To say this year is going by in a blur is an understatement! Party conventions are a significant part of this year, culminating in state party conventions where leadership and party rules can be adjusted. This year has proven to be one where diversity of goals and hidden agendas are coming to the surface and resulting in an unstable American politic as factions coalesce with urgency motivating their words and actions. Each day brings a new uncovering of a hidden agenda along with appeals for people to choose sides in the conflict that surfaces.

I’ve been reading several books that delve into the ideas of what self-evident meant to those who formulated the system of government we have here in America. The more I understand this concept they knew well, the more I am convinced that many people, by their words and actions, do not understand this essential concept that undergirds a prosperous, civil and stable society that promotes a just and fair society where freedom is coupled with responsibility.

C.S. Lewis wrote a book called “The Abolition of Man” that was born out of series of lectures he gave during World War II. The book tackles the question of whether moral value is objective or not. Michael Ward, a Catholic priest, wrote a book called "After Humanity" which delves deeper into the ideas Lewis articulated in The Abolition of Man. Ward provided background information of what Lewis was driving at in the book based on his many conversations with thought leaders at the time. Lewis developed the idea of what a self evident moral law meant at one time, but was being poisoned by the philosophy of subjectivism that was overtaking the intellectual and governmental systems that were being formed throughout the world. Lewis wrote the last of his space trilogies around that time called “That Hideous Strength” which provided a fictional narrative of the ideas he articulated in The Abolition of Man.

Lewis' warning in the book was that if nothing is self evident, then nothing can be proven to be “right” or “good”. One cannot know what is “right” and “good”, however, if one is not brought up with the idea that there are virtues that undergird and define our humanity. Lewis does not overtly make a case for Christianity in the book, and Ward brings this fact out and provides a reasonable explanation for why Lewis took this line of thought in the book.

I have longed been intrigued by the ideas C.S. Lewis developed in his fictional and non-fiction books. His emphasis on the balance between reason and myth that was developed through his degree and doctorate studies in Medieval literature are invaluable when understanding the foundation that has been laid in societies that promote the potential that God created in humanity, and the purposes He intended for His creation. Rachel and I have taken the time to read and study together the ideas which Jesus Christ exposed in His earthly ministry regarding the reality of the spiritual universe and it’s claim as the ultimate reality we will come to know, either in life or in death. That understanding contains the key to recognizing the significance of our thoughts and actions for what we each should know as “self-evident”.

When we have lost the idea that nothing can be self-evident between humanity of all cultures and nations, Lewis speaks that the effect results in the ultimate abolition of man. This is where an understanding of the importance of what Jesus Christ told us about himself and our relation to God brings clarity to the meaning of “self-evident”. Either Jesus was who He says He was, or those who believe and trust His message of reconciliation are the most deceived people on the earth. In that case, the undergirding principles of America are vulnerable to systems of thought that have destroyed cultures and civilizations throughout history as one imperfect power is replaced by another imperfect power by the demonic idea that might makes right. It is Jesus Christ that showed us that our attempts to build a society on that basis is doomed to failure and suffering for those who would otherwise partake in liberty and joy that is vested in what Jesus Christ taught. I am thankful that our nations forefathers understood and articulated the words of “self-evident” and “endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights” before taking up the sword with their oppressors who did not live or govern by this understanding.

Do the words “self-evident” have any meaning to you?