"These, then, are the two points I wanted to make. First, that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Secondly, that they do not in fact behave in that way. They know the Law of Nature; they break it. These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in"

-- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

I said yesterday that I had completed The Brothers Karamazov and so now I'm reading Mere Christianity and I was pleased to see that Lewis touches on what I had talked about in yesterday's post, absolute moral truths.

Lewis makes it abundantly clear in the first chapter of this book the same point that I tried to make yesterday, I thought that quite encouraging.

Another aspect that Lewis points out is the idea that we "ought" to do something; we feel obligated. Dr. Kreeft expounds on this idea in his lecture on relativism. He gives a case of one who promises a friend to help move in the morning, and when his alarm goes off, he has two feelings, one to stay in bed and sleep, and the other to get up and go help. He has the desire to stay in bed and the obligation to help his friend. Each feeling is mutally exclusive, he has no desire to get up and no obligation to sleep. What does he do? If he is a good friend he gets up and goes. Notice that I used the word "good", the right thing to do would be to help his friend because he promised, and he knows this and has the feeling that he "ought" to help, and this out weights his desire to stay in bed and sleep.

Another aspect of obligation is that no one feels an obligation to do bad things. people feel they "ought" to fulfill their promises, or tell the truth, etc., but no one feels that they "ought" to murder, or rape.

I will end the same way that I began, quoting Lewis. "Whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real Right and Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if you try breaking one to him he will be complaing 'It's not fair' before you can say Jack Robinson"

God Love You