Tag: The Future

C.S. Lewis and Time’s Meaning

On By robstroudIn C.S. Lewis, Christian Life, Family, History, Modern Life, Nature, Roman History28 Comments

What is time, and why are we subject to its ofttimes harsh burdens? After his conversion from atheism, C.S. Lewis discovered some comforting truths about time, and the limits of time’s constraints.

Each year the four seasons seem to pass more rapidly. Before we know it, our parents have gown old, and we may well have children of our own. In retrospect, it all happens in the proverbial flash.

Ultimately, there will come a day when our lives reach their own “winter,” and even our most precious memories may drift away from us in time’s relentless breeze.

The C.S. Lewis Institute has an interesting article titled “The Point at which Time Touches Eternity.” They quote some wisdom from The Screwtape Letters, and end with a query which can help us live happier lives.

As you think about your own life, do you sometimes think too much about the Past or the Future, and not chiefly attend to the Present and Eternity?

Lewis answers that very question in his essay “Historicism.” He acknowledges that too often we become slaves to the regrets of our past and the dread of challenges awaiting us in the future. He reminds Christians that “God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4).* Therefore, Lewis encourages us to throw off the bondage of past and future, since “where, except in the present, can the Eternal be met?”

Janie Cheaney recently wrote “Eternity in Our Hearts” for World Magazine. Inspired by Saint Augustine and C.S. Lewis, it is subtitled “What if time astonishes us because we are meant to one day live outside of it.”

More of Lewis’ Thoughts about Time

In Mere Christianity, Lewis describes our universal human experience. “Our life comes to us moment by moment. One moment disappears before the next comes along: and there is room for very little in each. That is what Time is like.” He then describes just how limited our perspective is.

And of course you and I tend to take it for granted that this Time series – this arrangement of past, present, and future – is not simply the way life comes to us but the way all things really exist. We tend to assume that the whole universe and God himself are always moving on from past to future just as we do. But many learned men do not agree with that. Almost certainly God is not in Time. His life does not consist of moments following one another . . .

If you picture Time as a straight line along which we have to travel, then you must picture God as the whole page on which the line is drawn. We come to the parts of the line one by one: we have to leave A behind before we get to B, and cannot reach C until we leave B behind. God, from above or outside or all around, contains the whole line, and sees it all.

In Miracles, C.S. Lewis describes God’s transcendence over time as our Creator’s “eternal Now.”

It is probable that Nature is not really in Time and almost certain that God is not. Time is probably (like perspective) the mode of our perception. There is therefore in reality no question of God’s at one point in time (the moment of creation) adapting the material history of this universe in advance to free acts which you or I are to perform at a later point in Time.

To Him all the physical events and all the human acts are present in an eternal Now. The liberation of finite wills and the creation of the whole material history of the universe (related to the acts of those wills in all the necessary complexity) is to Him a single operation. In this sense God did not create the universe long ago but creates it at this minute – at every minute.

That is pretty deep. The sort of stuff that philosophers love to ponder and debate. Even before his conversion to Christianity, while still clinging to his formal atheism, Lewis contemplated time’s role in existence. In 1918 he wrote to his close friend Arthur Greeves about these matters. 

You see the conviction is gaining ground on me that after all Spirit does exist; and that we come in contact with the spiritual element by means of these “thrills.” I fancy that there is Something right outside time & place, which did not create matter, as the Christians say, but is matter’s great enemy: and that Beauty is the call of the spirit in that something to the spirit in us. You see how frankly I admit that my views have changed.

Sheldon Vanauken (1914-1996) was an American author who preserved in A Severe Mercy several of C.S. Lewis’ letters of consolation following the death of Sheldon’s wife. In some ways, the Vanauken story foreshadowed Lewis’ own marriage and widowhood. Pointing toward the Resurrection, Lewis wrote the following.

You say the materialist universe is “ugly.” I wonder how you discovered that! If you are really a product of a materialistic universe, how is it you don’t feel at home there? Do fish complain of the sea for being wet? Or if they did, would that fact itself not strongly suggest that they had not always been, or would not always be, purely aquatic creatures?

Notice how we are perpetually surprised at Time. (“How time flies! Fancy John being grown-up & married! I can hardly believe it!”) In heaven’s name, why? Unless, indeed, there is something in us which is not temporal.

C.S. Lewis writes much more about time, but we will conclude here with two passages that use the metaphor of author to describe God’s nature. The first comes from an essay entitled “The Seeing Eye.”

My point is that, if God does exist, He is related to the universe more as an author is related to a play than as one object in the universe is related to another. If God created the universe, He created space-time, which is to the universe as the metre is to a poem or the key is to music.

To look for Him as one item within the framework which He Himself invented is nonsensical. If God – such a God as any adult religion believes in – exists, mere movement in space will never bring you any nearer to Him or any farther from Him than you are at this very moment.

You can neither reach Him nor avoid Him by travelling to Alpha Centauri or even to other galaxies. A fish is no more, and no less, in the sea after it has swum a thousand miles than it was when it set out.

This final quotation appears in Mere Christianity. It is most certainly true, and my hope is that all who read this post will come to celebrate this joy. Both now, and for eternity.

God is not hurried along in the Time-stream of this universe any more than an author is hurried along in the imaginary time of his own novel. He has infinite attention to spare for each one of us.

He does not have to deal with us in the mass. You are as much alone with Him as if you were the only being He had ever created. When Christ died, He died for you individually just as much as if you had been the only man in the world.

* This gracious, eternal gift is available to all people.

Choosing a Career

On By robstroudIn Advice to Writers, C.S. Lewis, Cartoons with a Message, Christian Life, Education, Grandparenting, Modern Life, The Future9 Comments

Do you remember when you were making decisions about your future career? C.S. Lewis’ comment on the subject of careers remains quite valuable in today’s rapidly changing world.

Toward the end of high school, I recall filling out some educational assessments that projected how successful I might be in a number of different pursuits. Employability appeared to be the primary focus for the assessments. 

Not taken into much account at that time (a half century ago), was what sort of job satisfaction one might anticipate following those various pursuits. 

This “graduation” life milestone is on my mind, since several of my grandchildren are presently finishing their own high school years. None have yet “chosen” a career – they are approaching their futures with open minds. However, we have chatted about the major options before them: college, vocational training, directly entering the workplace, the military, or burying themselves in social media and living off of their parents for the next decade or two.

Most lean towards college, without specific programs in mind. Still, I have encouraged them to consider the marketability of various studies. As most are aware, AI is a growing threat. In “ChatGPT May be Coming for Our Jobs,” you can see ten particularly vulnerable fields.

Goldman Sachs estimates “300 million full-time jobs globally” could well be automated.

A Pair of Options

I’ve been thinking about two career fields at opposite ends of the spectrum, in regard to the viability of their futures: Newspaper Reporters (that’s not the positive example) and Security (and not just cyber-security).

The United States Department of Labor enthusiastically declares “the cybersecurity field is booming.”

As of August 2022, there were over 700,000 open roles in cybersecurity in the United States and, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics projections, jobs for information security analysts are expected to grow 32% from 2022 to 2032. It’s clear that cyber talent is in demand.

Compare that to opportunities for newspaper reporters. Just last week the Los Angeles Times (established in 1881) and the Baltimore Sun (1837) announced (additional) major job cuts for their editorial staffs. Whether these two “venerable” publications will exist in print form a decade or two from now is a valid question. And they are simply part of an unrelenting media transformation.

My undergrad degree in editorial journalism has served me well, but would I recommend a similar path to my grandkids? Hardly. I believe the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce is overly optimistic in stating “journalism employment is projected to decrease about 3 percent from 2022 to 2031.” But even with that minor drop, “it will have decreased by 35 percent since 2002.”

Now, many people may say, “of course cyber-security is expanding, but I am not computer literate enough to pursue that.” Well, that is not the only type of security opportunity that’s exploding.

It turns out that the U.S. is not the only place where criminals often roam the streets with little fear of a defanged judicial system. Here, the ill-advised “defund the police” movement has given rise to the need for many more private security firms. Private security is an established norm in many countries. Their expansion in Western nations is more recent.

In one American city, at least, the police welcome the addition of security guards to the safety mix.

Detroit Police’s top brass do not view the growth in private security as any sort of affront or threat to officers’ jobs. In fact, Chief James Craig has encouraged officers to work off-duty security as a way to earn extra cash.

Your Job is not You

Fortunately, as C.S. Lewis reminds us, our job does not define who we are. Nor does it affect the attitudes of those who regard us as friends. In The Four Loves, Lewis reveals how little such considerations mean among “true friends” (and who needs any more of the other, pretend, variety?).

In a circle of true Friends each man is simply what he is: stands for nothing but himself. No one cares twopence about any one else’s family, profession, class, income, race, or previous history. . . .

That is the kingliness of Friendship. We meet like sovereign princes of independent states, abroad, on neutral ground, freed from our contexts. This love (essentially) ignores not only our physical bodies but that whole embodiment which consists of our family, job, past and connections.

In Perelandra, a work of fiction, C.S. Lewis includes a sobering insight for those of us who may be tempted to think that our profession or job makes us “better” than someone else. If you ever begin to feel like your position marks you as someone who is uniquely special, remember these words:

One never can see, or not till long afterwards, why any one was selected for any job. And when one does, it is usually some reason that leaves no room for vanity.

I am sympathetic to young people today as they seek the right path for their life. The future appears more uncertain and convoluted than ever before. One piece of advice that I can confidently offer to those who are Christian, is to pray and seek God’s leading in your quest. And know that whatever vocation the Lord leads you to, will be the ideal one for you. 

A More Peaceful Time

On By robstroudIn C.S. Lewis, Christian Life, Family, History, Interfaith Issues, Islam, Just War, Modern Life, Roman History, The Future, Theological Matters12 Comments

It seems like a dream, when I recall a college course I took where Jews and Muslims peacefully discussed the turbulent history of the Middle East. And how we discussed that sad story in a cordial, and even sympathetic, manner.

The contrast between that day and 2023 – when people cannot even agree that tiny infants should not suffer for the sins of their parents – is mind-bending.

We assume that all people desire peace. Would that it were so. In his essay “First and Second Things,” C.S. Lewis offers a timely insight.

As far as peace (which is one ingredient in our idea of civilization) is concerned, I think many would now agree that a foreign policy dominated by desire for peace is one of the many roads that lead to war.

I was an undergrad at the University of Washington in the mid-1970s, when I saw a graduate level course with a fascinating title: “Wars that have Shaped the History of the Middle East.” My high school friend and I “begged” the professor to allow us into the class. He cautioned us that he would have the same requirements for us as he did for everyone else; there would be no mercy extended if we failed to meet the syllabus’ demands.

“No problem,” we said . . . although, being young procrastinators, at the end of the quarter we foolishly required a couple of all-nighters to complete our comprehensive term papers.

We, both Christians, were the only undergraduates in the small class. Our professor was Jewish, as were two of the students. One of these, was Israeli. He was, in fact, a veteran of the recent Yom Kippur War, during which he had served as the commander of a tank. I don’t recall which front on which he fought, but when you look at a map of Israel, it’s clear that every part of that small nation is a potential combat zone.

The remaining members of the class consisted of three Muslim students. One was American and a second was Iranian (back when the Shah was still in power). The third Islamic member of the class taught at a Seattle community college. He was Palestinian. And not merely Palestinian – his family was displaced during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, which is referred to by the Israelis as the War of Independence.

You can imagine that with a group like that, opinions were deeply entrenched. Yet, although the preexisting opinions were indeed fixed, the individuals were not obstinate. Conversations were civil. Disagreements were conducted with reason rather than emotion. And, most surprisingly of all, we were able to socialize together at the end of the course.

It was a different world, apparently. It’s challenging to conceive of partisans today being capable of treating others with such respect. The last half century has marked a steep decline in the humanity of humanity.

Anti-Semitism is a Curse

It is strange to ponder how we’ve come to define antisemitism, confining it to anti-Jewish sentiment. After all, the word Semite refers to all people who speak a Semitic language, including Arabs.

Etymologically, Semite “comes via Latin from Greek Sēm ‘Shem,’ son of Noah in the Bible, from whom these people were traditionally supposed to be descended.”

If you are interested in an excellent article titled “C.S. Lewis’s Anti-Anti-Semitism in The Great Divorce,” simply follow the link embedded here.

Israel’s Wars

There has been no shortage of blood shed on the land the Romans called Judea and Arabia Petraea. And the history of the past seventy-five years have been violent indeed. For a description of all of the wars and military operations involving Israel, see this website.

We students each had to select one of the Middle Eastern regional wars to research in depth. We also had to make a detailed presentation and lead the discussion based on general readings completed by everyone.

As soon as I saw that requirement in the syllabus, my mind was mired in confusion over which of Israel’s wars would be the least controversial. Fortunately, as I read further I discovered that the purview of the course did not begin with the end of the Palestine Mandate, which was administered by Britain. Due to the influence of the Ottoman Empire, which had overshadowed the region until the end of the First World War, the professor elected to begin the course with the relatively nonconfrontational consideration of the Crimean War. I was the first student to raise my hand and voice my preference.

During the Palestine Mandate, C.S. Lewis had a number of former students serving in the Levant. In a 1940 letter to his brother Warnie, he describes a pleasant visit from one of these who went on to serve in a political capacity throughout the region for several more decades. This statesman refers to a fellow student who would go on to teach at East Anglia University.

I had a visit one night last week from Pirie-Gordon back from leave from Palestine, where (and in Egypt and Turkey) he says everything is “as good as gold.” The last riot was quelled by the cavalry regiment in which Rivière serves . . . In fact as P.G. said “I raised the riot and Rivière quelled it.”

I wonder how the members of the class would relate to one another if we were reunited for a discussion of what has transpired since 1975. With members of the American government at each other’s throats on our nation’s response to Hamas’ war, I doubt our discussions would be as respectful as they were back in the twentieth century. Still, conversations – even painful ones – need to happen if people are ever to get along with one another. That’s true not only for nations, but also for neighbors, and families.

I recommend two things to move us in the right direction. Honest communication, where we do a lot of listening. And prayer. The fact we do so poorly with the first, makes the second all that more essential.

Good & Bad Memories

On By robstroudIn C.S. Lewis, Christianity, Church History, Modern Life, Narnia, The Ancient Church, The Future, Theological Matters13 Comments

We humans are fascinating creatures. Our capacity to remember both the good and the ill from our past, exerts a powerful influence on the course of our future.

I’ve been reflecting on this contrast since our lectionary readings from worship this past Sunday. (I’ll note the particular passage that triggered my thoughts in a moment.)

The question I’ve pondered is whether good memories are more powerful than bad memories. By bad, I’m not referring to horrific experiences which our minds sometimes actively suppress or bury.

I’m thinking of unpleasant, disappointing memories. Things that we regret having happened, either to us, or because of us.

When I use the word “powerful” in my question, I’m referring to the ability of a given memory to continue actively impacting our lives.

In too many lives, it seems the joy and light emanating from positive recollections is often shaded or eclipsed by the clouds of painful memories.

Perhaps our lives would be happier if we consciously spent time recalling good experiences, and taught ourselves to reject – rather than dwell upon – negative thoughts when they force their way onto the stage?

C.S. Lewis provides a curious insight into the nature of memories. Their overarching essence often seem to magnify as time passes. Listen to his words, penned after a vacation in 1921, in which he describes how the joyful memories will grow ever sharper as they are recalled in the future.

I still feel that the real value of such a holiday is still to come, in the images and ideas which we have put down to mature in the cellarage of our brains, thence to come up with a continually improving bouquet.

Already the hills are getting higher, the grass greener, and the sea bluer than they really were; and thanks to the deceptive working of happy memory our poorest stopping places will become haunts of impossible pleasure and Epicurean repast.

Sadly, though, even glorious memories can sometimes fade away. This is the grimmest tragedy of many forms of dementia.

Memory in the Chronicles

C.S. Lewis does some curious things with memory in his Chronicles of Narnia. While the Pevensie children grow to adulthood reigning over Narnia, they end up forgetting about their earlier lives. Only when they stumble upon the Lamp-post, do they recall the land of their birth.

“By the Lion’s Mane, a strange device,” said King Peter, “to set a lantern here where the trees cluster so thick about it and so high above it that if it were lit it should give light to no man!”

So these Kings and Queens entered the thicket, and before they had gone a score of paces they all remembered that the thing they had seen was called a lamp-post, and before they had gone twenty more they noticed that they were making their way not through branches but through coats.

And next moment they all came tumbling out of a wardrobe door into the empty room, and they were no longer Kings and Queens in their hunting array but just Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy in their old clothes.

It was the same day and the same hour of the day on which they had all gone into the wardrobe to hide. Mrs. Macready and the visitors were still talking . . . (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe).

In Prince Caspian, a wise advisor, Doctor Cornelius, secretly informs the heir to the Narnian throne that the old stories were not simply myths. The evil Telmarines had actively labored to erase all memory of Narnia’s true nature.

“Listen,” said the Doctor. “All you have heard about Old Narnia is true. It is not the land of Men. It is the country of Aslan, the country of the Waking Trees and Visible Naiads, of Fauns and Satyrs, of Dwarfs and Giants, of the gods and the Centaurs, of Talking Beasts. It was against these that the first Caspian fought.

It is you Telmarines who silenced the beasts and the trees and the fountains, and who killed and drove away the Dwarfs and Fauns, and are now trying to cover up even the memory of them. The King does not allow them to be spoken of.”

I find the following description of a renewed memory particularly picturesque. It takes place after the Pevensie children return to Narnia years after their initial visit.

Everyone except Lucy went to sleep at once. Lucy, being far less tired, found it hard to get comfortable. Also, she had forgotten till now that all Dwarfs snore. She knew that one of the best ways of getting to sleep is to stop trying, so she opened her eyes.

Through a gap in the bracken and branches she could just see a patch of water in the Creek and the sky above it. Then, with a thrill of memory, she saw again, after all those years, the bright Narnian stars. She had once known them better than the stars of our own world, because as a Queen in Narnia she had gone to bed much later than as a child in England.

And there they were – at least, three of the summer constellations could be seen from where she lay: the Ship, the Hammer, and the Leopard. “Dear old Leopard,” she murmured happily to herself (Prince Caspian)

Forgetting the Past

Every one of us has made mistakes. And far too often we allow those poor decisions and choices to haunt us the rest of our lives. That delights the Devil, one of whose titles is Accuser.

He wants us mired in the past, thinking there is no way we could ever earn God’s love.

The simple fact is that we don’t earn our Creator’s love. It’s a free gift. It is pure grace, and utterly unmerited.

Once we have confessed our sins, God washes them away and cleanses us from all unrighteousness.

To emphasize how God no longer holds our past sins against us, consider some of the ways he expresses his capacity to permanently forgive our confessed sins.

He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities… so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us (Psalm 103).

Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression..? You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. (Micah 7:18-19).

And now, for the verse which inspired my thoughts. It struck me as particularly helpful for our Christian lives, given the fact that God does not keep a permanent record of our sins. Wouldn’t our lives be better if we followed the Lord’s example?

Not that I… am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own… one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:12-14).

“Forgetting what lies behind,” our past failings which have been forgiven, liberates us to live the life to which God calls us.

That’s seldom easy to do, but knowing how “far [God] removes our transgressions from us,” makes that possibility much more likely. Let us press on.

First the Machines Kill the Weeds

On By robstroudIn C.S. Lewis, Christianity, History, J.R.R. Tolkien, Military History, Military Musings, Modern Life, Nature, The Future8 Comments

Machinery, one of the fruits of scientific research, is intended to benefit humanity. It often does. However, even machines with totally peaceful purposes – hay balers, for example – can be deadly.

Machines-run-amuck populate many dystopian novels and films. One of the most successful franchises is Terminator. Humanity is brought to the precipice of extinction, after devising machines – and their perilous companion Artificial Intelligence. The very first film, The Terminator (1984) brilliantly uses the biblical allusion “Judgement Day,” to mark the sentience of the genocidal Skynet.

Nearly forty years later, debates about weaponized autonomous systems have moved far beyond speculation. And it does not require a doctorate in computer science to recognize that given a potentially lethal machine the power to make its “own” decisions poses a deadly risk. After all, if software programs can be virally infected, and secure systems can be locked tight and held for ransom, there are no guarantees that “terminators” will not be part of our future.

We’ve seen how weapons can easily be mounted on the robotic dogs that are currently accompanying our troops.

And in a recent Air Force Magazine article, “Unmanned Flying Teammates,” we read the promise that “Robots will join the Combat Air Forces within the next decade.”

The common nomenclature for the current generation of these machines is Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems. You can read about “slaughterbots” at the Future of Life Institute site.

Whereas in the case of unmanned military drones the decision to take life is made remotely by a human operator, in the case of lethal autonomous weapons the decision is made by algorithms alone.

Slaughterbots are pre-programmed to kill a specific “target profile.” The weapon is then deployed into an environment where its AI searches for that “target profile” using sensor data, such as facial recognition.

While the first generation of such weapons are still being designed, a genuinely wonderful new machine foreshadows what might be an ominous future.

In response to the destructive necessity for pesticides, scientists have come up with a new self-driving farm machine that avoids the need for poisons by selectively zapping individual weeds with lasers. Forbes has a great article on the subject, with the unwieldly but informative title, “Self-Driving Farm Robot Uses Lasers To Kill 100,000 Weeds An Hour, Saving Land And Farmers From Toxic Herbicides.”

The weeding machine is a beast at almost 10,000 pounds. It boasts no fewer than eight independently-aimed 150-watt lasers, typically used for metal cutting, that can fire 20 times per second.

They’re guided by 12 high-resolution cameras connected to AI systems that can recognize good crops from bad weeds. The Laserweeder drives itself with computer vision, finding the furrows in the fields, positioning itself with GPS, and searching for obstacles with LIDAR.

I applaud this invention, with one major caveat. How large a step is required between zapping weeds and burning holes through human bodies?

Ironically, they have even named this agricultural prototype for human-hunting machines “Terminator technology.”

Terminator technology is the genetic modification of plants to make them produce sterile seeds. They are also known as suicide seeds. Terminator’s official name – used by the UN and scientists – is Genetic Use Restriction Technologies (GURTs).

Actually, this is a very positive breakthrough in terms of increasing harvests while preserving the natural health of the earth (and the Earth). C.S. Lewis, I believe, would have welcomed this new technological achievement.

The affinity of C.S. Lewis and fellow Inkling J.R.R. Tolkien for nature is well recognized. The two WWI veterans were averse to industrialized landscapes, and much preferred bucolic images. You can see that in Lewis’ fiction, although it’s much more evident in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. (Even Tolkien’s truest fans must admit that some readers find his elaborate discussion of the Hobbits’ harmony with nature almost mundane.)

True science is a good thing, but one must remain vigilant against an idolatry that masks itself as science.

Beware of Scientism

C.S. Lewis’ role as a an apologist for Christianity – and for what was worthwhile in past history – brought him into more direct conflict with technology. Of course, it was not scientific advances per se of which he was wary. It was the creeping idolatry of scientism, which assumes the trappings of faith in its disciples’ eyes. Tolkien shared his concerns regarding the matter, but confronting such lies was not part of his vocation.

Lewis’ clearest exposition of humanity’s lust for progress may be his 1954 Inaugural Lecture as the Chair of Mediaeval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University. De Descriptione Temporum (A Description of the Times) should be read in one sitting, as it was delivered. It is included in several collections, but available online here. The quotation below offers a very small slice of his influential lecture. (Coincidentally, A Pilgrim in Narnia featured a superb column on the address just yesterday.)

[The birth of the machines] is on a level with the change from stone to bronze, or from a pastoral to an agricultural economy. It alters Man’s place in nature. . . . What concerns us . . . is its psychological effect. How has it come about that we use the highly emotive word “stagnation,” with all its malodorous and malarial overtones, for what other ages would have called “permanence”?

Why does the word “primitive” at once suggest to us clumsiness, inefficiency, barbarity? When our ancestors talked of the primitive church or the primitive purity of our constitution they meant nothing of that sort. . . . Why does “latest” in advertisements mean “best”?

Well, let us admit that these semantic developments owe something to the nineteenth-century belief in spontaneous progress which itself owes something either to Darwin’s theorem of biological evolution or to that myth of universal evolutionism which is really so different from it, and earlier. . . . But I submit that what has imposed this climate of opinion so firmly on the human mind is a new archetypal image.

It is the image of old machines being superseded by new and better ones. For in the world of machines the new most often really is better and the primitive really is the clumsy. And this image, potent in all our minds, reigns almost without rival in the minds of the uneducated. For to them, after their marriage and the births of their children, the very milestones of life are technical advances. . . .

Our assumption that everything is provisional and soon to be superseded, that the attainment of goods we have never yet had, rather than the defence and conservation of those we have already, is the cardinal business of life, would most shock and bewilder [all of those who have gone before us.]

A thought-provoking article, “The Folly of Scientism,” offers the argument of a professor of Biology, which is independent of C.S. Lewis, while echoing many of his cautions.*

Of all the fads and foibles in the long history of human credulity, scientism in all its varied guises — from fanciful cosmology to evolutionary epistemology and ethics – seems among the more dangerous, both because it pretends to be something very different from what it really is and because it has been accorded widespread and uncritical adherence.

An excellent work on this subject is available for purchase, entitled The Restoration of Man: C.S. Lewis and the Continuing Case Against Scientism. Michael Aeschliman’s excellent treatment is evidenced by the fact the 2019 version is the third edition of the title.

But why should this central civilizing truth about the “res sacra homo,” [the fact that “humanity is a sacred thing”] . . . need C.S. Lewis’s [reaffirmation]? The answer to that question is philosophical, historical, and complex, but it should not be as obscure or little understood as it is today.

Although there was never a “golden age” of civilization within historical time, this radically noble idea was often better understood in the past, even the recent past.

Back to the Robots

Wait, I just noticed some armed drones flying overhead, and what appeared to be a silhouette resembling a GURT-101 Terminator skulking through the woods outside my office . . . Perhaps I’ve already written too much.

* This article appears in The New Atlantis, where they say “Our aim is a culture in which science and technology work for, not on, human beings.”