Mere Christianity, Chapter 8 - Part A
In this chapter, Lewis touches makes three noteworthy arguments on the way that god and the universe work. In this post I will focus on the first and second arguments and my perspectives. I will follow up with the third argument in two separate posts, because that argument itself consists of four parts.
Lewis' first argument is that evil is a by-product of free will - That just as parents give children the freedom to clean their room when they'd like, the they also give them the freedom to leave it a mess, god has given us the freedom to live as we like, but that also carries the possibility of us living badly.
This is a short term argument, that ignores learning and the possibility for growth and change. It is precisely because of the learning and growth that a parent gives this responsibility to the children, and the children do learn and grow, and eventually value it enough to teach to their own children. If a devil exists with superior intelligence to that of humans, it wouldn't have got very far with this before observing that its evilness is self-defeating. It seems incoherent to assume that children will eventually grow up and learn to clean their rooms, and yet expecting a superhuman being capable of manipulating human lives and societies to never observe the results.
Lewis' second argument is that the great sin committed by humanity - the original sin - was humans selfishly wanting to 'be like the gods,' pursuing some sort of individual happiness outside of god, and that this has led to all the hurt in human experience. He explains is as though we are putting the wrong fuel in the car of human society, and as a result the car will continually break down.
This directly contradicts his free will argument. If there is no happiness outside of god, then really there is no free will. People will pursue that which they believe will make them happy. If there is really only one way to achieve happiness, then there is really no choice for humans as to how they should behave. What appears to be free choice is merely confusion. The only difference between ourselves and automata is that the automata would know how to find happiness, whereas we would have to rely on trial and error, suffering punishments at God's hands until we figure it out.
Lewis' first argument is that evil is a by-product of free will - That just as parents give children the freedom to clean their room when they'd like, the they also give them the freedom to leave it a mess, god has given us the freedom to live as we like, but that also carries the possibility of us living badly.
This is a short term argument, that ignores learning and the possibility for growth and change. It is precisely because of the learning and growth that a parent gives this responsibility to the children, and the children do learn and grow, and eventually value it enough to teach to their own children. If a devil exists with superior intelligence to that of humans, it wouldn't have got very far with this before observing that its evilness is self-defeating. It seems incoherent to assume that children will eventually grow up and learn to clean their rooms, and yet expecting a superhuman being capable of manipulating human lives and societies to never observe the results.
Lewis' second argument is that the great sin committed by humanity - the original sin - was humans selfishly wanting to 'be like the gods,' pursuing some sort of individual happiness outside of god, and that this has led to all the hurt in human experience. He explains is as though we are putting the wrong fuel in the car of human society, and as a result the car will continually break down.
This directly contradicts his free will argument. If there is no happiness outside of god, then really there is no free will. People will pursue that which they believe will make them happy. If there is really only one way to achieve happiness, then there is really no choice for humans as to how they should behave. What appears to be free choice is merely confusion. The only difference between ourselves and automata is that the automata would know how to find happiness, whereas we would have to rely on trial and error, suffering punishments at God's hands until we figure it out.
posted by Me at 3:22 AM
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