The Abolition of man

This one I found a bit difficult to understand, but i feel like he was trying to show how our craving at science is like a power struggle. He shows how man contributes to science and then considers himself to have conquered nature. Science and discovery is attributed to power. He explains that when we "conquer nature" we are really only setting ourselves up to rule or be ruled by others. Men don't conquer nature, they use it as a means of gaining power. CS Lewis gives the example of people buying things. When you buy a piece of technology you are exercising your power of that part of nature so to speak. But really, the sellers who control who gets it or not by the price are exercising a bit of power over them. This shows how we use nature as our means of attaining power. He later ties this into the concept of abandoning our instincs. Everyman has a basis for right and wrong. Even people without religion know not to kill people. CS Lewis states that in this quest to conquer science they forget about those instinctual values and push them aside to attain the power they wish to discover. This takes away the belly of man. Finally man has been abolished. The head, chest, and belly have all been lost. Man has become something else entirely.

The Way

In this essay CS Lewis describes how the next part of this book that is pushed is the idea of instinct. He states that the book leans us to rely on instinct. He gives an example of how instincts can't be used in all situations. He states that the Christian faith says, "no man has greater love than this: that he lay down his life for his friend." He states that if we use our instincts we would lose that. Our instincts don't encourage us to give our life up. We yearn for our own survival. We don't think of the survival of others. This instinctual system of thinking takes away our ability to reason and think things through. This then takes away our concept of morals. everything comes down to our basic instinctual needs. We don't need other people. When it comes to our survival verses theirs we would instinctually choose our own. We don't think about the well being of others. We lose everything that we stand for. The bible states, "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." This falls apart if we rely on instinct. The whole idea takes away the head of man, or the ability to reason. The chest is already gone, now the head. What's next?

Men without chests

CS Lewis sets up a situation where the man consists of three parts, the head, the chest, and the belly. The head represents the reason of man and his ability to think logically. The belly represents the instinctual desires, such as eating. The chest is the go between of these two. It is what helps us use our instinctual desires and reason at the same time. CS Lewis describes a school book that takes certian authors sayings and describes them as emotional descriptions. He states that in essence they are taking away the connection between the reason and emotion. He states that they make them two completely seperate ways of thinking. They disregard one and then go to the other. CS Lewis thinks that we need both. In order for us to use each wisely we need to use them at the same time. He states that this book creates men without chests. These men cannot use reason and emotion. They use one without the other, and the other is disregarded. This, CS Lewis states, is the first step towards the abolition of man. This severed connection between the reason of man and the emotions of man can only lead to problems. CS Lewis states that we need to use both in order to be effective.

man or rabbit

in this essay CS Lewis poses the question of can a man be good without God. He believes that man cannot be good. he explains this by showing how the source is tainted. The man could have good intentions, but without knowing what the right or wrong way to live is you cannot live in a good way. I agree with what CS Lewis says. He makes it clear that man could have good intentions, like wanting to help but not knowing how. In the bible it states that our flesh wants to sin. Adam brought sin into the world and so we have inherited the sinful nature. When we accept Christ into our lives he comes to live inside of us. A little of us dies and a little of Christ shines through. When Christ comes to live in us a little bit we learn to be Christ like. as we fill our lives more and more with him we move away from sin and become "good men." Without Christ we don't have that potential. our every thought points toward evil. Its in our hearts. A man, no matter what he intends to do, can't ever become a really good man without Christ.

Priestesses in the church?

In this article CS Lewis explains why he believes there shouldn't be priestesses in the church. He describes the way the male role had been set down for Christianity. He explains that the male role is not interchangeable with the female role. Christ is the bridegroom, Jesus is the son of God, and so on and so forth. I really liked his analog of the ball. He stated that if we had a male leading and he wasn't very good, replacing him with a woman doesn't help anything. They have different roles. The man should go to dance classes and become better at his role, but he should not simply be replaced. I agree with CS Lewis in that women would not be ordained. In class it was mentioned that there is a big difference between teaching and being an ordained preacher. I really liked that because it distinguished the fact that women can teach, they just shouldn't be ordained. I personally believe that if there is a controversial issue we should go to scripture. There is a verse that says do not do anything to cause your brother to stumble. If it is going to cause someone to fall if you made a woman a minister then it shouldn't be done. Because it states it in the Bible and people go there for their source of truth it should not be contradicted. Otherwise it can cause people to question what is really true.

the light in the tool shed

In this article CS Lewis describes the difference between looking at something and looking along it. He starts it with the analogy of seeing a light in a dark toolshed and it just looks like a ray of light and a bunch of dust. He then goes on stating that when he walked up and looked directly along the light it was a whole different experience. He could see the sun and all the toolshed faded away. What he was trying to explain here is that when we are experiencing something it is entirely different than when we are watching someone else experience it. When you watch someone else experience it you summarize it to a simple "chemical imbalance" or whatever. When your actually experiencing it, you feel like it's real. There's no chemicals involved, only the experience to you. I think what CS Lewis is saying is that we shouldn't discredit things that people are experiencing with scientific facts to explain it. I believe CS Lewis is stating that we need both the experience and the scientific view in order to really understand it to it's full potential. When we throw out one or the other we loose that potential. It become's only an experience, or simply a chemical and it no longer retains that meaning to us. CS Lewis is encouraging us to use both our experiences and the facts in order to truly comprehend these kinds of things.

inner rings

I really liked this article by CS Lewis because it helped me realize how common these inner rings are. Everyone wants to get in them. I thought it was interesting to find that CS Lewis sated that we do nothing good to get into these rings. I once was friends with these two pretty cool guys, but they were outcasts just like me. I wanted to get into the inner ring with some of the cooler guys. Once I started talking to some of the guys that were in the inner ring, they began to make fun of my other friends. I began to join in for acceptance, and eventually treated them with complete contempt. I had made some new friends and I was in the inner ring, but I had become a completely different person. I did terrible things to them and hated them thoroughly. It was horrible. When I look back at that I realize much that statement is true. CS Lewis states that we finally get in but we have in turn become a monster. We have gone against all that we stood for in order to gain acceptance.