ARGUMENT FROM OUR BEHAVIOR
Chapter Four
CAN ALL THINGS BE CHANCE?
Is it just chance that people everywhere have an inner sense of right and wrong?
....two odd things about the human race. First, that they were haunted by the idea of a sort of behavior they ought to practice, what you might call fair play, or decency, or morality, or the Law of Nature. Second, that they did not in fact do so....Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis, The McMillan Company, New York, N.Y., p.26-27.
The law of gravity tells you what stones do if you drop them; but the Law of Human Nature tells you what human beings ought to do and do not. In other words, when you are dealing with humans, something else comes in above and beyond the actual facts......
Electrons and molecules behave in a certain way, and certain results follow, and that may be the whole story.* But men behave in a certain way and that is not the whole story, for all the time you know that they ought to behave differently. Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis, The McMillan Company, New York, N.Y., p.28.
We don't get the impression that lower animals are ever racked by guilt or are inclined to do things they do not want to do just because they seem like the right thing to do. Can it really be only chance that we, humans, have a common inner concept of justice?
Why Do Any Men Have Feelings of Purpose and Destiny?
I now want to consider what this tells us about the universe we live in. Ever since men were able to think, they have been wondering what this universe really is and how it came to be there. And, very roughly, two views have been held. First, there is what is called the materialist view. People who take this view think that matter and space just happen to exist, and always have existed, nobody knows why:... The other view is the religious view. Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis, The McMillan Company, New York, N.Y., p.31.
Supposing science ever became complete so that it knew every single thing in the whole universe. Is it not plain that the questions, "Why is there a universe?" "Why does it go on as it does?" "Has it any meaning?" would remain just as they were? Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis, The McMillan Company, New York, N.Y., p.32.
If we come from nowhere and are going nowhere how, and why, would we develop a sense of purpose and destiny? Why would we have questions regarding our reasons for being and why we exist, or have emotional connections to our heritage and history? If these things are all just a matter of chance they should have no real significance for us - but they do.
THE ISSUE OF MORAL LAW
Whether we want to acknowledge it or not there is within each of us a sense of right and wrong, of what is fair and what is not. No matter how stubbornly one may protest that there is no higher being or intelligence than mankind or that sin does not exist and right and wrong are relative, the argument breaks down on this issue. Why do we sometimes feel urged to help someone in obvious need or feel guilt if we don’t? Consider the words of C.S. Lewis on this issue.
--- some people wrote to me saying, "Isn't what you call Moral Law simply our herd instinct and hasn't it been developed just like all our other instincts?" --- But feeling a desire to help is quite different than feeling you ought to help whether you want to or not.
Another way of seeing that the Moral Law is not simply one of our instincts is this. If two instincts are in conflict, and there is nothing in a creatures mind except those two instincts, obviously the stronger of the two must win. But at those moments when we are most conscious of the Moral Law, it usually seems to be telling us to side with the weaker of the two impulses. Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis, The McMillan Company, New York, N.Y., p.22.
Here is a third way of seeing it. If the Moral Law was one of our instincts, we ought to be able to point to someone impulse inside us which was always what we call "good," always in agreement with the rule of right behavior. But you cannot. There is none of our impulses which the Moral Law may not sometimes tell us to suppress; and none which it may not sometimes encourage, It is a mistake to think that some of our impulses -- say mother love or patriotism -- are good, and others, like sex or fighting, are bad. All we mean is that the occasion on which the fighting instinct or the sexual desire need to be restrained are rather more frequent---.Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis, The McMillan Company, New York, N.Y., p.23.
Other people wrote to me saying, "Isn't what you call the Moral Law just a social convention, something put into us by education?" I think there is a misunderstanding here...We all learned the multiplication table at school. A child who grew up alone on a desert island would not know it. But surely it does not follow that the multiplication table is simply a human convention, something human beings have made up for themselves and might have made different if they had liked? Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis, The McMillan Company, New York, N.Y., p.24.
There are two reasons for saying it belongs to the same class as mathematics. The first is, as I said in the first chapter, that though there are differences between the moral ideas of one time or country and those of another, the differences are not really very great -- not nearly so great as most people imagine -- and you can recognize the same law running through them all; whereas mere conventions like the rule of the road or the kind of clothes people wear, may differ to any extent. The other reason is this. When you think about these differences between the morality of one people and another, do you think that the morality of one people is ever better or worse than that of another? ...If no set of moral ideas were truer or better than any other, there would be no sense in preferring civilized morality to savage morality, or Christian morality to Nazi morality. In fact, of course, we all do believe that some moralities are better than others....Very well then. The moment you say that one set of moral ideas can be better than another, you are, in fact, measuring them both by a standard, saying that one of them conforms to that standard more nearly than the other. But the standard that measures two things is something different from either. You are, in fact, comparing them both with some Real Morality,... I conclude then, that though the differences between people's ideas of Decent Behavior often make you suspect that there is no real natural Law of Behavior at all, yet the things we are bound to think about those differences really prove just the opposite. Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis, The McMillan Company, New York, N.Y., p.24-25. (Emphasis mine).
We really have no adequate explanation for the fact that all people across the globe have the same basic sense of morality, that some things are right and others are wrong. While it is true that there may be some differences in what we consider moral within different cultures regarding; sex, lying, theft or even murder, all cultures, under certain circumstances, consider them wrong. Certain rules and facts are consistent through all cultures. All people have some things they consider fair and other things they feel are unfair.
Although the standard for such determination may vary somewhat across cultures the very fact that the standard exists at all implies that there is an underlying standard of acceptable behavior behind them all. Two plus two equals four in any culture even though its expression may differ. Truth is what it is, whether we accept it or not.
Most people acknowledge that the moral standards of some cultures and groups are better than others. The very fact that we can, and do, compare moral standards and judge some to be better than others says, in effect, that there is a higher standard that they can all be measured by. We can attempt to deny it – or explain it away, but the truth remains.
How is it that I feel I should do a certain thing or act a certain way and yet I do not. Why does part of me have the urge to come to the rescue and another part say, “Stay out of it”? If I am simply the product of evolutionary process, like a worm or an insect why would this mental conflict exist? And how can a given occurrence, or event, affect me one way in one situation and very differently in another?
I am not angry -- except perhaps for a moment before I come to my senses -- with a man who trips me up by accident; I am angry with a man who tries to trip me up even if he does not succeed. Yet the first has hurt me and the second has not. Sometimes the behavior I call bad is not inconvenient to me at all, but the very opposite. In war, each side may find a traitor on the other side very useful. But though they may use him and pay him they regard him as human vermin. Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis, The McMillan Company, New York, N.Y., p.28.
If no basic rule of right and wrong exists, I should make no distinction between an action intended to me harm and an accident. The only distinction should be whether I am harmed or not. After all, if there is no God, neither is morally right or wrong! Doesn’t the very fact that I can feel there is a distinction between these situations, and react differently due to a sense of another’s intent, speak to me of a basic rule of right and wrong?
ATHEISM IS TOO SIMPLE!
Some have resisted the idea of God because they see the world as an unjust place filled with hatred, and cruelty and, of course, it often is. But if we are creatures of evolution and there is no God who says this is right and that is wrong then right and wrong have no real meaning. They don’t really exist. They are merely a matter of my preference so how can they use the injustice of the world as an argument against God's existence?
This, however, does not answer the question of where this idea of good, bad, just and unjust comes from. I would not call the night dark unless I had an awareness of light. If I feel that the world is cruel or unjust I must, somewhere within me, have an inner sense of what is kind and just.
Atheists would perhaps say that this is simply the result of our education and social convention developed out of necessity for self-preservation, etc. This sounds plausible, but it leaves unanswered questions. Somewhere there had to be a first man or woman with the idea of good and bad, fair and unfair, to start such a process. How could that be if, as evolutionists contend, we evolved from nothingness and there is no good, bad, just or unjust. At most there would only be beneficial or detrimental– that is; what improves my lot or what undermines my welfare.
One might argue that this is exactly the point. We get the idea of good and bad, just and unjust from that which benefits or harms us. Again this sounds plausible until we really examine it. We do make rules of etiquette and laws that benefit us as societies and as individuals. It is definitely reasonable to assume that beings might evolve with instincts of self-preservation. But that would pertain only to what benefits or harms me or, at most, me and those close to me. If my sense of good and bad, right and wrong, evolved from the need for self-preservation my moral compass should set to what benefits me and perhaps mine. Yet, we see instances of individuals and groups performing acts that involve self-sacrifice for strangers, even those they’ve never met.
Then there is the issue of the guilt we often feel when we have such an opportunity and neglect to act on it. Is it reasonable to think that beings coming from nowhere and headed to oblivion would develop the instinct to sacrifice themselves for those they don’t even know? Wouldn’t that be directly counter to logic and to the evolutionary principal of survival of the fittest?
If I am the product of evolution and there is no “moral code” from a higher authority, it would make no sense for me to sacrifice anything for the benefit of my neighbor let alone someone I have never met. Consider the comments of C.S. Lewis regarding this idea.
Thus by the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist--in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless -- I found that I was forced to assume that one part of reality -- namely my idea of justice -- was full of sense. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning. Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis, The McMillan Company, New York, N.Y., p.45-46.
Very well then, atheism is too simple. And I will tell you another view that is also too simple. It is what I call Christianity-and-water, the view which simply says there is a good God in Heaven and everything is all right -- leaving out all the difficult and terrible doctrines about sin and hell and the devil, and the redemption. Both these are boys philosophies; It is no good asking for a simple religion. After all, real things are not simple....Notice too, their idea of God "making religion simple"; as if "religion" were something God invented, and not His statement to us of certain quite unalterable facts about His own nature. Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis, The McMillan Company, New York, N.Y., p.46-47.
We examined the issues of: what traits a creator would necessarily possess, what he would want and do. We also considered the order in the universe and in life and whether all things can be chance. We then examined the issue of moral law and now the fact that atheism is just too simple. These are all very persuasive arguments for the existence of God. Nevertheless, as important as these are, probably the strongest two arguments for the existence of God are the power of conscience and the emptiness that exists in every human being until they respond to the call of the Lord.
Nowhere in nature can we find any legitimate explanation for the existence of our conscience. There is no evidence for the working of moral law upon conscience in other animals, birds, fish or other creatures, as it does in humans - producing inclinations toward acts of compassion, mercy or grace and producing feelings of guilt when we fail to respond. Although rare isolated instances of things like a female lion nursing a fawn can be found in nature their rarity indicates that they are they are acts of self-gratification, ie. "litter replacement” rather than actual acts of conscience. This view is supported by the fact that animals in the wild will abandon their young if the food shortage becomes severe.
Although it is possible to persist in perverse activities to the point of searing ones conscience until the individual appears to have no conscience, the existence of a conscience producing feelings of wrongdoing is universal among human beings everywhere. Why? If we evolved from baser animals, as evolutionists would have us believe, why did we develop a conscience? Intelligence cannot adequately explain it because we also have logic and logic would not have us:
1. give away that which we need to another,
2. put our own life in jeopardy to save a stranger,
3. rely on faith instead of what we see, or
4. have feelings of guilt when we don't respond to 1, 2 or 3 above?
Even more peculiar is the emptiness felt in humans worldwide that has resulted in men seeking a deity. Some would have us believe that this is the result of superstition and fear. If so, why did we develop superstitions? Other animals experience fear yet they don't seem to worship or make sacrifices to a deity or display signs of being superstitious. Why only us? Some might say the difference is in our intelligence but, without God in the mix, we can't adequately explain why we, as a species, should have intelligence so vastly superior to the rest of the animals or how intelligence that produces logic could account for emotions and conscience that often run counter to logic.
Text copyright © 2013 Vernon E. Gillispie
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