Lewis’ article entitled “The Poise of Subjectivism” follows very much along the same lines as the beginning of Mere Christianity. He talks about moral values and natural law in very much the same way he did before. A point that I found interesting is when Lewis says that the Third Reich defined justice as whatever was to the interest of the Reich. If there is no absolute morality than there is no tool by which to measure one set of morals against another. It’s all relative. Yet even someone who claims to be a moral relativist will undoubtedly say that certain sets of morals are better than others. He has natural moral law hardwired in him. Morals aren’t relative and it’s obvious to every person if they are forced to make a decision.
So morals aren’t relative, and we are all born with this natural law built in. However, what we consider right and wrong is very different from the practices of the Israelites over 2000 years ago. Lewis discusses whether morals are static or dynamic. I think it’s a tough question. In class I brought up how polygamy was once moral in Israel, but pursuing other wives would go against ones conscience today. I don’t think that this is natural law so much as conditioning which Lewis also talks about. It’s a difference in time and culture. I think that diction is one of the most prime examples. Ass was just a word for a donkey for a very long time, but now people know that they shouldn’t say it. That doesn’t mean that people used to be wrong and didn’t see that it was immoral. They just had different conditioning and culture.
Natural law is like a conscience. We can tell what is wrong most of the time. I think it’s very interesting that God gave us this. No matter what culture we are born into, our conditioning usually helps to aid our God given natural laws. This was one of the more difficult readings for me, but Lewis adds important ideas to his previous chapters on natural law which has helped to fill some of the holes in my thinking on this matter.
Great post Mike. I struggle with reconciling the ideas of a moral law and cultural conditioning. It often seems to me that cultures condition people to believe things that our contrary to the moral law. I think that people can defiantly be conditioned to believe something that is contrary to the moral law that is instilled in them.
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