Unpacking C.S. Lewis's Abolition of Man

Welcome to Family Policy Matters, an engaging and informative weekly radio show and podcast produced by the North Carolina Family Policy Council. Hi, this is John Rustin, President of NC Family, and we're grateful to have you with us for this week's program. It's our prayer that you will be informed, encouraged, and inspired by what you hear on Family Policy Matters, and that you will feel better equipped to be a voice of persuasion for family values in your community, state, and nation. And now here is our host of Family Policy Matters, Tracey Devette Griggs.

Thanks for joining us this week for Family Policy Matters. Few people are unfamiliar with the name C.S. Lewis and his prolific writings, especially his fictional series, The Chronicles of Narnia. However, his book, The Abolition of Man, has a reputation among many for being inaccessible and difficult to read. Well, no more thanks to a new book by scholar Michael Ward. Michael Ward is a member of the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford and Professor of Apologetics at Houston Baptist University. He joins us today to discuss his newest book, After Humanity, a guide to C.S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man. Michael Ward, can't wait to read this one. Welcome to Family Policy Matters. Thank you, Tracey.

I'm very glad to be with you. Well, you already provided commentary on Lewis's Narnia books, we know, so why did you decide to tackle The Abolition of Man next? The immediate cause was I was I was asked to write a foreword to a new edition of The Abolition of Man. And as I wrote that foreword, it grew and it grew and it grew until it had become a kind of standalone book.

And I've taught The Abolition of Man to my students over many years, and I know how difficult they have found it. And I thought it was worth putting out a standalone book to help people through this important but difficult work. And I'm very pleased that the publishers of my book were able to persuade the publishers of C.S. Lewis's book to produce a tie in edition. So when you get After Humanity, you can also get a matching copy of C.S. Lewis's Abolition of Man.

I love the fact that you have taught this to students who probably were not afraid to ask the supposedly stupid questions that most of us might be afraid to ask. But tell us why The Abolition of Man do you think is so widely admired and so difficult to understand for many? Yes, it is a very widely admired work.

And indeed, C.S. Lewis himself described it as almost my favorite among my books. And it's admired across the spectrum from every kind of Christian through to atheists. There's a modern British atheist philosopher called John Gray, who thinks it's a very prescient and prophetic work. Evangelical Anglican Alan Jacobs has called it the most profound of Lewis's cultural critiques.

Joseph Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict, he has described it as having a keen accuracy in its moral diagnosis. So it is very widely admired. But it's also, as you say, by Lewis's standards, at any rate, quite inaccessible. It's quite difficult. He's operating at quite a high academic standard. It originated as a series of philosophy lectures, although it's definitely worth unpacking all these these complexities.

It's not something that necessarily comes easy to people and doesn't come easy to me either. I'm no philosopher myself. I've I'm more of a literary critic and a theologian. And Lewis here is working in full philosophical mode. And so there are no stupid questions.

I asked every question conceivable as I put this guy together. And nothing is too difficult or too easy to be worth explaining. Yeah, you mentioned that that this was uniquely personal and relevant to Lewis's own life. So why do you think that is? It is an argument about the objectivity of value. And Lewis had come to a belief in the objectivity of value long before he became a theist or a Christian. So he'd grappled with subjectivism, the idea that value is is purely a projection from our own interior preferences and private whims. He'd grappled with that philosophy in his pre Christian days and had concluded that it isn't true, it isn't correct. So he'd seen through subjectivism and having seen through it, he wanted to share with other people, the way round this problem because it has become a very common philosophical position.

But it's, it's wrong, it's a mistake. And so he's trying to show why. That's one reason why it comes from Lewis's own personal experience. And another aspect is that in the course of the abolition of man, he repeatedly talks about how the real test of objective value is, is our willingness to suffer and maybe even die in defence of the good. And Lewis himself had very nearly died during the First World War, he thought that the patriotic value was was an objective value. And he thought that, you know, risking his own life in defence of his country in the First World War was something that he should do, even though of course, from a subjective point of view, it wasn't going to be very pleasant for him. And indeed, it wasn't pleasant.

He was blown up in the trenches of France in the spring of 1918, very nearly killed, he saw men die on either side of him. But just because you have to suffer maybe even risk death in defence of the good is no reason to conclude therefore, the value is merely subjective. If it were merely subjective, then when you had to suffer when the thing became inconvenient for you, you change your view, wouldn't you?

And the fact that you go through with your commitment to a particular thing, whatever it may be, loyalty to one's marriage, commitment to one's work, and indeed, loyalty to one's nation, even when those things are inconvenient, that reminds us that value is objective. We don't just make it up. Kaitlin Luna You mentioned philosophical anthropology, and you talk about how Lewis explores this. Could you start by telling us what is meant by philosophical anthropology? Christopher Hitchens Yeah, anthropology just means your understanding of humanity.

Anthropos in Greek means man. So a philosophy of humanity is really what Lewis is presenting. He's trying to explain how, from a philosophical point of view, from an ethical, philosophical point of view, we are human beings and not either animals on the one hand, or angels on the other. So he's trying to define what it is that makes us specifically and uniquely human. And it is that we are rational animals.

Angels have a rational spirit, animals have sensible appetites, but human beings have both. And it's integrating those two aspects of our nature that he's really concerned with in this book. Kaitlin Luna So what did he say about the role of education in this discussion? Christopher Hitchens Yeah, education is a very important aspect of the whole presentation.

Because although he's arguing that value is objective, and that it's a premise, it's as basic as two plus two equals four, which we just discovered to be the case, we don't make them up. So in matters of right and wrong, good and evil, there are certain absolutely fundamental truths, which we, we just have to see and not to see them is to, you know, be deficiently human. But just as people have to be taught mathematics when they're little, so we have to be taught morality. It may be self evident once you see it, but until you see it, you're either mathematically innumerate or morally immature. And that's why, you know, so much of the importance of parenthood is indeed in training up our little boys and girls to know right from wrong, good from evil. They'll see it once you show it to them, but you have to show it to them.

Otherwise, they just remain, you know, little beasts. You don't need, you don't need to be a very cynical person to to understand that the children left to their own devices won't put on the the moral muscle that will enable them to become balanced and humane individuals. So one of the criticisms of culture today, especially in light of social media, and, and marketing and fast food restaurants is that people do not have the appetite or the attention span to dig deep into philosophy, such as you're suggesting. Why is this important for us to, to buckle down and do do you think? Well, it's very important that we we buckle down and pay attention to Lewis's argument because we see the the correctness of his of his warning all around us. He warned that unless we do integrate our our rational faculty and our sensible appetite, unless we combine those two aspects and become truly human, then we will be on a short road to disaster. And that's why he calls his book the abolition of man.

You know, he's on the one hand, he's defending objective value. On the other hand, he's pointing out how if we give up on the objectivity of value, we'll be on a short road to a kind of self destruction. We'll be bringing about our own abolition, we'll either be evaporating upwards into a kind of false spirituality, or we'll be descending downwards into mere animality.

And either way, we won't be human. And I think if you look around, in our modern culture, you see, you see a lot of incompletely human people who are either denying that they're embodied, or they're saying anything I feel must be right, simply because I feel it. And in both those ways, you see the truth, the accuracy of Lewis's warnings about about this, this vitally important moral question.

I mean, you did mention the keywords rational and sensible. And I think as you just said, you can look around and go, there are so many things that are being said in the public square right now that are not rational, don't even make sense. Can you talk specifically about a few of the issues that we might be facing that a study like this would help us to grapple with? Well, I mean, there are many, many sort of prominent political and social issues to do with sexual behavior, gender identity, truthfulness in politics, and those sorts of things. And so we can see it on a large scale in the culture at large, but I think really, it's, it's most important to bring it home to ourselves as individuals, and ask ourselves where it is that we try to wriggle out of the objectivity of value.

Because, you know, it's easy to to point the finger at other people, isn't it? But we need to take the speck out of our own eye, or the log out of our own eye before we start dealing with other people's problems. So, you know, I already mentioned, it's an objectively valuable thing to be loyal to your marriage vows.

You know, if you're married, undoubtedly, there will be periods in your marriage when you go through difficulty, when you go through very choppy waters. But part of the objectivity of value is veracity. And if you've made a promise, you need to stick to it. You know, that's just a very simple example of how Lewis's argument is deeply relevant to each and every one of us. It's not just, you know, a big political or social matter. That is a great point, because it's so easy, isn't it, to, as you said, to point the finger at other people and to find ways that other people have been offensive. To bring it home to ourselves first, I think is a great point.

Thank you for making that. So let's say our listeners order the book, they get your book along with C.S. Lewis's Abolition of Man.

How do they tackle this? Tell us what we should do when we get those books. Well, it depends how well you know C.S. Lewis. If, for instance, you're already familiar with mere Christianity, you will recall how in that book, the first four chapters of mere Christianity talk about right and wrong as a clue to the meaning of the universe. And there in mere Christianity, Lewis is making very much the same argument as he makes in the Abolition of Man, except at a much more accessible, popular level. So if you're already familiar with that argument, you might just plunge straight into the Abolition of Man.

Or you might prefer to start reading my introductory chapters in After Humanity as a way of limbering up for the Abolition of Man. People should, if they want to get the book, go through the publisher's website. So the book is published by Word on Fire Academic. And if you order it through their website, then you automatically get this free tie-in edition of the Abolition of Man with a matching cover. So don't go through Amazon or some other bookseller. Go to Word on Fire Academic. As you said, if you want the book by Michael Ward, and that is entitled After Humanity, a guide to C.S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man, you need to go to the Word on Fire Academic website and order it from there.

And you will get his book along with the Abolition of Man at the same time. So Michael Ward, thank you so much for being with us today on Family Policy Matters. You've been listening to Family Policy Matters. We hope you enjoyed the program and plan to tune in again next week. To listen to this show online and to learn more about NC Families work to inform, encourage and inspire families across North Carolina, go to our website at ncfamily.org. That's ncfamily.org. Thanks again for listening and may God bless you and your family.