I'm glad this chapter is here. It shows a thoroughness of logic. The argument here comes down to the idea of a conscience of the mind that is the deciding factor between our spirit and mind. I believe our spirit holds our best qualities such as love, adventure, passion, joy, thankfulness, and hard work. Our body in itself is not sinful, however, it holds the driving force for most sinful acts. In the chapter it talks about the need to procreate or the need to fight as the basis of good things. I am going to add food and an activity to that list for our time (its the PT in me haha). These acts can be completely pure or the basis for our downfall. I believe it is all about our relationship with them.
Pastor Koch taught a mens retreat about Solomon a while back. He spoke of this topic quite a bit. Solomen came up with a few conclusions about life after he had literally done done everything he had ever dreamed of (which included becoming the wisest man ever). He said that there was happiness is physical labor itself but not the end product. He also showed that even the best human with the favor of god is sinful. Like all of us Solomon had a great spirit and normal desires of the flesh. Also, like all of us, he had times of being rightious and times of great sin. What I have learned from Solomon is that the battle takes place in the mind. The mind controls the body and can either ignore or flatout say no to the spirit. So I pray that we all protect our minds and be good role models for others to say no to our bodies a little more often.
Peace
Adam
2 comments:
Sorry for the delay in responding. Good points Adam.
I think it is interesting how Lewis is building the points that there is really is a universal moral law. He talked about instincts and how we can choose among instincts, and that the judgement is in itself a recognition of something higher. It's interesting that we don't think about animals as having morality. They follow their instincts. A good dog does the things we like. A bad dog does the things that we don't like. But we don't blame either dog for following their instinct. We don't hold them to a higher level of conduct. We recognize that they don't have the same abilities for judgement that we do.
But people do and people know intuitively that there is a good and bad that is greater than following our instincts.
The body is a great servant but a poor master. I think the same can be said of instincts. Without the guiding of conscience they don't lead us anywhere in particular.
I found it an interesting argument that our tenancy to judge between different moral systems (i.e. Nazi vs Christian) shows that there is an ideal standard against which we are comparing.
I wonder if people from a dysfunctional moral system (i.e. Nazis, Mobsters) would admit that their own system was flawed. Would they say something like "yeah we are bad people. Those other guys are much more moral."? I get the feeling that they become numb to morals. The driving force becomes ego (what gets me up the ladder) rather than conscience (what is right).
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