I am only making clear what man’s conquest of Nature really means and especially that final stage in the conquest, which, perhaps, is not far off. The final stage is come when Man by eugenics, by pre-natal conditioning, and by an education and propaganda based on a perfectly applied psychology, has obtained full control over himself. Human nature will be the last part of Nature to surrender to Man. The battle will indeed be won. We shall have ‘taken the thread of life out of the hand of Clotho’ and be henceforth free to make our species whatever we wish it to be. The battle will indeed be won. But who, precisely, will have won it? — C S Lewis, The Abolition of Man
Humanity, its meaning, purpose and content has always been under attack, but never before like it is today. Its meaning is being confused, and its content is being diffused, diluted and contaminated. If man ceases to be man, what do we have?
Popular culture overflows with themes and stories of man versus machine, man versus alien, man versus animal; depicting men and women overcoming, gaining salvation over machines, aliens or beasts.
A few examples, but I could list many more:
- The Matrix
- I, Robot
- Terminator Series
- Transformers
- Iron Man
- Her
- Spider-Man
- RoboCop
- Blade Runner
This is the big question – how will man overcome himself? . . . because man’s biggest problem is himself.
The serpent in the garden tempted Eve to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The serpent insinuated that God knew very well that the fruit would make them like God. This has always been the temptation – that we humans are, or are destined to become, gods. We are constantly tempted to think that we are our own gods; that we need no other god. We decide, based on our knowledge of good and evil, what is our right to do. Our will is supreme, or so we think.
There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. — C S Lewis, The Great Divorce
This deception persists as man’s goal. Yes, God gave Adam responsibility for the animals, to have dominion over them, but that did not mean that he was to harness and absolutely own them. We were to use and form nature to our benefit, but we’ve gone much farther. We’ve changed and reverse-engineered nature, removing parts and altering them. There is nothing that we will not do in the realm of nuclear, biological and chemical powers. Science and technology now tower over us as our gods, as projections of our imagined greater self.
In this section we will explore the ways we have distorted views of ourselves and how those distortions warp our view of God, others and our lives.
English
Arabic
French
Russian
Spanish
Swahili