amoral.
And that is where the difficulty begins according to Lewis. For everyone can agree that social morality means being good and kind to each other, but internal morality, according to our culture, cannot be the same for everyone. And yet, in action, they do believe that it should be the same for everyone, that everyone should good and kind inside: for this will facilitate the goodness and kindness they display towards their fellow man. Lastly, the general purpose of human life as a whole is not bothered with in our society. They deny that it has any relevance for the first two kinds of morality. Yet is it the very foundation. His quote is best (naturally):
“Religion involves a series of statements about fact, which must be either true or false. If they are true, one set of conclusions will follow about the right sailing of the human fleet: if they are false, quite a different set. For example, let us go back to the man who says that a thing can’t be wrong unless it hurts some other human being. He quite understands that he mustn’t damage the other ships in the convoy, but he honestly thinks that what he does to his own ship is simply his own business. But does it not make a great difference whether it really is his own ship or not? Doesn’t it make a great difference whether I am, so to speak, the landlord of my own mind and body, or only a tenant, responsible to the real landlord?
Christianity asserts that every individual human being is going to live for ever, and this must be either true or false. Now there are a good many things which wouldn’t be worth bothering about if I were going to live only seventy years…..and immortality makes this other difference, which, by and by, has a connection with the difference between totalitarianism and democracy. If individuals live only seventy years, then a state, or a nation, or a civilization, which may last for a thousand years, is more important than an individual. But if Christianity is true, then the individual is not only more important but incomparably more important, for he is everlasting and the life of the state or a civilization, compared with his, is only a moment.”
-never settle-
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