C.S. Lewis on Morality

Character, Community, and Purpose

When Christians think about morality, too often we think merely about doing. This is no doubt important. Doing what is right matters a lot. It is much better than the alternatives. Christ emphasizes the importance of obeying his teachings in our actions, in what we do - “If you love me, keep my commands” (John 14:15). In James 1:22, we are told “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” But a morality that focuses only on doing leaves out something important. Morality is also about being, about who we are, about the kind of character we embody as individuals and as a community. These aspects of morality are also key themes in the Scriptures and the history of Christian thought.

As usual, C.S. Lewis makes this point very well. He observes that for many people, morality is "something that interferes, something that stops you from having a good time. In reality, moral rules are directions for running the human machine" (Mere Christianity, p. 69). This means that when we fall short, morally speaking, it will likely cause trouble to others and for ourselves. It is assumed here that who we are matters, deeply, not just what we do. For the “human machine” to run properly, we must be the kind of people who consistently (though imperfectly) follow the moral rules alluded to by Lewis. But to consistently do honest, compassionate, or loving acts, we must be growing as more honest, compassionate, and loving people.

In his explanation of this, and of the importance of community, Lewis uses an analogy. He asks us to imagine that human beings are like a fleet of ships in formation. For such a fleet, a successful voyage requires three things. First, the ships must stay out of each other's way; they must not collide. Second, the individual ships must be seaworthy, everything in proper working order. Third, the fleet of ships must be on the right course. If they mean to go to New York, but end up in Calcutta, something has gone terribly wrong.

What does this have to do with morality?

For Lewis, morality is like a fleet of ships, insofar as it is concerned with three things. First, morality is social. It is concerned with fairness and harmony between people. Second, morality is individual. It is concerned with harmony within the individual person. And finally, morality has a purpose, connected with the overall purpose of human life.

There is much to say about all of this, but let’s first focus on a vital point from Lewis concerning how we tend to think about morality. His observations of people in his time are apt for today as well:

"You may have noticed that modern people are nearly always thinking about the first thing and forgetting the other two...When a man says about something he wants to do, 'It can't be wrong because it doesn't do anyone else any harm,' he is thinking of only the first thing. He is thinking it does not matter what his ship is like inside provided that he does not run into the next ship...But though it is natural to begin with all that, if our thinking about morality stops there, we might just as well not have thought at all. Unless we go on to the second thing—the tidying up inside each human being—we are only deceiving ourselves" (Mere Christianity, pp. 72-73).

The lessons here are not unique to Lewis's thought. Over and over again in the Scriptures, we see the importance of character and community, of bearing with one another in love, of spurring each other on to love and good deeds, and of the personal and relational qualities of morality in virtue lists (e.g. the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5 or the list of vices and virtues in Colossians 3). Nevertheless, character and community are still too often overlooked. A morality that only considers actions and potential harm to others is sparse.

If we want to truly flourish as human beings and help others to do the same, we need to do more than avoid harming others. We need to do what we can to cultivate virtues in ourselves like courage, compassion, humility, and love. And we should work against vice in our lives, as much as we can, eschewing such traits as greed, cowardice, egoistic pride, and callousness.

When we do this, when we think about inner morality, about virtue and vice, we end up doing more than merely avoiding harm to others. We end up contributing to their good. We also end up seeing our good as intrinsically connected with theirs. In these ways, we better reflect the reality that we are a part of the body of Christ. We aren’t little individual Christian atoms bouncing around the world. We are an eye, a hand, or an ear, a vital member of the body that needs the other parts of the body, too. As we implement these truths into our lives, in dependence upon the Holy Spirit, we help bring about a community that reflects the love and devotion found in the Trinity.

This takes us to the third point Lewis makes above, that morality is connected with the overall purpose of human life. What is that purpose for followers of the Way of Jesus? It includes surrender to God and his kingdom in our lives, and partnering with God to bring that kingdom to bear wherever we are. This involves loving God and loving our neighbor as ourselves, which are the heart of our chief end as human beings, according to the Westminster Shorter Catechism - “to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”

Being virtuous doesn’t earn us this enjoyment of God, as that and all else is fundamentally received by grace. But as we pursue this purpose in life with others we’ll grow in character, becoming more like Christ in faith, hope, love, humility, and many other Christian virtues. And a character growing in goodness is one of the chief ways we glorify God.

Resources

• Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis

• Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer

• Being Good: Christian Virtues for Everyday Life, eds. Michael W. Austin and R. Douglas Geivett

• Humility: Rediscovering the Way of Love and Life in Christ, Michael W. Austin

• The Way Up is Down, Marlena Graves