What Does Lewis Mean When He Says, “Wherever You Find a Man Who Says He Does Not Believe in a Real Right and Wrong, You Will Find the Same Man Going Back on This a Moment Later”?
He means that, though a man may deny believing in a universal moral law, inwardly he still knows it is true. As soon as he is the one being wronged, he will likely appeal to that law as grounds for why the perceived wrong must be righted. If he is the accused, he will invoke it as the basis for why he did not transgress the law in the first place. Either way, his actions—whether he is conscious of it or not—betray the fact that he is, on some level, aware of that moral law.¹
Romans 2:14–15 — “When Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires … they show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness.”²
An example of this would be a man who risks his life to save someone else’s child.
Richard Dawkins, in his book The Selfish Gene, offers an alternative explanation of the law of human nature, arguing that one’s motivations are governed by whatever is most likely to preserve one’s own genes. While this may explain a father’s inclination to risk his life for the sake of his child, it does not explain the inclination of a man to risk his life for a stranger’s child. If he were placed in that situation and failed to act, he would surely be haunted by his inaction.³
Nor does it explain a man who fulfills his civic duty by leaving his family and going off to war—especially a war far from home.
John 15:13 — “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”⁴
In both cases, if he were to perish, he would be putting his own family in harm’s way by doing so. Yet something inside him tells him he has a responsibility beyond his own family and, if he can reasonably do so, he should act to defend his neighbor’s family as well.
Leviticus 19:18, 34 — “You shall love your neighbor as yourself … the stranger who sojourns with you shall be to you as the native, and you shall love him as yourself.”⁵
The force of this truth can almost be heard in Cain’s defensive reply, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Deep inside, he knows the answer is yes—and that he has failed to keep his brother in the worst possible way.
All of this points to something in the human condition that is external to itself. If there is something within a man that compels him to act not only against his own self-interest but also against the self-interest of those closest to him, then—regardless of whether he chooses to act—that impulse must have its origin in something external to himself. Someone beyond him makes a claim on that man and a claim on his actions, and that Someone can only be God.
“You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in You.”
— Saint Augustine, Confessions, Book I, chapter 1 (1.1.1).⁶
Notes
- C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1952), 5.
- Rom. 2:14–15 (RSV-2CE).
- Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976), 11.
- John 15:13 (RSV-2CE).
- Lev. 19:18, 34 (RSV-2CE).
- Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 3.
Bibliography
Augustine. Confessions. Translated by Henry Chadwick. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.
Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976.
Holy Bible. Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic Edition. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006.
Lewis, C. S. Mere Christianity. New York: Macmillan, 1952.
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