Group 3

Sean Hutton- analysis/printouts

Andrew Haney- questions/analysis

Kevin Galazin-analysis

C.S. Lewis Book 3

Lewis’s view of morality is essentially: Humanity is like a machine that God

has created, morals are directions for running the machine, and every moral is
there to prevent the machine from being breaking down, or straining the running of
that machine. Anything outside of those moral rules will cause the machine to break
down. God made us to live a certain way and only living this way will bring us
happiness, contentment, and meaning. The basis of these morals is the seven
Christian virtues. We agree with this because this formula has been proven over
time. By living the way that God has intended us to, we can achieve happiness and
well-being.

Morality is made up of three parts, according to Lewis. The first part is the
relationships between human and human, the part of morality that most people
think about. The second is the inner human, an individual's care of self. The third
part of morality consists of the relationship between a human and the power that
made the human. We agree with this because while most people only think of
morality as the interactions between human beings, morality also consists of the
way you treat yourself and your relationship with God.

The four Cardinal Virtues are Prudence, Temperance, Justice and Fortitude.
We also agree with these because if you follow these 4 virtues closely than the
other virtues will fall into place. Lewis believes that the “Golden Rule” (do onto
others as you would do onto yourself) is the quintessential social morality for
Christianity. We agree with this because by following the Golden Rule you will most
likely also follow the 4 Cardinal virtues. Lewis then goes on to discuss marriage. His
first observation is that Christian marriage is really the melding of two people into
one at a spiritual level. As such, divorce is an especially terrible thing for a Christian
marriage, as the melded spirit must be torn apart. Therefore, Christian churches do
not like the idea of divorce and some forbid it, except possibly for very rare
circumstances. Lewis is also against legislating Christian marriage, and thereby
imposing Christian values on everyone. This sounds like a good evaluation to us as
Christian marriage should not be forced down people’s throats. They should be able
to make decisions for themselves on the way they want to be married.

Questions
1. Going back to the analogy of humanity as a machine, is it possible for
humanity to continue to prosper using other means than the morals that God
has provided us with?

2. Chapter 7 deals with forgiveness and states that it is at the heart of

Christianity, now forgiveness also includes forgiving your enemy. How do you
think you could come to the capability of forgiving someone who has
wronged you?