Mere Christianity: The Reality of the Law

As an aside: If you, by chance, are moving and happen to be without internet for a few weeks and have posts planned to auto-post, it pays to double-check that they will actually post themselves for you, rather than leaving your readers hanging for a better part of the month. Sorry for the gap, folks! Regular posting will resume Friday.

In this chapter, Lewis returns to his argument that humans, though they know how they ought to behave, behave differently, which is different than the other laws of nature (such as gravitation). Furthermore, he puts forward the notion that these differences are born not of necessity or personal convenience. For example, "I am not angry...with a man who trips me up by accident; I am angry with a man who tries to trip me up even if he does not succeed." Why should one be different than the other? Lewis points back to the natural law, or Law of Human Behavior as the rule by which we judge the world.

Discussion:

Lewis states: "...the behavior we call bad or unfair is not exactly the same as the behaviour we find inconvenient and may even be the opposite." How do you argue that we should do things that are not always convenient and may even be hurtful in the moment (such as telling the truth)? Do you ever find this hard to do?