Scott Freeman

Reading C.S.: The Great Divorce, The Abolition of Man and Miracles

I opted against taking a break from reading C.S. primarily because I am anxious to get to his Narnia series and secondly because the majority of these books are brief allowing me to read through them rather quickly. And with the wife and kids out of town all week I have even more time to sit and read.

The Great Divorce

This book is Lewis’ classic allegory on heaven and hell. In the book, which can be read in a couple of hours, Lewis takes a bus ride from hell into heaven along with several other passengers. Lewis is then able to witness the interactions between those souls in heaven and those who have the opportunity to change their fate. Ultimately, this is a fantasy and a tremendous read and is not to be taken as a position on soteriology by Lewis.
However, as Lewis often does, he is reacting to beliefs that he feels are prominent in his time. In this case it is the view that all roads lead to God. It is the authors belief that our eternal destination is one of choice and as these souls encounter their moment of decision we see many of them defying reason and opting to return to that gray city that stands in for hell. It is one of Lewis’ finest works:

There have been men before now who got so interested in proving the existence of God that they came to care nothing for God Himself…as if the good Lord had nothing to do but exist! There have been some who were so occupied in spreading Christianity that they never gave a thought to Christ.

There is something in natural affection which will lead it on to eternal love more easily than natural appetite could be led on. But there’s also something which makes it easier to stop at the natural level and mistake it for the heavenly. Brass is mistaken for gold more easily than clay is. And if it finally refuses conversion its corruption will be worse than the corruption of what ye call the lower passions. It is a stronger angel, and therefore, when it falls, a fiercer devil.

Grade: A

The Abolition of Man

This work is from a series of lectures that Lewis gave in 1943 but not published until 1947. So, although the production date was after That Hideous Strength the material predates the final installment of the Space Trilogy. As a result, it serves as a perfect companion to Lewis’ Science Fiction and shows the motivation for writing that final book.
The subtitle is a lengthy one: Or Reflections on Education With Special Reference to the Teaching of English In the Upper Forms of School. The purpose of Lewis here is not explicitly Christian but is more a defense of Natural Law. Although it’s not necessarily leisurely reading there are several profound nuggets that make it a worthwhile investment. In addition, as noted, it is the inspiration behind That Hideous Strength.
The first lecture, titled Men Without Chests (not to be confused with “The Safety Dance” guys), is more of a reaction to an English textbook that Lewis had discovered. He viewed the textbook of devaluing an external and objective truth in favor of individual feelings. Lewis was concerned about the subjugation of “value” to individual “feelings.” For Lewis there is a moral law that engulfs all of life and education is not to eradicate that but instead to inform. One of his best quotes:

For every one pupil who needs to be guarded from a weak excess of sensibility there are three who need to be awakened from the slumber of cold vulgarity. The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts.

In the second section, The Way, Lewis tries to illustrate the false dichotomy of the aforementioned English Text by pointing out that the authors, in trying to stamp out an external “value” propagate a competing and likewise external “value.”

The true weight of the book, however, is in the final lecture “The Abolition of Man.” Here we see first hand the “attack” on the “moral law”, or what Lewis would call the Tao, that would drive so much of Lewis’ ire and writing. In it, just as in Hideous Strength, he fears that the onslaught of eugenics will result in the creation of a new humanity, or a post-human.

To some it will appear that I am inventing a factitious difficulty for my Conditioners. Other, more simple-minded, critics may ask “Why should you suppose they will be such bad men?” But I am not supposing them to be bad men. They are, rather, not men (in the old sense) at all. They are, if you like, men who have sacrificed their own share in traditional humanity in order to devote themselves to the task of deciding what “Humanity” shall henceforth mean. “Good” and “bad,” applied to them, are words without content: for it is from them that the content of these words is henceforward to be derived.

One of the questions before them is whether this feeling for posterity (they know well how it is produced) shall be continued or not. However far they go back, or down, they can find no ground to stand on. Every motive they try to act on becomes at once a petitio. It is not that they are bad men. They are not men at all. Stepping outside the Tao, they have stepped into the void. Nor are their subjects necessarily unhappy men. They are not men at all: they are artifacts. Man’s final conquest has proved to be the abolition of Man.

Ultimately, for Lewis, to proceed with science by dismissing or marginalizing the Tao is a huge mistake. He will passionately write against this throughout his works. Not an easy read but a highly enjoyable one. The appendix is a great addition laying out many sources of moral law from a wealth of traditions. Grade: A-

Miracles

I remember now why I quit reading C.S. Lewis. After writing so many wonderful works in a row he was bound to let me down. In my memory I had that I had read this book. I knew that it was assigned to me in one of my undergrad courses. However, in looking at the copy I had from those days my underlining, highlighting and notes in the margins ended at about page 8. I guess I knew then what was to be, for me, an insufferable work.
I view Miracles as a series of false dichotomies and strawmen that are dismissive of naturalism altogether. Although I am naturally disposed to agree with Lewis that there is a presence of the supernatural in this world, his dismissal of naturalism is tenuous and weak. He takes an a priori assumption that reason must be supernatural and works it back into his argument without sufficient explanation. If you want to start with the premise that there is that which can only be classified as supernatural that is fine. Lewis is a Christian and that is his prerogative. But to make your starting point a look at Nature and then so matter of factly dismiss the possibility that reason can stem from nature is second-rate apologetics.
In addition he makes the false conclusion that those who adhere to naturalism must believe and assent to the notion of a rigid determinism.
I know I might be unduly harsh on Lewis here (not like anybody is still reading at this point) but apologetics in the first place is tricky business and, ultimately, unsatisfying. Regardless of the approach you take the ultimate conclusion for any Christian must be “I can’t prove it, I will never prove it in this life. Yet, I believe.” That does not mean that apologetics is fruitless. However, it is fruitless to hang your theological and evangelistic hat on the missing pages of proof.
In the final analysis if this was the first book of Lewis’ I had endeavored to read it would also have been the last. Grade: C-