Some Objections

Today's Reading

Read Proverbs 1:7: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction."

Then read Isaiah 5:20: "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!"

Reflection

Having established that people universally appeal to a moral standard, Lewis now addresses the most common objection: different cultures have different morals, so isn't morality just a social invention?

Lewis's answer is sharp. Yes, moral codes vary — but not as much as people claim, and the differences actually prove his point rather than undermining it.

"If no set of moral ideas were truer or better than any other, there would be no sense in preferring civilised morality to savage morality, or Christian morality to Nazi morality."

This is the fatal flaw in moral relativism. The person who says "morality is just cultural" almost certainly also says "but the Nazis were wrong." You cannot have it both ways. The moment you judge one culture's morality as inferior to another's, you have appealed to a standard above both cultures — which is exactly what Lewis is arguing exists.

"The moment you say that one set of moral ideas can be better than another, you are, in fact, measuring them both by a standard."

Lewis also notes that the differences between moral codes are far smaller than the agreements. No civilization has ever admired cowardice, or celebrated treachery, or praised selfishness as the highest virtue. The variations are real but superficial — like different maps of the same terrain, some more accurate than others, but all acknowledging that the terrain exists.

Isaiah's warning — "woe to those who call evil good and good evil" — assumes the same reality Lewis is describing. You cannot invert moral categories unless those categories are real. Calling darkness "light" is only dangerous if light and darkness actually differ.

Going Deeper

The modern world loves the idea that morality is relative — until someone steals its parking spot or breaks a promise. Proverbs identifies the root issue: genuine wisdom begins with "the fear of the Lord," an acknowledgment that truth is not something we author but something we receive.

Lewis is building toward the question that drives the rest of Book I: if there is a real moral law that transcends cultures, what — or who — is its source? That question will occupy us for the rest of the week.