S1E13 – MC B3C1 – “The Three Parts of Morality”

Today in Mere Christianity, we begin Book III! This new book is entitled “Christian Behaviour”. In this chapter, in addition to learning about the qualities of my ideal woman(!), we discover what C.S. Lewis regarded as “the three parts of morality”. To illustrate these different parts, Jack uses the analogy of a convoy of ships.

S1E13: “The Three Parts of Morality” (Download)

Show Notes

Introduction

• From now on, Matt will be offering us a quotation each week related to the topic at hand. This week’s quotation comes from a later chapter in Mere Christianity:

Quote-of-the-Day

Really great moral teachers never do introduce new moralities: it is quacks and cranks who do that.

C. S. Lewis

Toast

• The Beer-of-the-week was Franziskaner.

Prayer

• David read the Collect from the Episcopal Church for the anniversary of C.S. Lewis’ death:

O God of searing truth and surpassing beauty,
we give thee thanks for Clive Staples Lewis,
whose sanctified imagination lighteth fires of faith in young and old alike;
Surprise us also with thy joy
and draw us into that new and abundant life which is ours in Christ Jesus,
who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Episcopal Church Collect for C. S. Lewis

Discussion

01. “The Three Parts of Morality”

• Lewis begins by describing a common belief among people regarding morality: that it is something that impedes fun.. He uses the analogy of a schoolboy.

There is a story about a schoolboy who was asked what he thought God was like. He replied that, as far as he could make out, God was ‘the sort of person who is always snooping around to see if anyone is enjoying himself and then trying to stop it’. And I am afraid that is the sort of idea that the word Morality raises in a good many people’s minds: something that interferes, something that stops you having a good time.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Three Parts of Morality

• Lewis corrects this notion:

Moral rules are directions for running the human machine. Every moral rule is there to precent a breakdown, or a strain, or a friction, in the running of the machine.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Three Parts of Morality

• Matt and David shared some analogies related to this: David teaching salsa dancing, Matt’s soccer practice in High School and David’s failed attempts at CrossFit.

02. “Idealism”

• Very often, we try things that do not work. Though we might have people try to help us, we just want to do things our own way. As a result, many people talk about “ideals” rather than rules.

Some people prefer to talk about moral ‘ideals’ rather than moral rules and about moral ‘idealism’ rather than moral obedience.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Three Parts of Morality

• Lewis points out the ambiguity of this jargon. Rather than relegating morality to “private taste”, the moral law is something that we are all called to abide by.

There is anther sense in which it is very misleading to call moral perfection an ideal. When a man says that a certain woman, or house, or ship, or garden is ‘his ideal’ he does not mean (unless he is rather a fool) that everyone else ought to have the same ideal. In such matters we are entitled to have different tastes and, therefore, different ideals. But it is dangerous to describe a man who tries very hard to keep the moral law as a ‘man of high ideals’, because this might lead you to think that moral perfection was a private taste of his own and that the rest of us were not called on to share it.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Three Parts of Morality

• They discussed David’s ideal woman, Amy Farrah Fowler, long-suffering girlfriend of Sheldon Cooper on the TV show, “The Big Bang Theory”. Matt, painfully predictable as always, prefers Penny.
• Jack explains that while our behaviour might not always be perfect, the expectation still remains.

Perfect behaviour may be as unattainable as perfect gear-changing when we drive; but it is a necessary ideal prescribed for all men by the very nature of the human machine just as perfect gear-changing is an ideal prescribed for all drivers by the very nature of cars.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Three Parts of Morality

• The other problem with speaking of moral ideals is that it can foster Pride. Jack gives an analogy using mathematics.

It might lead you to become a prig and to think you were rather a special person who deserved to be congratulated on his ‘idealism’. In reality, you might just as well expect to be congratulated because, whenever you do a sum, you try to get it quite right … It would be idiotic not to try; for every mistake is going to cause you trouble later on.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Three Parts of Morality

• David and Matt discussed this concept of true “progressivism” in a prior episode.

When I have started a sum the wrong way, the sooner I admit this and go back and start again, the faster I shall get on. There is nothing progressive about being pig headed and refusing to admit a mistake.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, We Have Cause to be Uneasy

• Because of this, we should not be talking about “idealism”, but instead, rules and morality.
• Next, Jack looks at the different ways in which the human machine goes wrong. First is the exterior way.

…when human individuals drift apart from one another, or else collide with one another and do one another damage, by cheating or bullying.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Three Parts of Morality

• The second is the interior way…

…when things go wrong inside the individual – when the different parts of him (his different faculties and desires and so on) either drift apart or interfere with one another.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Three Parts of Morality

03. “Surprise”

• Lewis then gives a convoy analogy. In order for the fleet to have a successful voyage, they must have…

1. Group Integrity
The ships must not crash into each other.

2. Interior Integrity
The ships must each be in good working order.

3. Correct destination
They must all end up at their intended destination.

However well the fleet sailed, its voyage would be a failure if it were meant to reach New York and actually arrived at Calcutta.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Three Parts of Morality

04. “The Three Dimensions”

• Morality then consists of three dimensions. David gave each of these areas names:

1. Exterior Dimension
The relationships between humans.

2. Interior Dimension
Each person’s “interior life”.

3. Teleological Dimension
Our ultimate purpose. Our purpose depends, quite obviously, on whether or not there is a Creator who made us.

• Jack uses another analogy of a music band.

Think of humanity as a band playing a tune. To get a good result, you need two things. Each player’s individual instrument must be in tune and also each must come in at the right moment so as to combine with all the others … The instruments might all be in tune and might all come in at the right moment, but even so the performance would not be a success if they had been engaged to provide dance music and actually played nothing but Dead Marches.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Three Parts of Morality

1. Exterior Dimension
Each instrument must come in at the right time to form a tune, harmonies etc.

2. Interior Dimension
Each person’s instrument is in tune.

3. Teleological Dimension
The right kind of music must be played. Remember Jack’s comment in Book 1 that “The Moral Law tells us the tune we have to play: our instincts are merely the keys”?

05. “Our Social Relations”

• Modern society tends to focus only on the Exterior Dimension, since it is the most obvious and the area in which we more generally agree.

You may have noticed that modern people are nearly always thinking about the first thing and forgetting the other two.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Three Parts of Morality

• The trouble is that if we stop there we’ll still end up in problems. The “Interior Dimension” will leak out into our Exterior life. 

Unless we go on to the second thing – the tidying up inside each human being – we are only deceiving ourselves.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Three Parts of Morality

• Lewis explains this in terms of the convoy of ships again.

What is the good of telling the ships how to steer so as to avoid collisions if, in fact, they are such crazy old tubs that they cannot be steered at all? What is the good of drawing up, on paper, rules for social behaviour, if we know that, in fact, our greed, cowardice, ill temper, and self-conceit are going to prevent us from keeping them?

• Essentially, he is saying that we cannot fix everything by simply having laws and systems, even though those things are necessary.

…Nothing but the courage and unselfishness of individuals is ever going to make any system work properly. It is easy enough to remove the particular kinds of graft or bullying that go on under the present system: but as long as men are twisters or bullies they will find some new way of carrying on the old game under the new system.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Three Parts of Morality

You cannot make men good by law: and without good men you cannot have a good society.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Three Parts of Morality

06. “The Road to Character”

• Matt mentioned the book “The Road to Character” by Jewish author, David Brooks. He pointed out that many of the people held up as heroic figures in today’s world are not exactly bastions of virtue.
• We set ourselves up for failure if we ignore the Teleological Dimension.

Religion involves a series of statements about facts, which must be either true or false. If they are true, one set of conclusions will follow about the right sailing of the human fleet: if they are false, quite a different set.

07. “God is Our Creator”

• If we are immortal, this life is going to be just a blip in eternity.

There are a good many things which would not be worth bothering about if I were going to live only seventy years, but which I had better bother about very seriously if I am going to live for ever.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Three Parts of Morality

08. “Absolute Hell”

• Jack then makes an excellent point about compounding sin.

Perhaps my bad temper or my jealousy are gradually getting worse – so gradually that the increase in seventy years will not be very noticeable. But it might be absolute hell in a million years: in fact, if Christianity is true, Hell is the precisely correct technical term for what it would be.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Three Parts of Morality

09. “Airplane Analogy”

• Jack then states that he is going to write the rest of the book under the assumption that Christianity is true, and do a dive into Christian behaviour and morals.

For the rest of this book I am going to assume the Christian point of view, and look at the whole picture as it will be if Christianity is true.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Three Parts of Morality

Wrap-Up

Concluding Thoughts

• The outline for this chapter is available here.

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