"Bad" Rocks and "Bad" Trees
Mere Christianity, Book I, Chapter 3: The Reality of the Law
In this chapter, Lewis continues to describe the characteristics of the Moral Law we all find pressing on us, specifically, the fact that humans break the Moral Law. His first illustration concerns rocks and trees. "If you take a thing like a stone or a tree, it is what it is and there seems to be no sense in saying it ought to have been otherwise." A stone or a tree could be inconvenient to us at one point, due to it's shape or size, but it would be silly to say that it is "bad" and blame it, for it is simply following the laws of it's nature, just the same as a rock or tree that is convenient to us. So that rock or tree is obeying the Natural Laws. If you drop a rock, it will fall to the ground. This is the Law of Gravity. But these Natural Laws are not really laws as we usually mean. "You do not really think that when a stone is let go, it suddenly remembers that it is under orders to fall to the ground." That would be silly! So, Natural Laws are really just statements of fact; they describes what things always do. If you drop a rock it will always fall to the ground. The Law of Gravity doesn't say, a rock "ought" to fall to the ground when dropped, but it says the rock will fall.
Natural Laws and the Law of Human Nature, then, are very different. The Law of Human Nature is how people ought to behave, not how we actually do behave. It is, in most cases, the opposite of how we do behave. So this law is something above and beyond the facts. "You have the facts (how men do behave) and you also have something else (how they ought to behave). In the rest of the universe there need not be anything but the facts."
There are three ways to explain this difference. Some explain it by saying that when someone doesn't act the way they should, it is the same as when a rock or tree is the wrong shape and thus inconvenient in some way. That persons behavior is "wrong" simply because it causes an inconvenience to you. Lewis shows that this explanation doesn't hold up. "I am not angry -- except perhaps for a moment before I come to my senses -- with a man who trips me up by accident; I am angry with a man who tries to trip me up even if he does not succeed. Yet the first has hurt me and the second has not." Behaving the way we should is often, in fact, the inconvenient thing to do. It would be easier to tell everyone than to keep the secret, easier to cheat than to do the studying, easier to lie than to tell the truth, etc. So this explanation falls short.
The second explanation is that good behavior is just whatever benefits society. This is true to a point. You cannot have a good society without people who are honest and fair. But this does not really explain anything. It is just a statement of fact. "If we ask: 'Why ought I to be unselfish?' and you reply 'Because it is good for society,' we may then ask, 'Why should I care what's good for society except when it happens to pay me personally?' and then you will have to say, 'Because you ought to be unselfish' -- which simply brings us back to where we started." So, we really haven't answered the question.
The third explanation is the only one. The Law of Human Nature, Right and Wrong, how we ought to behave, is something very real (we know this from the previous chapters) but it is also something unlike any other law in the universe -- "a real law, which none of us made, but which we find pressing on us." So if it is real, and not something we made up, and is different than anything in the known universe, where did it come from?
We'll look at that next time.
What I am loving so much about reading this book is how it makes me use my brain in ways I haven't for a really long time! It is easy to go through the motions of life without really working these things out or even bothering to wonder about what Moral Law is and where it comes from and why it is there. It is nice to remember that I have a brain in my head that can think about things.
Thanks for reading!!!
In this chapter, Lewis continues to describe the characteristics of the Moral Law we all find pressing on us, specifically, the fact that humans break the Moral Law. His first illustration concerns rocks and trees. "If you take a thing like a stone or a tree, it is what it is and there seems to be no sense in saying it ought to have been otherwise." A stone or a tree could be inconvenient to us at one point, due to it's shape or size, but it would be silly to say that it is "bad" and blame it, for it is simply following the laws of it's nature, just the same as a rock or tree that is convenient to us. So that rock or tree is obeying the Natural Laws. If you drop a rock, it will fall to the ground. This is the Law of Gravity. But these Natural Laws are not really laws as we usually mean. "You do not really think that when a stone is let go, it suddenly remembers that it is under orders to fall to the ground." That would be silly! So, Natural Laws are really just statements of fact; they describes what things always do. If you drop a rock it will always fall to the ground. The Law of Gravity doesn't say, a rock "ought" to fall to the ground when dropped, but it says the rock will fall.
Natural Laws and the Law of Human Nature, then, are very different. The Law of Human Nature is how people ought to behave, not how we actually do behave. It is, in most cases, the opposite of how we do behave. So this law is something above and beyond the facts. "You have the facts (how men do behave) and you also have something else (how they ought to behave). In the rest of the universe there need not be anything but the facts."
There are three ways to explain this difference. Some explain it by saying that when someone doesn't act the way they should, it is the same as when a rock or tree is the wrong shape and thus inconvenient in some way. That persons behavior is "wrong" simply because it causes an inconvenience to you. Lewis shows that this explanation doesn't hold up. "I am not angry -- except perhaps for a moment before I come to my senses -- with a man who trips me up by accident; I am angry with a man who tries to trip me up even if he does not succeed. Yet the first has hurt me and the second has not." Behaving the way we should is often, in fact, the inconvenient thing to do. It would be easier to tell everyone than to keep the secret, easier to cheat than to do the studying, easier to lie than to tell the truth, etc. So this explanation falls short.
The second explanation is that good behavior is just whatever benefits society. This is true to a point. You cannot have a good society without people who are honest and fair. But this does not really explain anything. It is just a statement of fact. "If we ask: 'Why ought I to be unselfish?' and you reply 'Because it is good for society,' we may then ask, 'Why should I care what's good for society except when it happens to pay me personally?' and then you will have to say, 'Because you ought to be unselfish' -- which simply brings us back to where we started." So, we really haven't answered the question.
The third explanation is the only one. The Law of Human Nature, Right and Wrong, how we ought to behave, is something very real (we know this from the previous chapters) but it is also something unlike any other law in the universe -- "a real law, which none of us made, but which we find pressing on us." So if it is real, and not something we made up, and is different than anything in the known universe, where did it come from?
We'll look at that next time.
What I am loving so much about reading this book is how it makes me use my brain in ways I haven't for a really long time! It is easy to go through the motions of life without really working these things out or even bothering to wonder about what Moral Law is and where it comes from and why it is there. It is nice to remember that I have a brain in my head that can think about things.
Thanks for reading!!!
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