Abolishing Man – 10/1/2024
Throughout my adult life I’ve heard references to and quotes from C.S. Lewis’s short book, The Abolition of Man. So I finally got around to reading it. The book’s jacket extols Lewis’s efforts to persuade readers of the importance of universal values like courage and honor. Calling the book “astonishing and prophetic” – and that’s certainly the impression I’ve gleaned over the years from those who mention the book – the jacket cites National Review’s choice of Lewis’s work as buy neurontin online cod number 7 on their “100 Best Nonfiction Books of the Twentieth Century.”
Wow. I disagree. I do believe the book is worth reading, at least because so many think of it as a ‘Great Book.’ And it does have some insights, which I’ll explore below. But #7 on the 20th century’s best of the best? No.
It took me until the end of Chapter 1 (“Men Without Chests”) to find my first nugget, which is the quote I’ve heard most frequently: “And all the time – such is the tragi-comedy of our situation – we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. . . . We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”
What is perhaps startling is that this quote (and the book) was published in 1944, when “the greatest generation” was standing firm against and hurling back the Nazi juggernaut during WW2. If the West were ever populated with a gaggle of ‘men Usinsk with chests,’ certainly it was during the staggering crises of that war. Lewis was therefore prophetic in anticipating the cultural destruction of the generations to follow.
A clear modern example is the war against ‘toxic masculinity,’ wherein American men are vilified for truly historic and biblical virtues such as moral responsibility, the desire to protect wife and children, efforts to build churches and peaceful communities, a strong work ethic, and support for law and order. As in Isaiah’s time (5:20-23), God might well declare to America: “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight! Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink: Which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him!”
It is ironic and ridiculous that such virtues as I mention above are deemed ‘racist’ by the Marxists in control of Western institutions and – ludicrously – signs of ‘white supremacy.’ Sigh. What are the consequences of attacks on virtue? Young men who were not raised with biblical convictions (and not many are), are tempted to give up, choosing the pub over the church, and yield to narcissistic temptations, since they will be vilified regardless.
In the book Lewis likes to use the term Tao for natural law, or the God-given conscience we each possess to discern right from wrong. Tao, actually, is the ancient Chinese philosophical / religious concept for “the natural way of the universe, whose character one’s intuition must discern to realize the potential for individual wisdom.” (Wikipedia) It’s, in effect, a secular version of the biblical view that we are made in the image of God, and that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. In God’s reality, we look to Him for wisdom, and our God-given conscience helps. In secular philosophies or New Age religions we look within. I think Lewis was foolish to substitute a secular concept for a sound biblical one.
Lewis debunks attacks on virtue that derive from rationality. This is the classic “ought” vs. “is” conflict. Atheism / materialism can only hope to account for what “is.” As soon as you say something “ought” to be, atheism has no response. In materialism, what is murder other than a collision between clumps of molecules? Similarly, what are rape or abuse or political corruption?
Unbelievers may decry virtues as sentimental. Lewis replies, “All value will be sentimental; and you must confess (on pain of abandoning every value) that all sentiment is not ‘merely’ subjective.” Furthermore, “an ought must not be dismissed because it cannot produce some is as its credential. If nothing is self-evident, nothing can be proved. Similarly, if nothing is obligatory for its own sake, nothing is obligatory at all.”
This is presuppositionalism applied to virtue, to morality. Note that materialism is a pitifully weak view of reality, especially of the reality of human existence. What is important in life? Yes, stuff is important, the clothes, dwellings, and equipment of day to day life. But the really vital issues are the nonmaterial, such as love, integrity, justice, beauty, hope, meaning, and a grounded faith. What is the point of the stuff if the vital values fail?
Lewis insists that what he calls the Tao (Natural Law or Traditional Morality) “is not one among a series of possible systems of value. It is the sole source of all value judgments. If it is rejected, all value is rejected.” This is quite the biblical position, assuming that Lewis sees his Tao as encompassing all biblical truth. It is also consistent with Cornelius Van Til’s stark conclusion that the world is divided simply into belief and unbelief. Unbelief may have many forms, but it’s all trash, all evil. Only God’s revealed truths are true. Only God’s reality is real.
Lewis sees false ideologies as warped branches rebelling against the tree: “if the rebels could succeed they would find that they had destroyed themselves.” In all the myriad forms of unbelief, the only sure destination is Hell. Lewis ridicules any attempt to form a novel ideology: “The human mind has no more power of inventing a new value than of imagining a new primary colour, or, indeed of creating a new sun and a new sky for it to move in.”
Over the years I have met unbelievers who see themselves on a quest to find TRUTH. Sadly, they count the journey more important than the destination. They show no inclination to arrive at a destination, revelling in the pride of the quest. “Look at me! I don’t claim to have found the answer. Feel free to admire my open mind!”
Lewis comments, “An open mind, in questions that are not ultimate, is useful. But an open mind about the ultimate foundations either of Theoretical or of Practical Reason is idiocy. If a man’s mind is open on these things, let his mouth at least be shut . . . Outside the Tao there is no ground for criticizing either the Tao or anything else.”
In the chapter entitled, “The Abolition of Man,” Lewis considers the consequences of technological triumph. The ultimate tech would have the power to mold our descendants in whatever image we please. Lewis insists that those descendants would then be weaker, under the control of the powers that formed them. They may have “wonderful machines,” but “we have pre-ordained how they are to use them.” In short the attractiveness and the power of tech works to constrain, manipulate, and control the people who thought they would benefit freely from it.
Lewis observes that the more powerful the tech, the smaller the powerful elite who call the shots. Technology amplifies the power of the ruling class. That is certainly evident today. Lewis predicted that “if the dreams of some scientific planners are realized, this means the rule of a few hundreds of men over billions upon billions of men.”
Finally, “Human nature will be the last part of Nature to surrender to Man.” This certainly applies to the anti-reality dogmas of the various trans movements (transgender, transhumanism). Lewis warns of the “power of some men to make other men what they please.” Lust for power over others is Satanic in origin. When loosed, there are no limits, as displayed in this generation’s shocking hostility to women and children, using the power of the state to bring perverted sexuality into classrooms and libraries, and perverted men into women’s restrooms, locker rooms, and sporting events. It’s not enough for the Adversary to offer corrupt choices to the innocent or naïve. They must actively recruit and coerce. The end of this road is the entire global system under the rule of the Antichrist.
Lewis saw disastrous changes in educational philosophy. Traditionally, teachers understood that their lessons must conform to reality, to the Tao. Teachers passed on what they had received from past and well-established wisdom. “It was but old birds teaching young birds to fly.”
The new philosophy engineers new values. The Tao is fluid, it changes according to our will. In particular, humanness morphs as we choose. Nature is conquered. Each of us may have the conscience that feels comfortable. The elite are in charge of the overall architecture, of course. And the elite will report to the Antichrist. (Lewis’s work would have been far more powerful if he had seen the biblical applications throughout.)
Lewis warns that those that step outside the Tao step into the void. “They are not men at all.” They may not be unhappy, but they have become artefacts. “Man’s final conquest has proved to be the abolition of Man.” I believe Lewis is making too much of a metaphor of the concept of “man” here. What he describes is just an aspect of lostness in a biblical view of man made in the image of God, with personhood and a free will. When you deny reality you deny God and His word. It need not be more complicated than that. You must take Satan and the historic spiritual war into account, too.
He sees modern man devolving into emotivism – “All motives that claim any validity other than that of their felt emotional weight at a given moment have failed them.” Also, “My point is that those who stand outside all judgements of value cannot have any ground for preferring one of their own impulses to another except the emotional strength of that impulse.”
He’s right, of course, in that our current culture (three generations beyond his) is rife with emotivism. Postmodernism has done its nasty work, along with the self-esteem movement, but above all, we see a departure from absolute TRUTH tied to a biblical worldview.
Those that seek power without having a traditional morality, Lewis is sure, never use that power benevolently, as far as he reads history. Are there any world leaders today who profess Christ and live accordingly? How long has it been since there has been one? Lewis observes and predicts that the Conditioners (ruling elites) “will hate the conditioned” (the rest of us). That’s easy to see in contemporary politics. Furthermore, since the elites deliberately discard the Tao, they are ruled, themselves, by their own irrational impulses. “Man’s conquest of Nature turns out, in the moment of its consummation, to be Nature’s conquest of man.”
No, Clive, not Nature; rather willful unbelief dominates the culture.
As I draft this we can see all kinds of irrationalities today, and on a massive scale. For example, the U.S. is doubling down on mandating electric vehicles despite massive evidence that EVs are disastrous economically, environmentally, and unsupportable by the grid. And people refuse to buy them for good, commonsense reasons. Another example: the western world is doubling down on disastrous climate change policies despite massive fraud in the data and the models that supposedly justify them. And despite the global suffering, privation, and even starvation that will result from implementation. And then there is gender madness, open borders, etc. One can only conclude that God has given us over to judgments that we are forging against ourselves, since we don’t want Him telling us what to do.
Lewis calls it the ‘magician’s bargain’: “give up our soul, get power in return.” The irony is that once gained, the power does not belong to us. Slavery results. The Lord Jesus was more direct about this. In John 8:31-36 He explains that only if we continue in His word shall we know the truth, and the truth will make us free. The alternative is, “Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.”
Scripture is clear – Within God’s creation, we creatures have two choices: serve the Lord or serve sin (Satan). In the latter case, we become slaves to sin (Satan).
In the political realm, Lewis notes, the only way to avoid being a slave to tyranny is to embrace objective values, the Tao, a biblical worldview. (It is indeed frustrating that Lewis never says anything about the Bible as the foundation for truth. Why do so many people revere him as if he were actually a born again Christian?)
In the January 2024 issue of First Things, Carl Trueman has published the essay, “The Desecration of Man,” commemorating the 80th anniversary of C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man. Trueman resonates with Lewis as he analyzes where we stand today with regard to Lewis’s forecasts. For example: “Today, the dominant impulse of our elites is toward disruption, destruction, and discontinuity.” The abolition of man is intentional, “not merely the outcome of impersonal social and technological forces.” Yet even Carl fails to intuit the dark spiritual forces behind the world’s elites.
Trueman observes that moderns energetically follow Nietzsche and Marx in killing God (they imagine) and profaning everything that derives from Christian morality. And we are to believe that this is all good; if we deny the new ‘good’ then we are canceled, or worse.
The differences among the moderns don’t matter much in terms of practice. For Marx, desecration is an essential precursor to the communist utopia. For Nietzsche, man must step into God’s discarded shoes to allow self-transcendence. For both groups, Christians are the enemies who must be expunged.
Trueman offers a poignant example of the desecration / abolition of man. Pornography is the logical end of the sexual revolution. Sex was historically sacred, connected to the mystery of life itself. Now it’s merely about recreation and self-fulfillment. Once upon a time, sex involved commitment (marriage) to another whole person. Now, sex treats people as objects to be used for personal satisfaction.
Trueman argues that today’s gender ideology desecrates man by denying the significance of the body to personhood. If bodily reality can simply be denied, then how much of personhood is left . . . especially within a materialistic worldview? Additionally, I’d point out, the medical establishment perpetrates a massive con by surgical mutilations that claim to change you from m to f or f to m, although no such thing has resulted. Furthermore, if gender is fluid and given by declaration, why trouble yourself with expensive, painful, and long-term debilitating surgeries?
Trueman has many useful insights, but offers a strange conclusion, beginning with the question, “So where does hope lie?” How can we all agree on what it means to be human?
Properly, he insists that the answer cannot be legislated. “Politicians have no authority over the spiritual imagination.” So he suggests that the answer must propagate in local religious communities as a theologically informed liturgy. He cites the early Church and its creeds as hopeful examples.
Trueman correctly suggests that the content of such a creed must focus on man as made in the image of God, that human beings are persons with value because of their spiritual nature. He is hopeful that ‘the Church’ will embrace such a project.
And so he falls woefully short. Conversion to a biblical worldview occurs in individuals who get converted to Christ. The saving Gospel of Jesus Christ must be preached. Churches filled with saved people have no problems in rejecting the madness of the times. Churches filled with lost people, having no foundation, will fall, sooner or later, to the pressures of the culture. It’s not about getting a relevant and sound liturgy into the worship services of the churches. It’s about converting the souls of lost people. Anyway, churches filled with lost people invariably have pastors who are lost. On what moral authority do they stand?
Get the Gospel out. Speak truth as you do. Pray for the Lord to work through you and lead you to fruitful encounters. Be compassionate to those who are caught up in the madness, but don’t compromise.
- drdave@truthreallymatters.com