Mere Questionable Assumption
So some kid from my mum’s church decided to lend her a copy of Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis. I admit that I tried reading once before this powerhouse of intellectually rigorous and intimidating argumentation of Protestant Christian theology flavor, but I simply had not the talent to fully comprehend the subtle wit of the literature.
Oh wait. Metaphors preferred over definitions, equivocations, unsupported premises, logical fallacies, oversimplifications… And this is only in chapter one.
Here’s a fantastic example:
As an organism, he [man] is subjected to various biological laws which he cannot disobey any more than an animal can. That is, he cannot disobey those laws which he shares with other things; but the law which is peculiar to his human nature, the law he does not share with animals or vegetables or inorganic things, is the one he can disobey if he choose (my emphasis).
What a terribly shaky assumption. He has merely assumed that the definition of human nature does not entail that it can be itself modified. And further, what is human nature? He has yet again assumed that we have attained the objective definition of human nature.
He goes on to tackle discrepancies in moralities and how they do not amount to true differences. How does he tackle this crucial topic, handled by thousands of academics in anthropology and social philosophy? Well, with a metaphor, of course!
Think of a country where people were admired for running away in battle, or where a man felt proud of double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him. You might just as well try to imagine a country where two and two made five.
Now some reviewers on Amazon.com try to give Lewis a nod to his literary ability, but this is just not justified. It may be that his logic is so profoundly absurd that his rhetorical power is completely lost to me.