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Morality and Psychoanalysis | C. S. Lewis · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome to reformed thinking and welcome to the dub dive.
• 0:02
  It's good to be here. So we've got a fascinating set
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  of sources today, all provided by a listener, and it really
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  gets at a timeless tension, you know?
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  Which one is that? The ethical claims of
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  Christianity on one side and then on the other, the
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  psychological insights of the modern age.
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  Right. It's a conversation that's been
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  happening for over a century now.
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  Exactly. And to guide us, we're taking a
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  really close look at some excerpts from CS Lewis's Mere
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  Christianity. Specifically the chapter he
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  wrote on morality and psychoanalysis.
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  It's a really packed few pages. It really is.
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  And the listener who sent this in, they're looking for clarity
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  on a very practical, real world issue.
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  I think a lot of us feel this, which is what, well if Christian
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  teaching gives us a method for, you know, personal integrity,
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  for living a good life. A technique for putting the
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  human machine right, as Lewis would say.
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  Yes, exactly that. And then modern psychology comes
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  along and offers another technique for fixing human
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  behavior. Where do these two powerful
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  systems, you know, where do they align?
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  And maybe more importantly, where do they conflict?
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  That's a huge question and Lewis I think gives us a really solid
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  framework for tackling it. He does.
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  So that's our mission for this deep dive.
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  First, we need to unpack how Lewis separates the the
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  philosophical baggage that came with psychoanalysis from the
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  actual technique itself. The amateur philosophizing
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  versus the specialist's work. Right.
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  And then second, we have to get a firm grip on his main argument
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  about human accountability. What is it that God actually
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  judges? And for Lewis, it's not the
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  psychological raw material we're handed at birth or through
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  trauma, no. It's the free choices we make
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  with that material, and we really need to dissect that
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  distinction fully. OK, let's unpack this.
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  So where does Lewis even begin? He actually sets the stage by
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  reminding us what we're trying to build in the first place.
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  Right. The goal of a Christian society.
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  Yes, and he starts with the premise that's.
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  Well, it's just very sensible, he says.
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  You cannot achieve a truly Christian society without first
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  having Christian individuals. It seems obvious when you say
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  it, but it's something we can easily forget.
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  We look at systemic problems and wants systemic solutions, but
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  Louis pulls it back to the individual person.
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  He does. It frames the whole discussion.
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  It's about individual responsibility, but as a
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  necessary component for the health of the larger community.
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  And he's quick to point out that you can't just wait around.
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  You can't say OK, once everyone is individually good then we'll
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  fix society. No, he says.
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  You have to be tackling both problems at the same time
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  concurrently. That's a trap we fall into, I
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  think. We think one has to come before
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  the other. Right.
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  We either focus only on personal holiness and ignore social
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  justice, or we focus only on social justice and forget that
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  the people implementing it need to be transformed themselves.
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  Yeah, Lewis says. No, it's two jobs happening at
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  once. So what are these two jobs
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  exactly? Well, the first job he describes
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  is external. It's social.
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  It's the work of figuring out how to apply the fundamental
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  command, the golden rule. Do as you would be done by to
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  our incredibly complex modern life.
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  And that is not easy at all, is it?
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  It's a huge intellectual and practical task.
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  It's immense. It's one thing to say love your
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  neighbor. It's a completely different
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  thing to figure out what that means for, say, international
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  trade policy or setting a minimum wage.
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  More how to structure a just legal system.
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  These are massive technical questions, like the engineering
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  phase of building a moral society.
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  That's a great way to put it. It's the engineering.
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  And Lewis knew that this required Christians who were
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  specialists, you know, economists, politicians,
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  sociologists, not just pastors and theologians.
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  They have to do the hard work of mapping that ancient moral
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  standard onto a world that's just completely different.
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  OK, so that's the big picture. Outward systematic work, job
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  number one. But the success of all that
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  engineering depends entirely on the second job.
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  Lewis brings up the internal one.
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  Yes, the individual preparation, because even if you design the
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  most perfect just society on paper, it would collapse in a
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  day if the people running it were greedy, selfish and power
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  hungry. The system is only as good as
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  the people in it. Exactly.
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  So the second task is becoming the kind of person who would
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  genuinely want to apply the Golden Rule, not just because
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  it's a rule, but because their heart desires it.
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  It's the conditioning of the soul.
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  And when we talk about that from a Reformed perspective, what
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  we're really talking about is sanctification.
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  Right, that's the theological term for it, yes.
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  It's the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit to conform us to the
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  image of Christ. It's not just gritting your
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  teeth and following rules. It's a slow day by day process
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  of your desires and affections actually being changed, being
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  reoriented toward God. So that you start to naturally
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  incline toward things like kindness and honesty instead of
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  always having to fight this internal battle against
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  selfishness, right? So Lewis starts there because he
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  wants move from the big social picture down to the individual.
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  He says he wants to consider the Christian specification for the
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  human machine. I love that phrase.
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  It's so practical. Like, what are the design specs
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  for a person who is functioning as intended?
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  Yeah. And what is a morally healthy,
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  fully capable person actually look like?
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  This brings that huge societal goal right back down to my
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  choices, my thoughts, my personal habits today.
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  It does, but you know, as soon as you start talking about
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  fixing the human machine in the 20th century, a certain name
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  immediately comes to mind. Igmund Freud, of course.
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  Sychoanalysis. It's the other great system that
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  claims to have a technique for healing the mind and soul, so
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  it's very natural for the listener to see these two,
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  Christianity and psychoanalysis, as direct competitors.
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  Two different repair manuals for the same broken machine.
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  Exactly. And this is where Lewis gives us
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  his first really crucial clarifying distinction.
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  He says if you're going to even think about psychoanalysis, you
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  have to be very careful to separate two different things.
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  And if you mix them up? You'll end up in one of two
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  errors. You'll either reject something
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  that could be genuinely useful, or you'll accidentally swallow
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  something that's, well, spiritually poisonous.
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  OK, So what are the two things we need to separate?
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  The first thing is the general philosophical worldview that
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  Freud and some of his followers attached to their medical
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  theories. This wasn't just medicine then,
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  it was a whole philosophy of life.
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  A whole philosophy, A sweeping materialist view of the world.
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  It tried to explain everything, the origin of humanity, the
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  nature of reality, and very importantly, it assumed that
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  there was no such thing as the spiritual or the transcendent.
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  And Lewis is pretty blunt about this part, as I recall.
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  He's very blunt, he says. This specific philosophical view
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  is in direct conflict with Christianity.
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  There's no middle ground. Because if you accept Freud's
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  philosophy, things like morality and religion are just what
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  byproducts of subconscious drives.
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  Right. They're just illusions created
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  by our brain chemistry or our repressed sexual urges, or our
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  childhood experiences. In that worldview, there's no
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  need for a transcendent God who gives moral laws, and there's
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  certainly no concept of sin in the Christian sense.
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  OK, so that's the first thing, the philosophical baggage, Lewis
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  says. Set that aside.
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  It's incompatible. What's the second thing?
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  The second thing is the actual medical technique of
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  psychoanalysis itself, the method for diagnosing and
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  treating psychological problems, completely separate from all
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  that philosophical stuff. And what's his verdict on that?
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  He says that the technique itself is not in the least
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  contradictory to Christianity. That's a really important move
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  he's making. He's saying a person's worldview
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  doesn't automatically invalidate their scientific or medical
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  work. Precisely.
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  A non Christian doctor can still set a broken bone correctly.
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  A non Christian psychologist might still have real insights
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  into how the human psyche gets damaged and how it can be to
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  some extent repaired. The therapeutic method can work
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  even if the therapists ultimate explanation for why it works is
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  wrong. But some people would push back
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  on that, wouldn't they? They'd say you can't just
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  separate the technique from the philosophy it grew out of.
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  How does Lewis justify making that clean break?
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  He justifies it with a really smart distinction between the
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  specialist and the amateur. OK, explain that.
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  He says, look, when Freud is talking about how to diagnose
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  and cure neuroses, he's speaking as a specialist.
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  He's an expert in his defined field.
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  You should listen to him with respect, as you would any
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  expert. But but the moment Freud steps
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  outside his clinic and starts making grand pronouncements
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  about the origin of the universe or the meaning of life, he's no
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  longer a specialist. He become an amateur
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  philosopher. Exactly.
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  And Lewis argues we are under no obligation at all to give the
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  same weight to the opinions of an amateur as we do to the work
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  of the specialist, even if it's the same person.
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  That makes a lot of sense. You listen to a brilliant heart
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  surgeon when they talk about surgery, but you don't
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  necessarily take their advice on how to fix your car's
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  transmission. Right.
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  And Lewis actually gives a personal example to back this up
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  to show he's not just making this up to protect his theology.
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  What was that? He mentions that as a scholar of
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  languages and literature, he'd read some of Freud's writings on
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  those subjects, and he says he found Freud to be very ignorant
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  when he spoke outside his own field.
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  That's a key detail. It's not just a theoretical
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  argument for him, he's seen evidence of it himself.
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  Expertise is specific to a domain.
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  It is, and it strengthens his case that we can respect Freud
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  for his clinical work while being highly skeptical of his
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  amateur philosophy. He even brings up Carl Jung.
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  Right, he does. He points out that Freud's
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  general philosophy wasn't just in conflict with Christianity,
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  it was in direct conflict with the views of the other great
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  psychologist, Uni. So even within the field of
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  psychology, there was no agreement on the big
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  philosophical questions. Not at all.
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  Which gives us as Christians the freedom to say, OK, the
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  technique might be helpful, but the world view attached to it is
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  just one of several options, and it's one we reject.
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  So if the technique itself is valid or can be, where does it
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  overlap with Christian morality and where does it differ?
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  Lewis says. They're doing rather different
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  things. Yes, this gets us to the
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  absolute core of his argument. To understand the difference, he
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  first breaks down what goes into any moral choice we make.
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  He says anytime you make a decision, from choosing what to
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  eat for breakfast to deciding whether to forgive someone,
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  there are two essential parts involved.
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  And the first part is the. First part is what he calls the
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  act of choosing. This is the decision itself, the
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  exercise of your free will. The moment you say I will do
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  this and not that. That's the part where morality
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  really lives, according to Lewis.
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  That's where it lives and breathes.
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  It's the central volitional act. OK, so you have the choice.
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  What's the second? Part The second part is the raw
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  material. This is all the psychological
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  stuff that's presented to the chooser before the choice is
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  made. So my feelings, my impulses, my
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  desires, all the internal weather happening inside me.
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  Exactly. Your whole psychological outfit.
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  And the key thing is you don't choose this raw material.
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  It's just there is what you have to work with.
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  And Lewis then divides that raw material into two types, right?
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  He does. First, he says, there are the
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  normal feelings or impulses. These are just part of the
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  standard human package, like, like the natural fear you feel
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  when you're in a dangerous situation or the natural desire
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  a man might feel for a woman. These are, you know, built in
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  features. They might be strong or
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  inconvenient, but they're not signs of a malfunction.
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  They're part of the original design, so to speak, right?
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  But then there's the second category, the abnormal or
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  unnatural feelings. And these are the malfunctions.
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  These are the malfunctions. They're the result of something
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  having gone wrong in the subconscious.
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  They're distortions of our nature.
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  Give me an example. An irrational, pathological fear
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  of something harmless, like cats or spiders, or, as Lewis
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  mentions, perverted or disordered desires.
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  These aren't part of the standard design, they're
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  symptoms of a disease or damage. OK, so we have the act of
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  choosing and then we have the raw material which can be either
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  normal or abnormal. How does this help us separate
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  morality from psychoanalysis? It allows him to draw a very
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  clean line, he says. The job of psychoanalysis is
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  concerned only with the raw material.
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  So its job is to fix the malfunctions.
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  Yes, to remove the abnormal feelings, to take the person
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  with a pathological fear of cats and through therapy reduce that
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  fear back to a normal, manageable level.
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  It undertakes, as Lewis puts it, to provide the person with
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  better raw material for his acts of choice.
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  It's a form of healing. It's treating a disease in the
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  psyche. That's all it is.
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  It's corrective maintenance on the machine's wiring.
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  Then what is morality's job? Morality's job is concerned only
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  with the other part, the acts of choice themselves.
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  So morality doesn't care what you feel, it cares what you do
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  with that feeling. That's it in a nutshell.
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  Morality doesn't judge you for having a flash of anger, or a
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  selfish impulse, or a moment of fear.
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  It judges the choice you make in response to that impulse.
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  The state of your soul is determined by your will, not
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  your feelings. This is a huge deal.
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  It means that from a Christian perspective, you are not held
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  morally accountable for the psychological hand you were
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  built, No. You're only held accountable for
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  how you choose to play that hand.
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  And to make this distinction absolutely crystal clear, he
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  gives that famous illustration. The three men going to war.
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  It's brilliant because it makes this abstract idea completely
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  concrete. It shows you exactly where the
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  psychological problem ends and the moral problem begins.
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  So he sets the scene on a battlefield.
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  Maximum pressure, fear is a given, and we start with man
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  one. He's our control group, our
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  baseline. Right, man, One has the ordinary
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  natural fear of danger. It's the normal raw material.
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  It's unpleasant, it's difficult, but it's manageable.
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  Now what does he do? He subdues it by moral effort
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  through an act of his will. He chooses to do his duty
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  despite the fear, and in doing so he becomes a brave man.
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  So his struggle is purely A moral one.
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  His psychological machine is working as design, he just has
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  to use his willpower to steer it in the right direction.
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  Exactly. That's the moral life operating
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  on standard equipment. But then we get to men two and
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  three and their situation is totally different.
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  Totally different. They don't just have normal
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  fear, they have exaggerated irrational fears, panic attacks,
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  maybe what we might today call PTSD.
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  It's the abnormal raw material, the malfunction.
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  Yes, and Lewis makes a crucial point here.
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  He says their fear is so overwhelming that no amount of
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  moral effort can do anything about it.
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  That's so important for anyone listening who struggles with
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  severe anxiety or depression. Lewis is validating that
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  experience of being psychologically overwhelmed.
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  He is. He's saying that when the raw
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  material is that damaged, the will can't operate properly.
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  The machine is broken. It's a disease, not a character
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  flaw. OK, So what happens to these two
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  men? A psychoanalyst intervenes.
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  The analyst treats them, cures them of their subconscious
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  issues. The irrational crippling fear is
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  gone. Now they just have the normal
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  manageable fear that man one started with.
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  So psychologically, they are now on a level playing field with
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  Man 1. The therapy is done, the
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  clinical work is complete. And this is the pivot point of
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  the whole story, Lewis says, OK, the psychological problem is
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  over. The moral problem starts right
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  now. Because the therapist fixed the
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  engine, but now the driver has to choose where to go.
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  Perfect analogy. And even though they now have
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  identical psychological material, their choices reveal 2
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  completely different moral characters.
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  Let's look at Man 2. How does he respond to being
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  cured? His response is 1 of gratitude
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  and duty. He says something like, Thank
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  goodness I've got rid of that awful problem.
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  Now at last, I can do what I always wanted to do, my duty.
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  So his will was always pointed in the right direction, but his
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  psychological condition, his disease, was preventing him from
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  acting on it. Correct.
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  The moment his machine was fixed, he immediately drove it
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  toward a selfless moral goal. And three, he's a different
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  story. A very different story.
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  He's also relieved to be cured, but his reaction is entirely
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  self-serving, he says. Basically, I'm glad I'm not
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  terrified anymore, but that doesn't change anything.
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  I'm still just going to look out for myself and let the other guy
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  take the risks. Wow, so the cure didn't make him
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  a better person? Not at all.
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  It just made him a more effective coward, a less
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  anxious, selfish person. His moral direction was always
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  selfish, and the cure just gave him a healthier vehicle to
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  pursue that selfishness. Interest is chilling.
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  The difference between them after the cure has nothing to do
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  with psychology, it is purely moral.
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  Purely moral. A psychoanalysis could fix the
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  fear, but it couldn't touch the intention.
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  It couldn't change the heart. And that leads to Louis's big
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  conclusion from the story. It does, he says.
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  No matter how much you improve a man's raw material, you are
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  still left with something else, the real free choice of the man,
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  either to put his own advantage first or to put it last.
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  And he says that choice is the only thing morality is
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  concerned. With the only thing, the
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  material is the stage, but the choice is the play that unfolds
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  on it. This then leads him to make that
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  critical distinction for anyone wrestling with guilt over mental
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  health, the distinction between a disease and a sin.
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  Yes, the bad psychological material, the irrational fear,
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  the deep seated anxiety. That is not a sin, but a
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  disease. That must be such a freeing
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  statement for people to hear. It's massive because a disease
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  requires curing. It requires treatment, medicine,
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  therapy, and compassion. It doesn't require repenting of
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  you can't repent of having a chemical imbalance or drama
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  response. But a sin is different.
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  A sin is a choice. A sin is a voluntary act of the
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  will, turning away from God, and that requires repentance.
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  The distinction is everything. You're responsible for how you
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  manage your depression, but you are not sinful simply for having
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  depression. OK, so if God is only judging
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  the choice, not the raw material, that completely
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  changes how we should think about his judgement.
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  It changes everything. It means his standards are
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  totally different from ours. We human beings, we judge by
• 18:02
  external actions. We see what someone does or
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  fails to do. We judge the results.
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  We judge the results, but God judges the internal moral
• 18:11
  choice. Specifically, He measures the
• 18:14
  amount of effort it took to make that choice, given the quality
• 18:17
  of the raw material. Which means, as Lewis says, the
• 18:19
  final accounting is going to be full of surprises.
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  Full of surprises, what looks heroic to us might be fairly
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  minor in God's eyes, and what looks like a tiny, pathetic
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  effort to us might be a monumental victory in heaven.
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  He gives that great example of the neurotic man and the cat.
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  It's a fantastic illustration, he says.
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  Imagine a man with a true pathological horror of cats, a
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  real phobia. It's a disease, but for some
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  good reason, to say the cat, maybe, or to comfort a crying
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  child, this man forces himself, through an incredible amount of
• 18:49
  internal struggle and willpower, to reach out and pick up the
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  cat. To us, that looks like a small
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  act. He picked up a kitten.
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  Big deal. Right.
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  But Lewis suggests that in God's eyes, that single act might be a
• 19:02
  greater display of courage that a perfectly healthy soldier
• 19:06
  winning the Victoria Cross. Wow, how can that be?
• 19:09
  Because the soldier had to overcome normal, manageable
• 19:12
  fear, the neurotic man had to overcome a pathological,
• 19:15
  overwhelming fear. God doesn't just see the action,
• 19:19
  He sees the internal resistance that was overcome to perform the
• 19:21
  action. He measures the effort of the
• 19:24
  will. He has a second example that's
• 19:26
  just as challenging. The one about the perverted man,
• 19:28
  Yes. He says to imagine someone who
• 19:31
  was raised in a terrible environment taught from
• 19:33
  childhood that cruelty is good and kindness is weakness.
• 19:37
  His entire psychological raw material is warped.
• 19:40
  His moral compass is completely broken.
• 19:42
  Completely. And then one day, this man
• 19:44
  performs one tiny little kindness.
• 19:47
  Or he refrained from a cruel act that he could have easily gotten
• 19:50
  away with. Maybe he even gets mocked by his
• 19:53
  peers for being soft. That little act, which we might
• 19:56
  not even notice, could be massive in God's sight.
• 19:59
  It could be greater, Lewis says, than one of us, with our good
• 20:02
  upbringing and stable temperament, giving up our life
• 20:05
  for a friend. Because we had a huge head
• 20:07
  start. For us, self sacrifice might
• 20:09
  feel like the natural right thing to do.
• 20:12
  For him, that tiny act of kindness was like forging a new
• 20:15
  universe of morality inside him. It required a colossal
• 20:19
  expenditure of moral energy just to take that one small step in
• 20:22
  the right direction. Realizing this about God's
• 20:25
  internal standard, it has a very direct practical consequence for
• 20:29
  us, doesn't it? It leads straight to the command
• 20:31
  not to judge other people. Because we simply can't.
• 20:33
  We don't have the data. We don't have the data, Lewis
• 20:36
  says. We only ever see the final
• 20:37
  product, the external action that results from a person's
• 20:40
  choice working on the raw material.
• 20:42
  We have no idea what that raw material was actually like.
• 20:45
  We can't know if they were saddled with terrible heredity
• 20:48
  that made them prone to addiction, or if they had an
• 20:51
  abusive childhood that destroyed their ability to trust.
• 20:54
  We can't know. We don't see the internal
• 20:57
  struggle. So when we judge their external
• 20:59
  actions, we're often just judging their disease or their
• 21:03
  trauma or their bad luck. We aren't judging the actual
• 21:06
  moral person at all. And Lewis turns this right back
• 21:09
  on us, which is where it gets uncomfortable.
• 21:11
  It gets very uncomfortable, he says.
• 21:13
  That we who might seem like quite nice people, we might have
• 21:17
  been blessed with such good raw material, a calm temperament, a
• 21:22
  stable upbringing, good health. That our external niceness is
• 21:26
  actually no great moral achievement at all.
• 21:28
  It might just be an accident of our Constitution, and we may
• 21:32
  have made such little use of those advantages that in God's
• 21:35
  eyes, we're actually worse than those whom we regard as friends.
• 21:38
  Because more was given to us and more was expected, our failure
• 21:42
  to use our good material to its fullest is a greater moral
• 21:45
  failing. It's a very sobering thought and
• 21:48
  it sets us up for his description of what happens at
• 21:50
  death, what he calls the final unveiling.
• 21:52
  This is a powerful image, he says.
• 21:54
  That so much of our psychological makeup, our
• 21:57
  personality, our moods, our anxieties is tied to our
• 22:01
  physical bodies. So when the body dies, all of
• 22:04
  that just falls away, and what's left standing naked before God
• 22:08
  is the real central man, the thing that shows.
• 22:11
  Just the will, the accumulated identity forged by a lifetime of
• 22:15
  choices. That's all that's left, he says.
• 22:17
  It's a great stripping away the nice things we took credit for
• 22:20
  that. We're really just due to our
• 22:22
  good digestion or easy circumstances, they'll fall off.
• 22:26
  And on the other hand, the nasty things that plagued other
• 22:28
  people, their short temper that was really due to chronic pain
• 22:32
  or their anxiety, that was a chemical imbalance that will
• 22:34
  fall off them. And for the very first time,
• 22:36
  everyone will be seen for what they truly are, just the core of
• 22:40
  their moral self. And as Lewis famously says.
• 22:43
  There will be surprises. There will be surprises.
• 22:45
  This whole vision moves Christian morality away from
• 22:48
  being some kind of simple transaction.
• 22:50
  You know, like follow these rules and I'll give you a
• 22:52
  reward. It's so much more dynamic than
• 22:54
  that. He uses this metaphor of self
• 22:56
  creation. It's not a bargain, it's a
• 22:59
  process. What does he mean by that?
• 23:01
  He says that every single choice you make, no matter how small,
• 23:05
  turns that central part of you into something slightly
• 23:08
  different than it was a moment before.
• 23:10
  So life is this slow, continuous process of shaping our inner
• 23:15
  self. A lifetime of choices.
• 23:18
  You're taking the raw material you've been given, and through
• 23:20
  your will, you are sculpting your own soul moment by moment.
• 23:24
  And he says there are only two possible final products, Two
• 23:27
  kinds of creatures we are all becoming.
• 23:29
  Only two. The first possibility is what he
• 23:32
  calls the heavenly creature. And what defines that creature?
• 23:35
  Harmony. It's being that is in harmony
• 23:38
  with God, with other creatures, and crucially, in harmony with
• 23:41
  itself. It's whole.
• 23:43
  It's integrated. And the result of that harmony
• 23:45
  is joy, peace, knowledge. Competence, it's a state of
• 23:49
  flourishing. The will is aligned with reality
• 23:51
  and goodness, it's what we were made for.
• 23:53
  But then there's the other option, the terrifying 1.
• 23:56
  The hellish creature and this being is defined by the opposite
• 24:00
  of harmony, a state of constant war and hatred.
• 24:03
  War with God, war with others. And war with itself, which is
• 24:06
  maybe the most horrifying part. It's a state of total
• 24:09
  disintegration. The results he lists are just
• 24:12
  chilling. Madness, horror, rage,
• 24:16
  impotence, eternal loneliness. It's the logical end point of a
• 24:20
  self that has consistently chosen itself over everything
• 24:23
  else. It ends up completely alone and
• 24:25
  at war with its own existence. And Lewis's point is that we are
• 24:28
  never standing still. Right.
• 24:30
  Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or
• 24:33
  the other. There's no neutral ground.
• 24:34
  Every choice is a step. And thinking about the shaping
• 24:37
  process helps to explain something that can seem very
• 24:39
  strange about Christian ethics. What's that?
• 24:42
  Why? Why Christian writers can seem
• 24:43
  so incredibly strict about something like a mere sin of
• 24:46
  thought, a flash of lust, or a moment of private anger?
• 24:49
  And yet seem so quick to talk about forgiveness for huge
• 24:54
  public sins like murder or betrayal.
• 24:57
  Exactly. It seems like a paradox because
• 24:59
  we're always focused on the external damage.
• 25:02
  My angry thought didn't hurt anyone, so how can it be a big
• 25:05
  deal? But Lewis says Christian writers
• 25:07
  aren't focused on the external damage.
• 25:08
  They're always focused on the inner mark.
• 25:10
  The mark the action leaves on that tiny central self which no
• 25:14
  one sees in this life, but which each of us will have to endure
• 25:17
  or enjoy forever. Right, the external result is
• 25:20
  secondary to the internal damage to the soul shaping process.
• 25:23
  True, he gives that example of two men who get angry.
• 25:25
  Yes. One man's anger explodes and it
• 25:28
  causes actual bloodshed. A terrible, tragic external
• 25:32
  result. The other man's anger just leads
• 25:34
  to him making a nasty comment and he gets laughed at.
• 25:37
  The external result is trivial. The external results are worlds
• 25:41
  apart. 1 is a crime, the other is just an awkward social
• 25:44
  moment. And yet, Lewis says, the little
• 25:47
  mark of the soul may be much the same in both.
• 25:49
  How can that be? Because the quality, the moral
• 25:51
  choice, was the same. In that moment, both men allowed
• 25:55
  their will to be twisted by rage.
• 25:58
  Both took a step toward becoming that hellish creature.
• 26:00
  He's describing the mechanism of how sin works.
• 26:03
  Then each time you give into that rage, it does something to
• 26:06
  you. It twists that central man, and
• 26:08
  unless you repent of it, it makes it that much harder to
• 26:11
  resist the next time. And it makes the rage itself
• 26:14
  worse when you do fall into it. You're carving a groove of wrath
• 26:17
  into your own soul. But the flip side of that is the
• 26:21
  power of grace. Exactly because the internal
• 26:24
  mark is what matters, the gospel can operate right at that point.
• 26:28
  Both the man who caused the bloodshed and the man who just
• 26:31
  laughed at can have that twist in the central man straightened
• 26:34
  out again. If they genuinely turn back to
• 26:36
  God in repentance. If they do, the external size of
• 26:40
  the sin doesn't create a barrier to internal healing.
• 26:42
  So in the end, the bigness or smallness of a thing from an
• 26:46
  outside perspective just isn't what really matters.
• 26:48
  It's not. What matters is the direction of
• 26:50
  the will. Are you moving toward harmony or
• 26:52
  toward war? Toward heaven or toward hell?
• 26:55
  This brings us to his last point, which feels almost like a
• 26:58
  paradox, the connection between moral clarity and self
• 27:01
  knowledge. It is very counterintuitive, he
• 27:05
  argues, that the right direction, the path of getting
• 27:07
  morally better, leads not only to peace, but to knowledge,
• 27:11
  specifically a deeper and often more painful knowledge of
• 27:15
  yourself. We'd.
• 27:16
  Normally think the opposite. We'd think that as you become
• 27:19
  more saintly, you'd feel better and better about yourself.
• 27:23
  Lewis says no, the opposite is true.
• 27:25
  When a person is genuinely getting better, they actually
• 27:28
  understand more clearly the evil that is still left inside them.
• 27:32
  Their awareness of their own sinfulness increases as their
• 27:35
  actual sinfulness decreases. Precisely and conversely, when a
• 27:40
  person is getting worse, their moral vision gets darker.
• 27:43
  They understand their own vadnais less and less.
• 27:46
  They lose the ability to even see their own faults.
• 27:49
  Right, they become blind to their own condition.
• 27:52
  Use a few simple common sense analogies to explain this.
• 27:55
  Like the one about sleep? Yeah, you only understand what
• 27:58
  the state of sleep is when you're awake.
• 28:00
  While you're asleep, you don't have the consciousness to
• 28:02
  analyze it. Or the one about arithmetic.
• 28:05
  You can only spot the mistakes in a math problem when your mind
• 28:09
  is clear and working correctly. While you're in the middle of
• 28:12
  making a mistake, you think you're right.
• 28:14
  It's the same with drunkenness. You understand the foolishness
• 28:17
  and loss of control of being drunk when you're sober.
• 28:19
  A sober mind is required to assess a confused mind.
• 28:23
  And a morally healthy soul is required to accurately assess a
• 28:26
  sinful 1. That's his point, which leads to
• 28:30
  his final, very stark conclusion about human character.
• 28:33
  What's that? He says good people know about
• 28:36
  both good and evil. Bad people do not know about
• 28:39
  either. That's a powerful statement.
• 28:42
  The good person has a clear vision of the standard of
• 28:44
  goodness, so they can see how far they fall short of it.
• 28:47
  The bad person has lost sight of the standard altogether, so they
• 28:50
  live in a fog of self deception. It's a profound insight into the
• 28:54
  nature of virtue and vice. So wrapping up this whole deep
• 28:58
  dive, what's the core framework Lewis has given us?
• 29:00
  I think it's that clean, critical distinction.
• 29:03
  Psychoanalysis at its best is there to address the raw
• 29:06
  material. It treats the disease.
• 29:08
  It requires our compassion and our clinical attention.
• 29:11
  But morality is about something else entirely.
• 29:13
  It addresses the central choice. It deals with sin, which
• 29:17
  requires repentance and a redirection of the will.
• 29:20
  We have to remember that God's judgment isn't like ours.
• 29:22
  It's an internal measure. He's judging the quality of our
• 29:26
  will, the effort we put forth with a specific hand we were
• 29:29
  dealt, not just the glossy external result.
• 29:32
  It's this constant moment by moment process of shaping our
• 29:36
  inner self. It is Lewis's work really forces
• 29:39
  us to look inward, not just outward.
• 29:42
  We are actively building ourselves into one of two
• 29:44
  things, one of two eternal creatures.
• 29:46
  So if every choice we make is really that significant, maybe
• 29:50
  here's a final thought for you, the listener, to reflect on.
• 29:53
  Lewis reminds us that all our choices are shaping us.
• 29:56
  If every small decision contributes to the nature of
• 29:59
  that real central man, then what choice did you make today?
• 30:03
  Something small? Something private?
• 30:04
  Something you thought didn't matter?
• 30:06
  Maybe a subtle indulgence in bitterness or a quiet act of
• 30:09
  forgiveness when no one was watching?
• 30:11
  Which of those small choices contributed to the creation of
• 30:14
  the creature? You are becoming something to
• 30:16
  think about long after this discussion is over.