MereChristianity: "What Lies Behind the Law "

4. What Lies Behind the Law

   

     Let  us sum up what we have reached so far.  In the  case of stones and

trees  and  things of that sort, what we call  the Laws of Nature may not be

anything except a way of speaking. When  you say that nature is  governed by

certain laws,  this may only  mean that nature does, in  fact, behave  in  a

certain way. The so-called laws may not  be anything real-anything above and

beyond the  actual facts  which we observe. But in  the case of Man, we  saw

that this will not do. The Law of  Human Nature, or of Right and Wrong, must

be something above and beyond the actual facts of human behaviour.  In  this

case, besides  the actual facts, you have something else-a real law which we

did not invent and which we know we ought to obey.

   

 I  now want  to consider what this tells us about  the universe we live

in. Ever since men were  able to think,  they have been wondering what  this

universe really is and how it came to be there. And, very roughly, two views

have been held. First, there  is what is called the materialist view. People

who  take that  view  think that matter and space just happen  to exist, and

always  have  existed, nobody  knows why; and that the  matter,  behaving in

certain  fixed ways,  has just  happened,  by a  sort of fluke,  to  produce

creatures like ourselves who are able to think. By one chance in a  thousand

something  hit  our sun  and  made it  produce  the planets;  and by another

thousandth  chance   the  chemicals  necessary   for  life,  and  the  right

temperature, occurred on one of these planets, and so some of  the matter on

this earth  came  alive; and  then, by  a  very  long series of chances, the

living  creatures  developed into  things  like us.  The  other view  is the

religious view. (*) According to it, what is  behind the  universe  is  more

like a mind than it is like anything else we know.

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     [*] See Note at the end of this chapter.

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     That  is to say, it is  conscious, and has  purposes, and  prefers  one

thing to another. And on this view it made the universe, partly for purposes

we do not know, but partly, at any rate, in order to  produce creatures like

itself-I  mean,  like  itself  to  the extent of having minds. Please do not

think that  one of  these views was held a  long time ago and that the other

has gradually taken  its place. Wherever there have  been  thinking men both

views turn up. And note  this  too.  You  cannot find  out which view is the

right one by science in the ordinary sense. Science works by experiments. It

watches  how things behave.  Every  scientific  statement in  the  long run,

however complicated  it  looks, really means  something like, "I pointed the

telescope  to such and such a part of the  sky at 2:20  A.M. on January 15th

and saw so-and-so," or, "I put some of this stuff in  a pot and heated it to

such-and-such  a temperature and it did so-and-so." Do not think I am saying

anything  against science:  I am only saying what its  job is.  And the more

scientific a man is, the more (I believe) he would agree with  me that  this

is  the job of science- and  a very useful and necessary  job it is too. But

why anything comes to be there at  all, and whether there is anything behind

the things  science  observes-something of a  different  kind-this is not  a

scientific question. If there is  "Something  Behind," then  either it  will

have to remain altogether unknown to  men or else make itself  known in some

different way. The statement that there is any such thing, and the statement

that there is no such thing, are neither of them statements that science can

make.

 

And  real  scientists do not usually  make them. 

 

It  is  usually  the

journalists and popular novelists who have picked  up a few odds and ends of

half-baked science  from textbooks  who go in  for them.  After  all, it  is

really  a matter of common sense. Supposing science ever became  complete so

that it knew every single thing in  the whole universe. Is it not plain that

the questions, "Why is there  a  universe?" "Why  does it go on as it does?"

"Has it any meaning?" would remain just as they were?

   

 Now the position would be quite  hopeless  but  for this. There is  one

thing, and  only one, in the whole universe which we know more about than we

could  learn from external  observation. That  one  thing  is Man. We do not

merely  observe men, we  are men. In this case we have, so to speak,  inside

information; we are in the know. And because of that,  we know that men find

themselves  under  a moral law, which they  did  not make, and  cannot quite

forget even when  they try, and  which they know they ought  to obey. Notice

the  following  point. Anyone  studying Man  from the  outside as  we  study

electricity or  cabbages, not knowing our language and consequently not able

to get any inside knowledge from us, but merely observing what we did, would

never get the slightest evidence that  we  had this moral law. How could he?

for his observations would only show what we did, and the moral law is about

what we ought to do. In the same way, if there were anything above or behind

the observed  facts  in the case of  stones  or the weather, we, by studying

them from outside, could never hope to discover it.

  

  The position of  the question, then,  is like  this.  We want  to  know

whether  the  universe  simply happens to  be what  it  is for no reason  or

whether  there  is a power behind  it that makes  it what it is.  Since that

power, if it exists, would be not one  of the  observed facts but  a reality

which  makes them, no  mere observation of the facts  can find it. There  is

only one case in which we can know  whether  there is anything  more, namely

our own case. And in that one case we find there is. Or put it the other way

round. If there was  a controlling power outside the universe, it could  not

show itself to us as one of the  facts inside the universe- no more than the

architect  of a house could actually be a wall or  staircase or fireplace in

that house.

 

The only way in which we could expect it to show itself would be

inside ourselves as an influence or a command trying to get us  to behave in

a  certain  way.  And that is just what we do  find inside ourselves. Surely

this ought to arouse our  suspicions? In the  only case where you can expect

to  get an answer, the answer turns out to be Yes;  and in  the other cases,

where you do not  get an answer, you see why you  do  not.  Suppose  someone

asked  me, when  I see a man in a blue uniform going down the street leaving

little paper packets at each house, why I suppose that they contain letters?

I should reply, "Because whenever he leaves a similar little packet for me I

find it does  contain a letter." And if he then objected, "But you've  never

seen all  these letters  which you think the other  people  are  getting," I

should say, "Of course not, and I shouldn't expect to,  because  they're not

addressed to me. I'm  explaining the packets I'm  not allowed to open by the

ones I am allowed to open." It  is the  same  about this  question. The only

packet I am allowed  to open is Man.  When I do, especially when I open that

particular man called Myself, I find  that I do not  exist on my own, that I

am  under a law; that somebody or something wants me  to behave in a certain

way.

 

I do not, of course, think that if I could get inside a stone or a tree

I should find exactly the same thing, just as I do not  think all the  other

people in the  street get the  same letters as I  do.  I  should expect, for

instance, to find that the stone had to obey the law of gravity-that whereas

the  sender of the letters  merely  tells  me to obey the  law  of  my human

nature, He  compels  the stone to obey the laws of its  stony nature. But  I

should expect to find  that there was,  so to speak, a sender  of letters in

both cases, a Power behind the facts, a Director, a Guide.

   

 Do not think I am going faster than I really am. I  am not yet within a

hundred  miles of  the  God of Christian theology. All  I  have  got to is a

Something which is  directing the universe, and which appears in me as a law

urging me  to do right and making me feel responsible and uncomfortable when

I do wrong. I think we have to assume it is more like a mind than it is like

anything  else  we know-because  after all the  only  other thing we know is

matter and you can hardly imagine a bit of matter  giving instructions. But,

of course, it need not be very like a mind, still less like a person. In the

next chapter we shall see if we can find out anything more about it. But one

word of warning. There has been  a  great deal of soft soap talked about God

for the last hundred years. That is not what I am  offering. You can cut all

that out.

   

 Note -In order to keep this  section short enough when it was given  on

the  air,  I mentioned only the Materialist view and the Religious view. But

to  be  complete I ought  to  mention the In between view called  Life-Force

philosophy,  or  Creative  Evolution,  or Emergent  Evolution. The  wittiest

expositions of it come in the works  of Bernard Shaw,  but the most profound

ones in those  of  Bergson. People  who hold  this  view say that  the small

variations  by which life on this planet  "evolved" from the lowest forms to

Man were not due to chance  but to the  "striving" or "purposiveness"  of  a

Life-Force. When people say this we must ask them whether by Life-Force they

mean something  with a mind  or not. If they do, then  "a mind bringing life

into existence and leading it to perfection" is really a God, and their view

is thus identical with the Religious. If they do not, then what is the sense

in saying  that something without a mind "strives"  or  has "purposes"? This

seems to me fatal to their view. One  reason why  many people find  Creative

Evolution so attractive  is that it gives one much of  the emotional comfort

of believing in God and none of the less pleasant consequences. When you are

feeling fit and the sun is shining and you do  not  want to believe that the

whole universe is a mere mechanical dance of atoms, it is nice to be able to

think of  this great  mysterious Force rolling on through  the centuries and

carrying you on its  crest. If,  on the other hand, you want to do something

rather shabby, the Life-Force, being only a blind force,  with no morals and

no mind, will never interfere with you like that troublesome  God we learned

about when we were children. The Life-Force is a  sort of tame  God. You can

switch it on when you want, but it will  not bother you.  All the thrills of

religion and none of the cost. Is the Life-Force the greatest achievement of

wishful thinking the world has yet seen?