Lewis on the Moral Law

C.S. Lewis' work is considered by many to be the foundation for modern Christian apologetics. It seems appropriate, then, that I should summarize some of his arguments here. I am going to attempt to systematically work through several of his most well-respected works. I'm beginning with Mere Christianity. Before we bite off the first small piece, I should mention that these arguments are not new. Really, they were not even new when Lewis discussed them. This brings out an important fact that we need to remember whenever we are trying to convince someone of something, and especially with apologetics. Just because we think an argument is water-tight, or it's novel to us, does not mean the person we are talking with has not already heard it and considered it. They might not have, be we need to give them the benefit of at least listening if they say they have. People have been debating the argument from morality for hundreds, even thousands of years. That does not mean it is not worth looking at, and mentioning at the appropriate times, but it is something we need to be aware of.

The argument from morality has as its base the idea that there is a sense of right and wrong present in you and me. At this point in time, we are not attempting to identify what is right and what is wrong, nor are we attempting to name the source. All we are saying is that every human has an innate sense of right and wrong.

The evidence for this moral law is all around us in everyday life. When we get cut off in traffic, we think that's wrong. Even if we don't get quite as enraged, we even think it's wrong when someone else gets cut off; something that doesn't directly affect us. We like to root for the underdog, because there is something right about him working hard and earning the win in the end. It is said that even criminals, those who we might argue do not have this sense of right and wrong, have a "code". Crimes against children and the elderly are punished by the criminals within the jail.

Some may argue that this sense of right and wrong is a societal thing, a learned behavior. There are, after all, cultures that do not have the same ideas of what is right and what is wrong. Lewis point out: "If anyone will take the trouble to compare the moral teachings of, say, the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Hindus, Chinese, Greeks, and Romans, what will really strike him will be how very like they are to each other and to our own." While the tribes of the amazon rain forest who have not had contact with the world as a whole may have different laws and standards, certain things always hold true to some extent. These things make up the Moral Law.