The Poison of Subjectivism

I think that the natural law that C.S. Lewis speaks of is probably best paralleled by air. Everybody breaths it, everybody is surrounded by it, nobody would live without. Its effect has been observed by men and women for centuries (or at least since atmospheric effect first crept into the background of paintings). And, of course, when Sumerian scientists studied the flight patterns of an arrow, they would realize that range was compromised by drag. And even if they didn’t quite have the formulas down, if they happened to look up they would have birds fly through, well, something, because they’re obviously not floating.

So it is with the natural law. It is all around us, everyone experiences it, and it is certainly not a modern invention. But that is the problem. It is so universal and ever-present that we haven’t bothered to acknowledge its existence. It is like our cornea. We all have one. But I really doubt we give it much thought in our day to day existence.

But I think it is easier to believe in corneas than in a natural law. How do we know that we have corneas? Well, I imagine most of us have found out from some anatomy lecture, because other people can see our corneas when our eyes are seen in profile. The fact is, we are only aware of our corneas because something other than our own vision tells us they are there. Whether it is another person observing it, or maybe because every morning we feel it our fingertips as we put our contacts in. The natural law, then, is more difficult to tease out because it totally envelops our entire moral sense –everyone’s sense- there is nobody to tell us, from an outside perspective (save, perhaps, some silly “sacred book”) what the natural law is. In fact, among men and women, I don’t think this outside perspective exists.
And yet I respect C.S. Lewis attempts to show us that if something is so universally obvious as to escape perception, it is also so obvious as to allow a common starting ground for everybody in establishing first an order, and then a great orderer.