Session 4 · Acts 17:24-28
What Lies Behind the Law
Two ways to read the universe, and what your longings add to the evidence
Book reading: Mere Christianity, Book One, Chapter 4 (What Lies Behind the Law)
Book One, Chapter 4 asks what is really going on behind the moral law. Lewis lays out two basic views of the universe. The materialist view says matter and space simply exist, and everything else, including us, came out of that by chance. The religious view says something like a mind lies behind it all. He argues that science cannot settle between them. Science studies what can be observed, and the question here is why there is anything to observe at all.
So where do we look for evidence? Lewis points inward. We are the one part of the universe we know from the inside, and what we find there, including the moral law and desires that point beyond us, counts as evidence. A detective who can only study a building from the street should be glad when someone lets him in the front door.
Paul shows something similar in Acts 17. He is in Athens speaking to people who do not share his Bible. He does not begin with a text they would not recognize. He begins with the world they live in: "The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man." This God is not small or boxed in. He "gives to all mankind life and breath and everything."
Then comes the part that fits this chapter so well. God arranged human life, Paul says, "that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him." That is a gentle and honest picture. Seeking is not always a straight line. People feel their way, like someone walking through a dark room. And Paul adds that God "is actually not far from each one of us." He quotes their own poets: "In him we live and move and have our being." He meets them on shared ground.
That is a good model for how to think about your own longings. Maybe you have felt a hunger for something, such as justice, beauty, belonging or rest, that nothing in your life seems to fully satisfy. Lewis suggests that kind of desire can point beyond us. Paul's claim is that the One who made us is near enough to be found, and that our searching is part of the design.
Two cautions. First, a longing is not a proof. Treat it as a clue to follow, not a trump card. Second, don't be embarrassed to feel your way. Paul does not say people find God by clearing their throats and announcing a conclusion. He says "perhaps feel their way." If you are still in that stage, you are in honest company.
Key idea
Lewis contrasts the materialist and religious views of the universe, argues science cannot settle between them, and treats the moral law and our inner longings as evidence from the inside.
Questions to consider
- Which view of the universe, materialist or religious, do you tend to lean on in everyday life, even if you wouldn't say so out loud? What shows it?
- What is a longing you keep coming back to that nothing in your life seems to fully satisfy? What might it be pointing toward?
Journal prompt
Describe one deep longing you have had for a long time. What have you tried to use to satisfy it? What would it mean if that longing were a clue and not just a problem?
Practice
Dose: 15 minutes, once. 1) Draw two columns, "Materialist view" and "Religious view." 2) Under each, write 2-3 things that view would say about where the moral "ought" came from. 3) Write down two of your own longings. 4) Read Acts 17:24-28 aloud and write one sentence on how these two longings fit or don't fit with Paul's claim that God is not far from each of us.