The Abolition of Man

 I was flipping through The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis recently, a book I last read quite a long time ago and the contents of which I had forgotten. It's a short work, based on lectures he gave in 1943 and is not overtly religious in theme even though it is in essence. What it does is defend universal spiritual values against the contemporary assault on them, specifically in the field of education, which denied that moral and aesthetic values were grounded in something objective. It was the beginning of the moral relativism, now so firmly established, which dismisses the idea that there are universal truths and these are rooted in an absolute reality. Lewis argues for something he calls in this book the Tao, the word deriving, of course, from ancient Chinese philosophy, which is something like Ma'at in ancient Egypt or just objective reality, the foundation truth of the universe and of being in general. The Tao is not provable by materialistic, rational, intellectual, logical, scientific means because it derives from a ground much deeper than can be accessed by these on their own. It is recognised, known, accepted, seen (or not by the spiritually blind) but it is not verifiable by empirical evidence as that phrase is normally understood. It should be self-evident but cannot be proved by any of the ways materialists demand proof.

At the end of these lectures Lewis provides a compendium of sayings illustrative of Natural Law drawn from many different sources and traditions ranging from Egyptian, Roman, Greek and Chinese to Christian, Hindu and Jewish to Norse, Anglo-Saxon, Babylonian, American Indian and Australian Aborigine. But there is nothing from the second main monotheistic religion. 

This might seem a strange oversight, if oversight it is, but it reminded me of the time I first became interested in spiritual matters and studied scriptures from all the main traditions. I already knew the Bible reasonably well but reread the New Testament in the light of my new-found interests and beliefs. I read Hindu and Buddhist scriptures, the classics of Taoism and Zen and also some collections of wise words similar to Lewis's compendium. All these spoke of mystical understanding, perhaps in different ways and on different levels and some more than others but they all had an insight into higher reality. Then I read the holy book of the second main monotheistic religion expecting to find more of the same. What a disappointment. There was nothing in this frankly hotch-potch collection of writings that approached the profundity of other scriptures. It barely reached the level of Old Testament spiritual understanding, never mind the New Testament. It was clear that the compiler of this text, which seemed like a New Age channelling, albeit in the context of its time and place, was nowhere near the spiritual level of the founders of other religions. 

Now, maybe these teachings were a step forward for the people of that time and place but they have little to say to us today unlike other scriptures which can transcend time and place and still speak to us across the centuries. It is often said that the three monotheistic religions worship the same God but they approach him in such different ways that that is hard to maintain in any seriousness. For the Christian, God is a loving Father but the God depicted in this holy book demands total allegiance as a despot does from a slave. He may be a benign despot if you obey him but he leaves no room for you as a free individual.

I'm not disputing there are many pious worshippers of God in this religion but there are also encouragements to violence and though these are often glossed over and excused by believers they are plainly there in the source texts which are the holy book and the recorded sayings of its founder who was a war leader as much as he was a prophet. The extremism in this religion is fundamental to it. The West used to know that, and from hard won experience.

Despite what you might be thinking I am not writing this in the context of the present conflict in the Middle East. It's not the Middle East I am concerned about but the West. The second main monotheistic religion is not willing to share power. It will accommodate itself to its perceived rivals in the short term only for long term advantage. That has been demonstrated historically repeatedly. If the modernist ethos of relativism, as described by C.S. Lewis, is one way of abolishing man so too is an absolutist religion which gives all power to the deity and leaves no freedom for the individual human soul. It must obey. It must submit. It's in the name. But God does not want obedience. He wants love.