“After Humanity” by Michael Ward: C.S. Lewis’s “The Abolition of Man”

During World War II, C.S. Lewis gave three related lectures at Durham University. The three were entitled “Men Without Chests,” “The Way,” and “The Abolition of Man.” In 1943, they were published in a single volume under the title of The Abolition of Man. The lectures are not Lewis’s most accessible work, even though the volume sold quite well.  

The lectures concerned universal values, like courage and honor, and how contemporary philosophies were about demolishing any idea of such values existing, even though they can be found in Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Buddhism, and indeed all major world religions. To read The Abolition of Man today is to be struck with how contemporary it sounds; a lot of the same philosophical battles are being fought, but using different names, like post-modernism.

 

But if you’re looking for something by C.S. Lewis that’s as easy to read as, say The Screwtape Letters, The Abolition of Man isn’t it. The lectures were intended for an academic audience; lay readers (like me) can understand them, but they must be read slowly and carefully. 

 

Michael Ward, whom N.T. Wright has called the foremost living Lewis scholar, seeks to make The Abolition of Man more accessible. And with After Humanity: A Guide to C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man, he’s done just that. 

 

Ward, senior research fellow at Blackfriars Hall at the University of Oxford and professor of Apologetics at Houston Baptist University, brings a wealth of knowledge about Lewis to the work. His books include Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis, The Narnia Code: C.S. Lewis and the Secret of the Seven Heavens, The Cambridge Guide to C.S. Lewis (co-editor), C.S. Lewis at Poet’s Corner (co-editor), and Heresies and How to Avoid Them(co-editor). From 1996 to 1999, Ward was resident warden at The Kilns, Lewis’s home in Oxford.

 

Michael Ward

He discusses how the lectures in both spoken and printed form were first received; the context for the lectures; an overview of the subject; the disappointment some find in discovering that The Abolition of Man is not a Christian apologetic but instead a philosophical discussion; and the legacy of the lectures and the published book. He then provides a commentary, often page by page and paragraph by paragraph, of the published lectures. His conclusion is a fascinating discussion of what the work means today, in terms of prophecy, poetry, and power.

 

After Humanity is two things – an important work of scholarship on a major work by Lewis, and an in-depth explanation and guide to what many consider one of the major intellectual works of the 20th century.