The Poison of Subjectivism

I found many of Lewis’s ideas in his essay “The Poison of Subjectivism” very interesting. The first part of this essay that stood out to me was how Lewis described what subjectivism is, “Now, his own reason has become the object: it is as if we took out our eyes to look at them.” Just as it’s impossible to take out our own eyes and look at them, it’s impossible to use our own logic to prove something. This quote helped me better understand subjectivism, and why it cannot be used.

Another part that struck my interest was when Lewis was describing progress with the example of the train. In order to have progress, there must be a fixed point so that we can get nearer to it. If there is no fixed point however, it is like a train following a terminus at the same speed. The train is making no progress towards the terminus when they both move at the same speed. The same is true of moral standards. If the standards keep changing, we cannot get any closer to them and our moral ideas won’t make any progress. In order for this progress to take place, there must be a fixed point that we can get nearer to.

Finally, I found the analogy with the cube in a two dimensional world very interesting. It is impossible for us to imagine a cube if we only have two dimensions. Try to imagine a four-dimensional object in our three-dimensional world; it’s not possible. If found this a good way to explain why we can’t fully understand the trinity. Just as we can’t wrap our human minds around another dimension, we can’t understand the relationship God has within Himself between the three persons of the trinity. We are able to see bits and pieces of it like in a two-dimensional world we could see the six squares that make up a cube, but we can’t see the full picture. In this essay Lewis gave me new ways to think about certain concepts.