C. S. Lewis
And Taoism.

Source from http://www.crossroad.to/Excerpts/books/lewis-abolition.htm

The Abolition of Man

by C. S. Lewis

Rockefeller Center, NY: Touchstone, 1996 (First published in 1944)

Lewis seems to see Chinese Taoism as a universal ethical umbrella -- one that would include Christianity as well as other religions. Symbolized by the Yin Yang, the Tao would be the supreme guide to moral and ethical values:

"The Chinese also speak of a great thing (the greatest thing) called the Tao. It is the reality behind all predicates, the abyss that was before the Creator Himself. It is Nature, it is the Way, the Road. It is the Way the universe goes on, the Way in which things everlastingly emerge... into space and time. It is also the Way which every man should tread in imitation of that cosmic and supercosmic progression, conforming all activities to that great exemplar. [page 30]

"This conception in all its forms, Platonic, Aristotelian, Stoic, Christian, and Oriental alike, I shall henceforth refer to for brevity simply as 'the Tao.'" [page 31]

"...it is worth inquiry whether there is any instinct to care for posterity or preserve the species. I do not discover it myself.... Only people educated in a particular way have ever had the idea 'posterity' before their minds at all. It is difficult to assign to instinct our attitude towards and object which exist only for reflective men.... Those of us who accept the Tao may, perhaps, say that they ought to do so...." [page 51]

A contemporary of Aldous and Julian Huxley, Lewis may be referring to their evolutionary vision of a controlled society, in which the masses are continually conditioned to behave in pre-determined ways through increasingly sophisticated behavioral "science." See Brave New World

"The final state is come when Man by eugenics, by pre-natal conditioning, and by an education and propaganda based on a perfect applied psychology has obtained full control over himself. Human nature will be the last part of Nature to surrender to Man.... We shall have 'taken the thread of life out of the hand of Clotho' and be henceforth free to make our species whatever we wish it to be. ... But who, precisely, will have won it? For the power of Man to make himself what he pleases means, as we have seen, the power of some men to make other men what they please." 69-70

The significance of the Tao:

"In the older systems both the kind of man the teachers wished to produce and their motives for producing him were prescribed by the Tao -- a norm to which the teachers themselves were subject and from which they claimed no liberty to departs... They handed on what they had received: they initiated the young neophyte into the mystery of humanity.... Judgments of value are to be produced in the pupil as part of the conditioning. Whatever Tao there is will be the product, not the motive of education." 71

"We do not look at trees either as Dryads or as beautiful objects while we cut them into beams: the first man who did so may have felt the price keenly, and the bleeding trees in Virgil and Spenser may be far-off echoes of that primeval sense of impiety. The stars lost their divinity as astronomy developed, and the Dying God has no place in chemical agriculture." 78 [referring to ancient myths in which the sun god died during the winter solstice]

"We reduce things to mere Nature in order than we may 'conquer them.... Every conquest over Nature increases her domain. The stars do not become Nature till we can weigh and measure them; the soul does not become Nature till we can psycho-analyze her. The wresting of power from Nature is also the surrendering of things to Nature."79

Apparently, the Chinese Tao replaces the Bible as ultimate authority and guide for our lives -- and for the common good:

Either we are rational spirit obliged for ever to obey the absolute values of the Tao, or else we are mere nature to be kneaded and cut into new shapes for the pleasures of masters who must, by hypothesis, have not motive but their own 'natural' impulses. Only the Tao proves a common human law of action which can overarch rulers and ruled alike. A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery." 81

"In the Tao itself, as long as we remain within it, we find the concrete reality in which to participate is to be truly human: the real common will and common reason for humanity, alive, and growing like a tree, and branching out, as the situation varies, into ever new beauties and dignities of application. While we speak from within the Tao we can speak of Man having power over himself in a sense truly analogous to an individual's self-control. But the moment we step outside and retard the Tao as mere subjective product, this possibility has disappeared." 82

"I hear rumours that Goethe's approach to nature deserves fuller consideration -- that even Dr. [Rudolf] Steiner [occult founder of Waldorf Schools] may have seen something that orthodox researchers have missed."85 [See The Inklings: Lewis, Tolkien and Barfield] explore Theosophy and Reincarnation

The last section of the book, "Illustrations of the Tao," lists examples of "Natural Law collected...."

"It will be noticed that writers such as Locke and Hooker, who wrote within the Christian tradition, are quoted side by side with the New Testament. This would, of course, be absurd if I were trying to collect independent testimonies to the Tao.... It is at least arguable that every civilization we find has been derived from another civilization and, in the last resort, from a single centre -- 'carried' like an infectious disease or like the Apostolical succession." 91-92

This statement is followed by 16 pages of quotes from various religions and civilizations that illustrate the supposed reality and universality of the Tao: Ancient Egyptian, Ancient Jewish, Babylonian, Ancient Chinese, Hindu, Old Norse, Greek and Roman....




Source from http://www.blessedquietness.com/journal/homemake/lewistoaist.htm

Richard Riss on Lewis's Taoist Paganism

It is sometimes argued that, since all of the world's major religions hold to similar systems of morality, it doesn't really matter which religion you hold to, as long as you hold to one of them. They all lead to the same place.

On the other hand, it is also sometimes argued that there cannot be any moral absolutes since each culture holds to a totally different set of morals.

These objections cannot both be true at the same time. Either the world's major religions hold to similar systems of morality, or they do not. C. S. Lewis believed that they do, and he collected traditions from all over the world to prove his point. This collection appears in the appendix to his book, The Abolition of Man.1

C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (New York: MacMillan Publishing Co., 1947), pp. 93-121.

According to Lewis, there is a single source for all value judgements. He writes:

The thing which I have called for convenience the Tao, and which others may call Natural Law or Traditional Morality or the First Principles of Practical Reason or the First Platitudes, is not one among a series of possible systems of value. It is the sole source of all value judgements. . . . The effort to refute it and raise a new system of value in its place is self- contradictory.2

2 Ibid., p. 56.

The attempt to discard "traditional" values cannot succeed without assuming that there is some other higher set of values:

A great many of those who "debunk" traditional or (as they would say) "sentimental" values have in the background values of their own which they believe to be immune from the debunking process.3

3 Ibid., p. 41.

Thus, there can never be a new system of values:

What purport to be new systems or (as they now call them) "ideologies" all consist of fragments of the Tao itself, arbitrarily wrenched from their context in the whole and then swollen to madness in their isolation, yet still owing to the Tao and it alone such validity as they possess. 4

4 Ibid., p. 56.

This great principle of morality is common to all of the great religions:

In early Hinduism that conduct in men which can be called good consists in conformity to, or almost participation in, the Rta--that great ritual or pattern of nature and supernature which is revealed alike in the cosmic order, the moral virtues, and the ceremonial of the temple. Righteousness, correctness, order, the Rta, is constantly identified with satya or truth, correspondence to reality. As Plato said that the Good was "beyond existence" and Wordsworth that through virtue the stars were strong, so the Indian masters say that the gods themselves are born of the Rta and obey it. The Chinese also speak of a great thing (the greatest thing) called the Tao. It is the reality beyond all predicates, the abyss that was before the Creator Himself. It is Nature, it is the Way, the Road. It is the Way in which the universe goes on, the Way in which things everlastingly emerge, stilly and tranquilly, into space and time. It is also the Way which every man should tread in imitation of that cosmic and supercosmic progression, conforming all activities to that great exemplar. "In ritual," say the Analects, "it is harmony with Nature that is prized." The ancient Jews likewise praise the Law as being "true."

This conception in all its forms, Platonic, Aristotelian, Stoic, Christian, and Oriental alike, I shall henceforth refer to for brevity simply as "the Tao." . . . What is common to them all . . . is the doctrine of objective value, the belief that certain attitudes are really true, and others really false, to the kind of thing the universe is and the kind of things we are.5

5 Ibid., pp. 27-29.

Editor's Note: Here we see that Lewis not only mixes heathens, pagans and Christians as following the same "Way," but that he calls his concoction "the Tao." It is ethically and rationally impossible to try to reconcile these widely opposed groups into one. An honest person, even unsaved, could not do it. The fact that Lewis attempts it shows not only his apparent gross misunderstanding of true Bible Christianity, but also his deceitfulness. Jesus Christ said, ...I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. John 14:6 That includes C. S. Lewis, Buddhists, Toaists, Stoics, Orientals, etc.

http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=1004

In Abolition he used "the Tao" as a shorthand term for the Natural Law or First Principle. A clarification may be helpful. The term"Tao" in the West is most often associated with Chinese Taoism. According to its scripture, the Tao Te Ching, the Tao (though ineffable )can best be described with words such as "the Flow," "the way things change," "the Life," "the Source." Its locus is first of all in nature. To follow the Tao is indeed to live morally, for it requires respect for the lowly and avoidance of oppression or pride. However, the Tao is ultimately a way of accepting what is, whether tending toward life or death. Confucianists see the locus of the Tao as first of all in human society, expressed primarily in the respect of inferiors for patriarchal superiors, the responsibility of superiors for inferiors, and the subordination of the individual to the welfare of the group. Neither of these uses quite corresponds to what Lewis seems to intend in Abolition. Perhaps the Chinese concept that comes closest to Lewis's apparent intent would be "The Way of Heaven."

Lewis claimed in Abolition that until quite recent times everyone believed that objects could merit our approval or disapproval, our reverence or our contempt. It was assumed that some emotional reactions were more appropriate than others.

http://teachanimalobjectivity.homestead.com/files/ttc1.htm

Are the Tao's values relevant to our times? C.S. Lewis had this to say:

"This thing which I have called for convenience the Tao, and which others may call Natural Law or Traditional Morality or the First Principals of Practical Reason or the First Platitudes, is not one among a series of possible systems of value. It is the sole source of all value judgements. If it is rejected, all value is rejected. If any value is retained, it is retained. The effort to refute it and raise a new system of value in its place is self-contradictory. There never has been, and never will be, a radically new judgement of value in the history of the world. What purport to be new systems or (as they now call them) 'ideologies,' all consist of fragments of the Tao itself, arbitrarily wrenched from their context in the whole and then swollen to madness in their isolation, yet still owing to the Tao and to it alone such validity as they possess."

-Abolition of Man (1943)