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C. S. LewisA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Lewis begins by recapping the arguments of the previous chapters—namely, the difference between natural law as it applies to objects versus human behavior. Now, Lewis wishes to address what this tells us about the universe.
He points to two general approaches to this issue, the first of which is the materialist view. Those who hold this view believe in the Big Bang theory. Lewis emphasizes that this view involves a series of flukes where the odds were one chance in a thousand. The religious view, meanwhile, believes that “what is behind the universe is more like a mind than it is like anything else we know” (22). This mind is conscious and has purpose.
Lewis argues that science alone cannot prove which of these two theories is correct, since the religious view is attempting to answer a fundamentally different kind of question than those posed in science—not how something works but why there is anything to “work” in the first place, and whether that means something. To get around this impasse, Lewis notes that there is something that we understand through non-scientific means, and that is humanity. As human beings ourselves, we do not just observe humanity from the outside; in fact, any creature observing humanity from the outside would fail to understand key elements of human experience, including our sense of moral law, since this is not only about what we do but what we ought to do.
By C. S. Lewis
A Grief Observed
A Grief Observed
C. S. Lewis
Out of the Silent Planet
Out of the Silent Planet
C. S. Lewis
Perelandra
Perelandra
C. S. Lewis
Prince Caspian
Prince Caspian
C. S. Lewis
Surprised by Joy
Surprised by Joy
C. S. Lewis
That Hideous Strength
That Hideous Strength
C. S. Lewis
The Abolition of Man
The Abolition of Man
C. S. Lewis
The Discarded Image
The Discarded Image
C. S. Lewis
The Four Loves
The Four Loves
C. S. Lewis
The Great Divorce
The Great Divorce
C. S. Lewis
The Horse And His Boy
The Horse And His Boy
C. S. Lewis
The Last Battle
The Last Battle
C. S. Lewis
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
C. S. Lewis
The Magician's Nephew
The Magician's Nephew
C. S. Lewis
The Pilgrim's Regress
The Pilgrim's Regress
C. S. Lewis
The Problem of Pain
The Problem of Pain
C. S. Lewis
The Screwtape Letters
The Screwtape Letters
C. S. Lewis
The Silver Chair
The Silver Chair
C. S. Lewis
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
C. S. Lewis
Till We Have Faces
Till We Have Faces
C. S. Lewis