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We Have Cause to Be Uneasy | C. S. Lewis · Reformed Thinking

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  Reformed thinking. Welcome back.
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  We're doing another deep dive today, looking at some sources
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  you sent over that deal with the very first steps in
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  Christianity. Specifically, we're going to be
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  walking through the logical path CS Lewis lays out for us.
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  That's right. And Lewis is well, he's a master
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  at this. He builds an argument brick by
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  brick. He doesn't just ask you to
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  believe something, he wants you to see why it's the only logical
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  conclusion. So what's our mission today,
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  specifically? Our mission is to really get
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  into a crucial, and I think often misunderstood part of his
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  argument. It's this idea that before
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  Christianity can offer you any kind of comfort or relief, you
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  first have to face something pretty unsettling about
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  yourself. The terrifying facts, as he
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  calls them. The terrifying facts, the
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  reality of who we are and measured against a real,
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  absolute standard. OK, let's set the scene a bit.
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  In his work, Lewis has already, you know, made his case for a
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  universal moral law, this idea that we all have an innate sense
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  of right and wrong. Right.
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  We expect people to be fair, to be honest.
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  We get angry when they aren't. That's the moral law and action.
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  But the sources point out that this is the exact moment where a
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  lot of modern readers just stop. They get annoyed.
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  They feel like they've been LED into what Lewis calls a
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  religious jaw a trap. He completely saw that coming.
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  He knew that people are generally OK with philosophy as
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  long as it stays abstract. But the second it starts making
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  demands on your life, well, that's different.
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  So this part of the argument we're looking at is his response
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  to that resistance. He's trying to head off that
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  evasion before it even starts. Exactly.
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  He's saying, OK, you've agreed there's a law.
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  Now let's talk about what that actually means for you all.
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  Right. So let's get into the first big
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  hurdle he has to clear. It's a really common objection,
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  the idea that religion is fundamentally a step backward.
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  Putting the clock back, that phrase captures it perfectly.
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  The assumption is that history is a straight line of progress
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  and religion is something from the past we've moved beyond.
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  Like going from horse drawn carriages to cars and then
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  someone suggests going back to the horse.
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  It just seems regressive it. Does.
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  And what's so brilliant about Lewis's approach is that he
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  doesn't argue against progress. He doesn't say progress is bad.
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  He accepts the idea, but then he completely redefines it.
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  He asks a very simple question. What is progress?
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  Right. And his answer is just.
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  It's just common sense. Progress is getting nearer to
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  where you want to go. That's it.
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  If your. Destination is north, walking
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  north is progress. Simple enough.
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  But then comes the twist. This is where he turns the whole
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  modern idea on its head. He asks what if you've taken a
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  wrong turn? Ah, so if your destination is
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  north, but somewhere down the road you accidentally turned
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  east. Then continuing to walk east, no
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  matter how fast or how confidently you walk, is not
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  progress. You're actively moving farther
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  away from your goal with every single step.
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  In that case, the most progressive thing you could
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  possibly do is stop. Stop, turn around and walk back
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  to the road you're supposed to be on.
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  The most progressive action is to go backward.
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  It's so simple, but it cuts right through the noise.
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  It feels like people today often mistake mere movement for
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  progress. As long as we're changing, it
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  must be for the better. Well, Lewis would say that's
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  just foolish. He uses these everyday analogies
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  to make the point almost impossible to argue with.
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  You know, like his example with arithmetic.
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  Right, the math problem. I think this one is maybe the
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  clearest if you're doing a long calculation and you realize you
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  made a mistake on the very first line.
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  Say you added two and two and got 5.
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  What do you do? Do you keep going hoping that
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  maybe another mistake later on will magically cancel out the
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  first one? Of course not.
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  That's insane. You'd just be building a more
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  and more elaborate wrong answer. The only logical, the only
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  efficient thing to do is to admit the mistake.
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  And start over. You go back to the beginning.
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  That's the fastest way to get to the right answer.
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  It's the most progressive path. So he's building this case that
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  refusing to go back when you know you're wrong isn't a sign
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  of being progressive or principled, he says.
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  It's just being pigheaded. It's an irrational refusal to
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  face reality. And then once he's established
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  that principle with these undeniable examples, he implies
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  it to all of humanity. That's the big leap.
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  He looks at human history, at the wars, the injustice, our own
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  personal failures. And he just states it plainly.
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  It is pretty plain that humanity has been making some big
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  mistake. We are on the wrong Rd.
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  From a reformed perspective, that's just a statement of fact
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  about the fall. Humanity did take a wrong turn
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  right at the beginning, but Lewis is arguing this from
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  observation for anyone to see. Just look around.
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  Exactly. He's saying just look at the
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  evidence. Does this look like the right
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  road to you? And if it's not, then the
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  logical conclusion is that we have to go back.
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  It's the quickest way to get where we need to be.
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  So you're forced into this uncomfortable position.
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  You have to at least consider that your whole worldview, which
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  is probably built on this idea of concept forward movement,
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  might be based on a huge error. And until you're willing to
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  admit that, any further steps you take are just taking you
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  deeper into the wilderness. Yeah.
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  OK, so that's that's the stage. If we made a mistake, we have to
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  turn back. But what mistake?
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  And turn back to what? He's careful here, isn't he?
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  He says he's not talking about the Christian God yet.
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  Not at all. He's very clear.
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  All we've gotten to is somebody or something behind the moral
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  law, he says. We're still trying to figure
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  things out on our own Steam, just using reason.
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  Which brings us to the next section.
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  We're now in a deduction phase. We know there's a standard, this
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  moral law. The question becomes, what can
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  we deduce about the one who set the standard?
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  And Lewis says we have two main clues, 2 pieces of evidence we
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  can examine to learn about the character of this.
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  This be the first. Clue is the big one, the one
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  everyone sees. The universe itself.
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  Right. The physical world, everything
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  you see, touch and experience. But he argues that if you only
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  look at the universe, you run into a massive problem.
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  The contradiction you can't solve.
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  Because it tells you 2 completely opposite things about
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  its creator. Exactly.
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  On one hand, you look at the sunset or the complexity of a
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  cell or the sheer scale of the galaxies, and you have to
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  conclude that the creator is a great artist.
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  The beauty and genius are just undeniable.
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  But that's only half the picture.
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  It's not even half, because then you have to look at the rest of
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  it. You have to look at cancer, at
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  Kerasites, at earthquakes and tsunamis that kill
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  indiscriminately the brutal reality of the food chain.
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  And when you look at that side of things, what do you conclude?
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  You conclude that the Creator is quite merciless and no friend to
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  man. The universe is a beautiful
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  place, but it's also an incredibly dangerous and
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  terrifying place that seems completely indifferent to our
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  suffering. So you're stuck with this
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  paradox. A beautiful killer, an artist
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  who builds A masterpiece and then seems to take pleasure in
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  torturing the inhabitants and. A lot of philosophies just get
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  stuck there. Deism, for instance, or some
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  forms of agnosticism. They see the evidence for a
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  creator, but the problem of evil and suffering makes them
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  conclude that he must be distant or indifferent, or maybe even
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  cruel. They can't resolve the paradox.
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  But Lewis says that's because you're only looking at one of
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  the clues. And it's not even the best 1.
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  He says we have a second, better clue.
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  A more intimate 1. The moral law itself, which he
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  calls inside information. Inside information.
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  I like that. So why is it a better crew than
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  the whole universe? Well, this is where he uses that
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  great analogy. He says you can learn something
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  about a man by looking at a house he's built.
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  OK, you can see his skill, his resources, maybe his taste.
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  You can see if he likes big windows or strong walls.
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  Right, but you will learn a lot more about his actual character
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  by listening to his conversation.
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  The house is what he makes. The conversation is what he
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  thinks, what he values, what he wants.
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  So the universe is the house. It's impressive, but it's
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  external. The moral law.
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  That's the conversation. That's him telling us what
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  matters to him. Precisely.
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  And So what does this inside information tell us?
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  What does this being interested in?
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  According to the law inside us, he's intensely interested in
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  right conduct. Not just in physics or biology.
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  He cares about fair play, unselfishness, courage, good
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  faith, honesty and truthfulness. These are moral categories.
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  They are about character. So, just using reason, we've
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  moved from a powerful, artistic but possibly merciless creator
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  to a being who is, in a very specific sense, good.
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  He values goodness. He commands it.
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  Yes, and we've done that without opening a Bible.
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  We've just followed the logic from the clue inside our own
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  minds. But this is the moment where
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  Lewis slams on the brakes again. Because as soon as we hear God
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  is good, our minds immediately jump to our own definition of
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  good. We think of a kindly old
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  grandfather. We think of good as being a
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  soft, sympathetic, indulgent someone who will always let us
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  off the hook. And Lewis says, whoa, not so
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  fast. You can't make that leap.
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  That is not what the evidence suggests, no.
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  This is where the comfort starts to fade and the unsettling
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  reality begins to creep in. If our best clue to this being's
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  nature is the moral law, then we have to look at the character of
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  the law itself. And what is the character of the
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  moral law? Is it soft and indulgent?
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  Not in slightest. Lewis's description is blunt.
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  He says the moral law is as hard as nails.
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  Hard as nails? What does he mean by that?
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  It means the law doesn't care about your feelings, it doesn't
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  make allowances. It tells you to do the right
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  thing, the straight thing, and it does not seem to care how
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  painful or dangerous or difficult it is to do it.
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  So if a situation calls for you to risk your life to save
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  someone, the law says be courageous.
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  It doesn't say well be courageous unless it's really
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  scary. Exactly.
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  If it demands you tell the truth, even if it costs you your
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  job, it demands the truth. It doesn't care about your
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  financial situation. The standard is absolute.
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  The difficulty of meeting it is, to the law, completely
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  irrelevant. So if God is like the law, then
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  God is not soft. He is not soft, he is demanding,
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  he is absolute and he is in that sense utterly indifferent to our
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  excuses for why we failed to meet his standard.
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  This just completely shatters the popular image of a God who
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  just wants us to be happy and do our best.
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  It does, and it immediately creates a problem for the idea
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  of easy forgiveness. We want to jump straight to a
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  forgiving God. But Lewis points out a logical
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  problem. Of forgiveness, you need a
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  person who can forgive. Have we gotten to a person yet?
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  He says it's too early to say for sure.
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  Forgiveness is a personal act, an act of will, of relationship.
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  What we've to do so far is a power, a mind, something more
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  like a mind that it is like anything else.
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  But a mind isn't necessarily a person.
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  No, and that leads to a truly terrifying possibility.
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  What if the being behind the universe is a pure, impersonal
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  mind, a cosmic force of morality, but without
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  personality, without emotion, without mercy?
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  What happens to us then? The creatures who constantly
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  break the moral law. If the universe is run by an
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  impersonal mind, Lewis says, asking it to make allowances for
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  you or let you off is completely pointless.
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  And this is where he brings in that devastating analogy, the
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  multiplication table. Let's really unpack that.
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  It's so powerful, he says. Asking an impersonal moral mind
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  for forgiveness is like asking the multiplication table to let
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  you off when you get your sums wrong.
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  Imagine you're doing your taxes and you write down the 7 * 7 is
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  52 and the auditor comes and you say, look, I was really tired
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  that day. I was stressed.
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  Can't you just let it slide? What does the multiplication
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  table say to that? It says nothing.
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  It doesn't have an opinion. It doesn't care about your
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  excuses. It is an unbending, absolute
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  system of truth. You are simply wrong and you
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  will get the wrong answer. You will face the consequences
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  of your error. There's no one to appeal to,
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  it's just a system and absolute truth.
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  A. Pure impersonal mind that
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  embodies the moral law would be just like that.
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  It can't be petitioned. It can't be reasoned with.
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  It can only state what is true and what the consequences are
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  for violating that truth. That's a chilling thought.
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  We are judged by a standard we can't meet, by a judge who can't
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  be swayed. Our natural instinct is to just
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  reject that entirely. To say I don't want a God like
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  that of. Course, but Lewis points out the
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  contradiction in our own hearts. Because even as one part of us
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  rebelled sells against this hard absolute standard.
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  Another part of us is on its side.
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  Yes, we absolutely agree with its disapproval of human greed
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  and trickery and exploitation, especially when it's directed at
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  us. We demand justice.
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  We want the crooked politician to be punished.
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  We want the murderer to be held accountable.
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  We want the standard to be absolute for everyone else.
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  Right. We know deep down that if the
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  power behind the world was soft on evil, if it made excuses for
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  injustice, then it wouldn't actually be good.
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  A truly good being must hate evil.
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  And if the standard is absolute, then an absolutely good God must
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  hate most of what we do. There's the trap.
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  Our own sense of justice demands a God who is hard as nails.
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  But that same God, by that same standard, must condemn us.
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  We have used our own reason to prove that we are in serious
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  trouble. We've built our own cage.
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  We have and This is the logical climax of the first part of his
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  argument. He calls it the terrible fix.
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  This is really the heart of the matter.
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  He presents the reader with two and only two possibilities for
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  how the universe works, and he shows that for us.
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  Both of them lead to hopelessness.
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  It's a perfect logical pincer movement.
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  You can't escape it, He basically asks.
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  OK, what kind of universe do you live in?
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  One with a moral standard or one without.
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  Let's take the first one, scenario A Let's say there is no
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  absolute goodness. The universe is not governed by
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  a moral being. This is the materialist view.
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  Right, this is the conclusion you might come to if you only
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  look at that first clue, the universe itself, with all its
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  random cruelty. So if that's true, what's the
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  result for us? The result, Lewis says, is that
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  all our efforts are, in the long run, hopeless.
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  Hopeless. Why?
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  Because if there's no ultimate standard of good, then nothing
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  ultimately matters. Your sense of justice, your
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  desire for fairness, your acts of courage or kindness, They're
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  just chemical reactions in your brain, evolutionary quirks.
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  So all the striving for a better world, for justice, it's all
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  just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
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  The universe is a cold, meaningless machine, and
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  eventually everything we value will be erased without a trace.
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  There's no final Court of Appeal.
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  The bad guys often win and get away with it.
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  The good guys suffer and die for nothing.
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  It's a complete erasure of meaning.
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  That's one kind of hopelessness. A pretty bleak one, but for some
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  that might be less scary than the alternative.
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  So let's look at scenario B. The universe is governed by an
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  absolute goodness. This is the conclusion we reach
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  by following the clue of the moral law.
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  That should be the good news, right There is meaning.
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  There is a standard. But Lewis shows it's just as
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  terrifying. Why?
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  Because if the standard is real and absolute, then our failure
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  to meet it is also real and absolute under the scenario, he
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  says. We are making ourselves enemies
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  to that goodness every day. We know the right thing to do
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  and we we just don't do it. We are selfish when we should be
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  selfless. We are dishonest when we should
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  be truthful. And crucially, he adds that we
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  are not in the least likely to do any better tomorrow.
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  That's the key. This isn't a problem we can fix
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  with a bit more effort. It's a fundamental part of our
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  nature. In our theological language,
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  we'd call it total depravity. We are fundamentally bent away
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  from God's standard. So if we're constantly at odds
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  with an absolute goodness who is hard as nails?
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  Then our case is hopeless again. We're doomed by meaninglessness
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  in the first scenario, and we're doomed by justice in the second.
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  It's a perfect trap. There's no way out.
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  We can't live with the standard and we can't live without it.
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  That's the paradox. We cannot do without it, and we
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  cannot do with it. The standard is the only thing
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  that gives life meaning, but it's also the very thing that
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  condemns us. This forces us to see God in
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  this terrifying dual way. Yes, he is at the same time the
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  only comfort, the source of all meaning and goodness and the
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  supreme terror, the absolute judge whose standard we can
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  never meet. He's the thing we need the most
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  and the thing we most want to run and hide from.
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  Because we know we're in the wrong.
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  He's our only possible ally, but we have made ourselves his
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  enemies. It's not a mistake, it's a state
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  of being. We are in a state of rebellion.
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  And that's why Lewis is so dismissive of people who treat
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  religion like a fun hobby, those who talk as if meeting the gaze
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  of absolute goodness would be fun.
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  He says there's still only playing with religion.
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  They haven't grasped the seriousness of the situation.
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  They think God's goodness is like a warm fuzzy blanket.
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  When in reality, absolute goodness is more like a
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  consuming fire. It's either the great safety or
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  the great danger. There is no third option.
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  If you are aligned with it, you are safe.
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  If you are opposed to it, you are in mortal danger.
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  And his conclusion about where we stand, naturally.
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  Is completely unambiguous and we have reacted the wrong way.
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  We're on the wrong side of the line.
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  We are in the great danger. So after all this, we're left in
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  a state of, well, total despair, which I guess is the whole
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  point. And that brings us to the final
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  section. Why did Lewis take this long,
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  painful roundabout route? Because, as he says,
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  Christianity simply does not make sense until you have faced
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  the sort of facts I have been describing.
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  The solution is meaningless if you don't understand the
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  problem. It's like offering a cure to
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  someone who doesn't think they're sick.
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  Exactly. The core message of Christianity
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  is twofold. Repent and you will be forgiven.
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  But what does that message mean to someone who doesn't think
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  they have anything to repent of? Nothing.
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  It's an answer to a question they're not asking.
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  Lewis says Christianity has nothing to say to such a person.
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  They think they're fine. They might have have a few
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  flaws, sure, but they don't feel they need radical forgiveness.
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  They just need a bit of advice, maybe some encouragement.
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  So the sequence is absolutely vital.
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  You can't skip a step. First, you have to see that the
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  moral law is real. Then that there's a power behind
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  it, and then the hardest step that you have broken that law
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  and put yourself on the wrong side of that power.
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  Only after that, after you feel the weight of your guilt and the
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  desperation of your position, only then can the Christian
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  message even begin to be heard. It's his doctor analogy.
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  You only really listen to the doctor when you know you're
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  sick, and you only begin to understand what Christians are
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  talking about when you realize your situation is nearly
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  desperate. The good news is only good news
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  if you've heard the bad news first.
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  Without the terror of judgment, the offer of grace has no
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  weight. It becomes cheap, it becomes
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  something you feel you're entitled to.
• 18:50
  Rather than an astonishing, undeserved rescue, Lewis is
• 18:54
  trying to restore the weight, the gravity of the situation.
• 18:57
  OK, so once the need is established, this desperate fix,
• 19:01
  Lewis says Christianity claims to offer the unique solution.
• 19:04
  It answers the paradoxes that reason alone LED us to.
• 19:07
  Right, He says. It offers an explanation for
• 19:09
  three specific problems we ran into.
• 19:11
  What's the first one? The first is that internal
• 19:13
  conflict. How can we both love goodness in
• 19:16
  theory and hate it in practice? How can we know the law is good
• 19:20
  and yet constantly fight against it?
• 19:23
  Christianity have an answer for that.
• 19:24
  The second is the philosophical problem.
• 19:26
  How can God be both the impersonal absolute standard,
• 19:30
  the multiplication table, and also a person who can love and
• 19:33
  forgive? Which is a huge problem.
• 19:35
  We need him to be a person to get forgiveness.
• 19:38
  But the evidence of the law points to an impersonal,
• 19:41
  unbending mind. Christianity claims to reconcile
• 19:44
  those two things in one being. And the third answer.
• 19:47
  Is the most practical one. It answers the question, how can
• 19:50
  the demands of this absolute law, which we cannot possibly
• 19:53
  meet, be met on our behalf? How can justice be served
• 19:56
  without destroying us? And Lewis boils the entire
• 20:00
  Christian answer down to one single incredible sentence.
• 20:03
  He does The solution to all of it.
• 20:05
  Is this God himself became a man to save man from the disapproval
• 20:10
  of God? The incarnation, God the Son,
• 20:12
  steps into creation, lives the perfect life we couldn't live,
• 20:16
  and takes the judgement we deserved.
• 20:17
  It answers everything. He is both the absolute law as
• 20:21
  God and the forgiving person as Jesus.
• 20:23
  His sacrifice satisfies the demands of justice.
• 20:26
  It explains how God can be both just and the justifier of the
• 20:29
  one who has faith. So this brings it all back
• 20:31
  around to that warning about seeking comfort first.
• 20:35
  We see now that Christianity is, in the end, a thing of
• 20:38
  unspeakable comfort. But you can't start there.
• 20:42
  You cannot start there. It does not begin in comfort.
• 20:45
  It begins in dismay. It begins in the terror of
• 20:48
  realizing you're on the wrong Rd., facing an absolute judge
• 20:52
  with no hope in yourself. And trying to skip that part,
• 20:54
  trying to jump straight to the comfort.
• 20:56
  Is a fool's errand. It's impossible.
• 20:58
  And that leads to his final, very sharp warning about what
• 21:01
  happens when you make comfort your primary goal.
• 21:04
  He says comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for
• 21:08
  it. It's a by product, it's not the
• 21:09
  goal itself, he says. If you look for truth, no matter
• 21:13
  how uncomfortable that truth is, you may find comfort in the end.
• 21:17
  Real comfort, because it's based on reality.
• 21:19
  But what if you look for comfort directly?
• 21:21
  If you choose a belief system simply because it makes you feel
• 21:24
  good. He says you get neither comfort
• 21:26
  nor truth. What you get is soft soap and
• 21:29
  wishful thinking to begin with, and in the end, despair because
• 21:33
  reality always wins. The multiplication table doesn't
• 21:36
  go away just because you wish it would.
• 21:38
  The moral laws standard doesn't lower itself to meet your
• 21:41
  performance. Sooner or later, your wishful
• 21:44
  thinking will crash against the rocks of reality and the
• 21:47
  hopelessness we talked about earlier becomes your final
• 21:49
  state. So to summarize this entire
• 21:51
  logical path, it's a forced March away from self deception.
• 21:56
  You start by admitting you're on the wrong Rd.
• 21:59
  Which forces you to turn back and look at the evidence of the
• 22:02
  moral law. That evidence points to a hard,
• 22:05
  absolute goodness. And that goodness, when compared
• 22:08
  to our actual lives, puts us in a desperate fix, caught between
• 22:12
  meaninglessness and judgement. Which creates the necessary
• 22:15
  condition for true repentance, a real understanding of our need
• 22:18
  for rescue, and only then. Only then does the gospel
• 22:21
  message register as the unspeakable comfort that it is.
• 22:24
  Lewis saw this pattern everywhere.
• 22:26
  He makes a comparison to the years before World War Two.
• 22:29
  People didn't want to believe war was coming.
• 22:31
  They engaged in wishful thinking about politics because the truth
• 22:34
  was too scary. But eventually, they had to wake
• 22:36
  up and face the terrifying facts of the situation.
• 22:40
  Their desire for peace didn't change the reality of the
• 22:43
  threat. He's saying we have to do the
• 22:44
  same thing when it comes to our spiritual reality.
• 22:47
  We have to stop the wishful thinking.
• 22:49
  We have to face the terrifying facts of the moral law and our
• 22:52
  relationship to it, no matter how much we'd rather not.
• 22:55
  Which leaves us and you, the listener, with a really
• 22:59
  challenging thought to end on. It's a question of priority.
• 23:03
  Are you looking for comfort or are you looking for truth?
• 23:07
  Because Lewis's argument is that you can't have both.
• 23:10
  If you start with comfort, you'll only end up with despair.
• 23:13
  But if you have the courage to start with the hard truth.
• 23:15
  The terrifying facts about the standard and where you stand
• 23:18
  before it. Then, and only then, is there a
• 23:21
  path to a comfort that is real, lasting, and based on something
• 23:25
  more solid than your own wishes. It forces you to ask, have I
• 23:29
  truly faced the law or am I still just playing games?
• 23:32
  A lot to think about there. Thanks for joining us for this
• 23:34
  deep dive. We'll talk to you next time.