I’ve been
reading C.S. Lewis. Not the fun stuff, but the philosophical. Not absorbing
every word but rereading the brilliance until at least a sentence or two blows
my simple mind. I thought at one point that I might need a C.S. Lewis for Dummies. Surprise, there is one, though I’m not sure
it addresses The Abolition of Man, the
little book keeping me gloriously stupefied. I haven’t finished the book, but I
can see the journey laid out before me. One I’m not sure I want to take, but I
can’t stop now.
Other
readings of late, that is, the headlines, have brought something of a different
sort of wonderment, one leaving me stupefied on the level of repugnance. A
gruesome realization that I live in a world quickly falling into the Biblical
foresight of right becoming wrong and wrong becoming right. It’s then that I go
back to Lewis, and squint and ponder words like these, which make the headlines
seem like a follow-up:
Man’s conquest of Nature, if the
dreams of some scientific planners are realized, means the rule of a few
hundreds of men over billions upon billions of men. There neither is nor can be
any simple increase of power on Man’s side. Each new power won by man is a
power over man as well . . . I am only making clear what Man’s conquest of
Nature really means and especially that final stage in the conquest, which,
perhaps, is not far off. The final stage is come when Man by eugenics, by
pre-natal conditioning, and by an education and propaganda based on a perfect
applied psychology, has obtained full control over himself. Human nature will
be the last part of Nature to surrender to Man . . . The battle will indeed be
won. But who, precisely, will have won it?
Lewis may
have seen it coming—the great promise, and potential calamity, of modern
technology and medical advancements. He hints at the intention of science, genetic
modification, at the treatment of the unborn. In another passage, he rightfully
fears what may happen to humanity when human instinct becomes nonessential:
As we pass from mother love to
rational planning for the future we are passing away from the realm of instinct
into that of choice and reflection: and if instinct is the source of value,
planning for the future ought to be less respectable and less obligatory…
This is a
hard contemplation for me, one wrapped in societal acceptance. Most women today
take for granted their perfectly legal, morally tolerable right to use
contraception. But not too far back in our nation’s history, the use of birth
control was illegal, considered to be lewd behavior. Once it became good
medicine, most women, including most Christians, including me, embraced the
practice. I won’t argue the ramifications of contraception, either good or bad.
But Lewis did.
Now his
words rail against the headlines. The omen of what may taint our future is now
here. Birth control became the norm. No longer taboo. No longer sinful. The
conditioning of our minds and lifestyles to accept something that proved to be a
good thing led to a thing that is not good at all. The use of birth control before
conception led to the expulsion of a pregnancy after conception, and now to the
death of a baby right up to the point of delivery. But surely a woman won't carry a baby for nine months, and then decide to abort.Will she?
Some governing
bodies are removing all limits, while others attempt to pull back on what’s
legal. We Christians rage at the thought of a baby being killed on his delivery
date, but now we seem to breath a little easier, to almost celebrate a state
government pushing to outlaw abortion if the baby has a heartbeat. Did we not
once insist life begins at conception? Has our protest against any and all abortion
now shrunk at the passing of a worse law?
Are we being
conditioned to accept the practice of abortion to a point? When it’s all
settled, the full-term abortion law might fade away as the pre-heartbeat law
becomes the standard. A moral shift of society. No longer opposed. Is this push for full-term
abortion an act of the power of Man, as Lewis calls it, to alter our concept of
morality? Time will tell. The signs are there that we, as billions of people, will
change our opinion of right and wrong as we are conditioned by the thousands of
men.
Though he
became a Christian, perhaps his pre-redemption atheism gave C.S. Lewis the right
voice to speak to a world bent on straying off the path of survival. The Abolition of Man encompasses a code
of morality, reason, instinct, and posterity. It’s not a guide so much for the Christian,
but for the human race.
Seventy-six
years after the book was written, we continue on a path that may lead to our
destruction. Along that path, the abortion issue is not one simply to be opposed by
Christians, but to be cautiously weighed by all women, and men, and governments.
Of course, that’s not the way it will work out. The question is, will Christians
accept the death of an embryo if the government will only abolish the threat
of death to a full-term baby? Again, time will tell.
Or maybe
time is running out. Lewis may have let his faith shine for a moment in the
above quote when he wrote of that final stage
in the conquest, which, perhaps, is not far off. He spoke of extinction,
but he waited, as I wait still, for the Redeemer. That day will come. Perhaps
not far off.
Lewis, C. S.. The Abolition of Man (Collected Letters of
C.S. Lewis) HarperOne 2009
