What Lies Behind the Law

In Chapter 4, Lewis tries to apply what we've learned in the previous 3 chapters. In doing so, he will discuss three competing worldviews. I want to go ahead and define those 3 views up front, so that we can carry on our discussion without having to interrupt with any elucidations (my word for the day) on a bunch of "Isms."

1. Materialism - This is the idea that matter and energy exist, with no "first cause." 

Matter and space just happen to exist, and always have existed, nobody knows why; and that matter, behaving in certain fixed ways, has just happened ... to produce creatures like ourselves who are able to think. (22)

2.  Religion - In this viewpoint, there is a Something behind all that we see and know, which closely resembles a mind. This Something made the universe and steered it in some way to produce creatures like us. Note that this view is not necessarily the one Christians would espouse. Whether it's Apsu and Tiamat, or Truth creating the world from a cosmic egg, or even the purposefully absurdist Flying Spaghetti Monster, as long as there is a personality steering the world to produce mankind, you've got the basics of a Religious worldview.


3. Life-Force - This worldview is positioned somewhere in-between the Materialist and the Religious. Conscious beings did not evolve by random chance (as in the Materialist view), but rather evolution was guided by some nebulously defined Life-Force. This view teeters on the edge of a philosophical knife; if these folks invest too much "personality" into this Life-Force, it begins to look like a mind and thus they land in the Religious camp. If they pull back and make the Life-Force less personal, it becomes a bit silly to say that it can guide anything, and they wind up Materialists.

With that out of the way, let's consider the implications of where we ended in the last chapter. We concluded that there is a "real law which we did not invent and which we know we ought to obey" (21). Let us consider which worldview gives us the best explanation of this odd phenomenon.

Along the way, notice that science can't really tell us which view is the right one. Science is good at answering questions about why mixtures of baking soda and vinegar make for great science fair projects, or when to look at the sky to see a meteor shower (April 21-22 for the Lyrid meteor shower, if you're interested), or even answering the ever popular "how are babies made" question parents everywhere dread. Science is much less good at answering big "Why" questions, like "why is there something rather than nothing?" Or, more to our point: "Is there something behind volcanos and meteors and babies?" As Lewis notes:

If there is 'Something Behind', then either it will have to remain altogether unknown to men or else make itself known some different [i.e. non-scientific] way. The statement that there is any such thing, and the statement that there is no such thing, are neither of them statements that science can make. (23)

So how are we to answer this thorny question, then, if Science cannot help us?  If we cannot experiment on the world around us, and we don't want to resort to arguing about random creation myths we looked up on Wikipedia, what can we do? Lewis suggests looking at the one thing in the universe we can see from the inside: Man. We might have some hope at answering 'Something Behind' questions when we study ourselves. If that Something does exist, it couldn't very well reveal itself "as one of the facts inside the universe - no more than the architect of a house could actually be a wall or staircase or fireplace in that house" (24).  The only place we could look for It would be inside ourselves (again, since Science can't really answer these sorts of "big" questions). And if we do look inside ourselves, we see a hint of something Bigger. Or as Lewis phrases it:

I find that I do not exist on my own, that I am under a law; that somebody or something wants me to behave in a certain way... I expect to find that there [is] ... a Power behind the facts, a Director, a Guide.

Lewis cautions us that we have hardly arrived at the God of Christianity; we've just arrived at a Something directing the universe, which implanted a Moral Law in us. We'll assume for the moment that it is basically a sort of Mind; at least partly because it wouldn't make sense for the Something to be just matter (how would matter inspire the Rule of Human Nature?). The next chapter will pick up with this assumption and push a little closer to what Christians believe.

I will end with an observation Lewis makes (and a song it reminds me of) when discussing the Life-Force worldview at the end of the chapter. He points out that people find this worldview comforting because they get just enough God to feel good about believing in Him, but not enough to keep them from doing whatever they want. I can't help feeling Jack is describing the average "American Christian" today. When we are feeling depressed or worry that our life has no meaning, we can lean on this just-enough-God to pull us out of our funk and reassure us that everything will be ok. On the other hand, if I really want to do something selfish (like, say, pretend to be asleep so my wife has to go get our crying baby when she's more tired than I am), then I'll just stuff Him in the back of my junk drawer and do what I want. "All the thrills of religion and none of the cost" (27). I find myself singing this song and praying that God will help me to avoid this idolatry by seeing Him for who He really is.

Cardboard cutouts on the floor 

People wish that you were more like what they wanted you to be

Eventually they won't have much of you at all in their theology 

The walls are closing in on you

You cannot be contained at all

(Chorus)

I don't want to make you small

I don't want to fit you in my pocket

A cross around my throat

You are brighter than the sun 

You're closer than the tiny thoughts I have of you

But I could never fathom you at all

Broken moldings all around

Broken people hit the ground 

When they discover that you're not here for our benefit

You love in spite of us

You use the least of us to prove the strong aren't really strong at all