‘The Way’: C.S. Lewis, on the Only Way of Being Human

Chapter 2 of this groundbreaking essay confronts moral relativism by so-called Innovators.

Natural Law, or The Way, is attacked by innovators, according to Chapter 2 of "The Abolition of Man." bpawesome/Shutterstock

C.S. Lewis’s trailblazing three-chapter essay, “The Abolition of Man,” uses the fictitious characters Gaius and Titius to skewer the moral relativists of his day. His scathing critique unmasks their manifesto on morality as no more than a canon of convenience.

Lewis’s first chapter, “Men Without Chests,” pilloried propagandist “educators” and their “Green Book,” Lewis’s epithet for books by moral relativists. His second chapter denounces moral relativists as “Innovators.” As in the first chapter, he was being sarcastic.

Revising Moral Values

Lewis critiqued Innovators who denounce what he calls “the Tao,” or Natural Law, Traditional Morality, First Principles, or First Platitudes. He noted that, in trying to revise sacred moral values, Innovators can neither refine nor replace them. In seeking societal “destruction,” they aren’t as subjective as they pretend. Their skepticism is superficial. They readily use their skepticism on other people’s values but deem their own values to be impervious to challenge, let alone debunking.