The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts.
CHAPTER 1 “MEN WITHOUT CHESTS” THE ABOLITION OF MAN
In February 1943, C.S. Lewis and his brother, Warnie, took the train from their home just outside of Oxford to the University of Durham, where Lewis spoke at the fiftieth annual Riddell Memorial Lectures, whose purpose was to focus on “the relation between religion and contemporary thought.” The academic audience heard Lewis deliver a series of three lectures on three successive nights. Each lecture was followed by a period of question and answer.
Later that year, the three lectures were published together under the title The Abolition of Man. Knowing that this book came out of a high-level academic conference can help us be less hard on ourselves as readers if we run into passing allusions to figures or academic works unfamiliar to us. This guide may be of help to you as you wrestle with what many believe to be Lewis’s most philosophical book. Fortunately, you’ll also experience “aha” moments as he breaks down complex ideas into “plain English” and the power of his argument becomes clear.
Twelve years after the book’s first publication, in a letter to his American friend Mary Willis Shelburne, Lewis bemoaned that though it was one of his favorite books, The Abolition of Man had been, “almost totally ignored by the public.” Today we ignore it at our peril.
The most important reason to read and study The Abolition of Man is Lewis’s prescience about where the culture was heading. He foresaw our current cultural moment when the elevation and primacy of the emotive self has married an ideologically driven science. This ideological union, when used by the state to secure the obedience and the conscience of men, results in the eventual abolition of mankind or the dehumanization of humanity.
In other words, Lewis’s analysis and warnings spoken eight decades ago about the dangers of a culture that pushes moral relativism over moral absolutes and emotion over reason appear profoundly prophetic as we witness the rise of the “cultural elite” who seek to impose their “enlightened” worldview on those with “traditional” or “antiquated” values.
Perhaps there has been no better time than the present to reread Lewis’s The Abolition of Man, identify the dangers and the purveyors of moral relativism, consider the logical arguments that point to the reality of absolute truth, and seek the author of Truth Himself.
Owen Barfield once said of C.S. Lewis, “Somehow, what he thought about everything was secretly present in what he said about anything.”1 If you are intrigued by the ideas found in The Abolition of Man and would like to read more about them, many of the same themes can be found in some of his other works, including the papers “The Poison of Subjectivism” and “If We Have Christ’s Ethics Does the Rest of the Christian Faith Matter?”; Chapter 3 from his book Miracles, titled, “The Cardinal Difficulty of Naturalism”; and the third book in Lewis’s Space Trilogy, That Hideous Strength. We have also included at the end of this study guide Lewis’s poem “Evolutionary Hymn,” which also tracks foundationally with The Abolition of Man but in poetic form.
In evaluating the writing of The Abolition of Man, Owen Barfield also stated, “It is a real triumph. There may be a piece of contemporary writing in which precision of thought, liveliness of expression and depth of meaning unite with the same felicity, but I have not come across it.”2
2. Watch Video: Introduction to The Abolition of Man
Learning Goal:
At the end of this short video, you will know that many people consider The Abolition of Manto be C.S. Lewis’s most important nonfiction book, and you will begin to understand why.
1 Owen Barfield, Owen Barfield on C.S. Lewis, edited by G.B. Tennyson (Barfield Press UK, 2011), 122. 2 Back Cover of The Abolition of Man (Fount paperback, 1986).
Bryan C. Hollon
Dean President, Trinity School of MinistryBryan C. Hollon, Ph.D., is Dean President of Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania. Previously he served as the City Director of the C.S. Lewis Institute of Northeast Ohio and as a Professor of Theology and Director of the Center for Christian Faith & Culture at Malone University. Dr. Hollon was ordained a priest in the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) in 2015. In 2017, he planted and pastored St. John’s Anglican Church in Canton, Ohio until 2021. As a scholar, Dr. Hollon specializes in ressourcement theology, which is best exemplified in the work of Henri de Lubac. He is also a proponent of the great consensual tradition that C.S. Lewis referred to as “Mere Christianity.”
Joseph A. Kohm
Vice President for Development, CSLI & CSLI City Director, Virginia Beach
Joseph A. Kohm, C.S. Lewis Institute Vice President for Development and City Director for Virginia Beach. Joe is an attorney and formerly worked as a Certified Major League Baseball Player Agent. He earned his Master’s in Management Science from the State University of New York at Oswego and both his J.D. and M.Div. from Regent University. Joe is the author of The Unknown Garden of Another’s Heart: The Surprising Friendship between C.S. Lewis and Arthur Greeves (Wipf and Stock, 2022.)
Joel Woodruff
President, C.S. Lewis Institute
Joel Woodruff, President, C.S. Lewis Institute, has worked in higher education, “tent-making,” nonprofit administration, and pastoral ministries in Alaska, Israel, Hungary, France, and Northern Virginia. He served as Dean of Students, Chaplain, and Professor of Bible & Theology at European Bible Institute, where he helped train Europeans both for professional ministry and to be Christian leaders in the marketplace. Prior to joining the Institute, he was on the leadership team of Oakwood Services International, a nonprofit educational and humanitarian organization. He is a graduate of Wheaton College, earned his M.Div. from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and has a doctorate in Organizational Leadership from Nova Southeastern University. As a Parish-Pulpit Fellow, he studied Biblical Backgrounds & Archaeology in Israel for a year.
Dean President, Trinity School of MinistryBryan C. Hollon, Ph.D., is Dean President of Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania. Previously he served as the City Director of the C.S. Lewis Institute of Northeast Ohio and as a Professor of Theology and Director of the Center for Christian Faith & Culture at Malone University. Dr. Hollon was ordained a priest in the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) in 2015. In 2017, he planted and pastored St. John’s Anglican Church in Canton, Ohio until 2021. As a scholar, Dr. Hollon specializes in ressourcement theology, which is best exemplified in the work of Henri de Lubac. He is also a proponent of the great consensual tradition that C.S. Lewis referred to as “Mere Christianity.”
Vice President for Development, CSLI & CSLI City Director, Virginia Beach
Team Members
Joseph A. Kohm
Vice President for Development, CSLI & CSLI City Director, Virginia Beach
Joseph A. Kohm, C.S. Lewis Institute Vice President for Development and City Director for Virginia Beach. Joe is an attorney and formerly worked as a Certified Major League Baseball Player Agent. He earned his Master’s in Management Science from the State University of New York at Oswego and both his J.D. and M.Div. from Regent University. Joe is the author of The Unknown Garden of Another’s Heart: The Surprising Friendship between C.S. Lewis and Arthur Greeves (Wipf and Stock, 2022.)
Joel Woodruff, President, C.S. Lewis Institute, has worked in higher education, “tent-making,” nonprofit administration, and pastoral ministries in Alaska, Israel, Hungary, France, and Northern Virginia. He served as Dean of Students, Chaplain, and Professor of Bible & Theology at European Bible Institute, where he helped train Europeans both for professional ministry and to be Christian leaders in the marketplace. Prior to joining the Institute, he was on the leadership team of Oakwood Services International, a nonprofit educational and humanitarian organization. He is a graduate of Wheaton College, earned his M.Div. from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and has a doctorate in Organizational Leadership from Nova Southeastern University. As a Parish-Pulpit Fellow, he studied Biblical Backgrounds & Archaeology in Israel for a year.
