The first three posts in this series have refuted some of C.S. Lewis's most popular stances on moral epistemology in the first parts of Mere Christianity, a trend that will continue here. As usual, Lewis stops short of the true nuance of reality on either an epistemological or metaphysical level, whether it comes to the nature of reason, the cosmos, the uncaused cause, or Christian morality. Yes, he towers above the petty evangelical churchgoers who so zealously invoke his name, but this does not make him a sound philosopher. It means that the evangelical community, including evangelicals who at least somewhat care about apologetics and broader philosophy, is even more attached to logical fallacies than Lewis was.
Consider the following set of claims in Mere Christianity. For the context of the following quote, see parts one, two, and three. These statements would fit in right alongside evangelical assumptions about moral knowledge, but there are a number of clear, major errors.
"Christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. It therefore has nothing (as far as I know) to say to people who do not know they have done anything to repent of and who do not feel that they need any forgiveness. It is after you have realized that there is a real Moral Law, and a Power behind the law, and that you have broken that law and put yourself wrong with the Power--it is after all this, and not a moment sooner, that Christianity begins to talk. When you know you are sick, you will listen to the doctor." (31-32)
No one "knows" if they are morally diseased outside the context of a moralistic sort of theism, and proving the uncaused cause exists does not prove the existence of morality. This is because all other kinds of moral stances reduce down to subjective feelings or arbitrary preferences, either on an individual or societal level. The existence of objective values is ultimately up in the air--but there is still a great deal of evidence for Christianity that falls short of logical proofs. This means, inescapably, that Christian values are not known to be true, but it is still both true and knowable that there is evidence for Christian values. After all, there cannot be evidence for Christianity's particular claims about history and theology without the values of Christianity therefore also having support by extension.
A person worthy of the title Christian comes to Christianity because it seems to be true, not because they feel guilty about actions or thoughts that may or may not even be immoral. Left to themselves, humans have no way of knowing in what ways they have violated moral obligations because morality itself has nothing to do with human preferences or perceptions, meaning that no one could ever know if morality even exists because of guilt, a sense of moral satisfaction, or the approval of others. In truth, anyone who is a Christian because of conscience is a deluded fool who has made false assumptions about the nature of moral feelings.
It is shortly after this that Lewis begins elaborating on how the concept of morality is metaphysically connected to theism. However, he makes a grave mistake when he sets up his comments about pantheism, conflating pantheism with the notion that God is amoral:
"People who all believe in God can be divided according to the sort of God they believe in. There are two very different ideas on this subject. One of them is the idea that He is beyond good and evil. We humans call one thing good and another thing bad. But according to some people that is merely our human point of view . . . The other and opposite idea is that God is quite definitely 'good' or 'righteous', a God who takes sides . . . The first of these views--the one that thinks God beyond good and evil--is called Pantheism." (36)
This excerpt actually straw mans pantheism. Pantheism is expressed in one of two primary ways. Either God is said to be synonymous with the physical cosmos, in which case God and matter would be identical (an impossible metaphysical framework), or God is said to be synonymous with all things that exist. In neither case is pantheism necessarily amoral. Even if this was true, it does not follow that pantheism is the main or only form of theism that treats God as beyond moral categories. An amoral brand of deism or even an amoral but personal deity would entail exactly this, and yet it is not because God and the physical universe are synonymous! It would be because the uncaused cause does not have to have a moral nature in order to be the uncaused cause.
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