Lewis now is trying to make a conclusion based on his assertion of the Moral Law. I think that his argument for a Moral Law is a good one and pretty solid. Now he is trying to apply universal morality to understanding the nature of reality itself. In this, he speaks of the scientific process. That science is simply about observation and communicating that observation of reality. I agree, that’s the main point of science. Interpretation of observation is less science than scientific theorizing. But observation and drawing rational conclusions from that observation is what science is about.
However, Lewis says that the nature of reality cannot be determined by science. Because it is all about observation, therefore it does not allow for deep interpretation. That is the job of the philosophers and theologians. Again, I agree. Once a scientist says what the nature of reality is, they are no longer performing the observation of a scientist, but instead doing the job of a philosopher. This does not mean that a scientist cannot do both jobs adequately, but we need to recognize that there is a difference.
Then, Lewis says that reality cannot be determined by observation of outer things, but by understanding the interpreters, namely Humanity. This goes back to the ancient Greek argument that “Man is the measure of all things.” That, in the end, the interpreter is what determines reality. Since Humanity is the interpreter, then that is the standard of measure.
Lewis then wants to go on and say that what we understand about Humanity is reflective of the reality. So if all humanity has a Moral Law, therefore that is something that is reflective of the reality of the universe. This is where I think Lewis makes his first misstep.
The only thing we can determine by looking at Humanity is the nature of that which is interpreting, not necessarily that which is behind that nature. If we look through the most powerful microscopes, we can see atomic particles and how they move. In observing their movement, we may be able to guess what the particles are that make up these atomic particles. This is where theories about quarks and such are found. However, we cannot say decisively what the reality is behind the atomic particles. We can make pretty solid guesses, but there are other guesses that are equally solid. And this is the way with the interpreters of reality. We might guess as to what is behind that level of reality, but frankly we are guessing.
Some might say, “Well, we are human, so shouldn’t we know best what the reality governing us is?” In fact, I would argue the opposite. We are human, and thus we have an idea of how our lives OUGHT to work, not how they DO actually work. We are the consummate interpreters and we interpret first and explain later. We have our interpretation in mind when we look at ourselves and we see partly what we want to see, but more importantly we don’t see that which we think cannot exist.
Frankly, we are our own worst interpreters. We have interpreted ourselves before we have interpreted anything else and everything we see about ourselves feed into our interpretation. This has been what psychology has, for the most part, been about. It has been somewhat successful in seeing social aberrations, but it has been terrible at explaining why those aberrations exist. Theology can be seen as a series of cultural assumptions about the reality of life, despite the text one theology is supposed to be based on. The texts only determine the questions one asks of reality, but they almost never determine the theological answers—that is determined by the interpretation of the theologian.
Even so, I think that Lewis’ jump from the interpreter of reality to that which is behind reality’s interpretation is too quick. He hasn’t made his case. He gives me no good reason to determine why we can rely on this interpretation.
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