Mere Christianity (C.S. Lewis) 05 - Chapter 3. The Reality of the Law
Part 1. Right and Wrong as a Clue to the Meaning of the Universe Chapter 3. The Reality of the Law In Chapter 3 of Mere Christianity , titled "The Reality of the Law," C.S. Lewis argues for the objective reality of the Law of Human Nature (the Moral Law), demonstrating that it is neither a mere custom nor a personal feeling. He returns to the two facts mentioned in the first chapter—that humans know the law of how they ought to behave, yet they fail to actually live by it—to delve deeply into the meaning of this discrepancy. Two Kinds of Laws The core of the chapter begins with a clear distinction Lewis makes between two kinds of "laws." The first is the "Law of Nature," such as the law of gravity, which simply describes how things actually behave. This law offers no choice; a stone does not contemplate whether to "obey" gravity, it simply falls. Thus, such a law is merely another way of stating "what things always do." "Of course...