Friday, April 18, 2008

The Way

(In response to chapter 2 of Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis)

"If we lump together, as I have done, the traditional moralities of East and West, the Christian, the Pagan, and the Jew, shall we not find many contradictions and some absurdities? I admit all this. Some criticism, some removal of contradictions, even some real development, is required. But there are two very different kinds of criticism." I believe the two different kinds of criticism are those that construct and those that are just derogatory. Because this is an essay written to address problems of science and the pushing forth of technology it is important to know who Lewis's audience is when he is writing these things. Lewis is not concerned with proving the existence of God here. He is, however, concerned with providing a place for religion within the educational and scientific worlds. That we shouldn't criticize others simply because we think it is ridiculous, rather, we should only criticize to build others up.

Lewis also talked about moral advances which are harder to come by and more powerful, and how they differ from mere moral innovations. He explained that a moral innovation is that which is not hard to accept because it flows out of something from the past. A moral advance on the other hand, is something that does not flow out of a past belief. This is the very reason that a moral advance must be justified, it is harder to justify a moral advance than it is to justify an innovation. This is pertinent to his audience.

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