The absolute moral law

English essayist and critic, Samuel Butler once commented that, ‘the only absolute morality is absolute stagnation.’ This is often the cry of the secular humanist who thinks that if we would only abandon the old Victorian ideas in light of science, technology and all that goes with it, then all will be well in the garden. What these people cannot stand is the truth that there is an eternal, changeless moral law which is binding on all of mankind, regardless of location, time, colour, class or creed.

C. S. Lewis in his essay, “The Poison of Subjectivism”, had this to say: “To infer that whatever stands too long must be unwholesome is to be a victim of metaphor. Space does not sink because it has preserved its three dimensions from the beginning. Love is not dishonoured by constancy. Does a permanent unchanging moral code preclude progress? On the contrary, except on the presupposition of a changeless standard, progress is impossible. If absolute good is a fixed point, it is at least possible that we should get nearer and nearer to it, but if the terminal is as mobile as the train, how can the train progress towards it? Our ideas of ‘the good’ may change, but they cannot change either for the better or for the worse if there is no absolute and immutable good to which they can approximate or from which they can recede. We can go on getting a sum more and more nearly right only If one perfectly right answer is ‘stagnant’.”