Joy Laxton: Laws of Nature in "Religion and Science" and "The Ethics of Orthodoxy"

 

In Lewis’ essay “Religion and Science,” from his book “God on the Dock,” I have been able to find parallels to G. K. Chesterton’s chapter in Orthodoxy, “The Ethics of Elfland.”  Both discuss the limitations of the Laws of nature.  In Lewis’ Essay he questions the claims made by science by asking how you could find if anything beyond science existed by only studying science.  He states, "Because science studies Nature. And the question is whether anything besides Nature exists— anything 'outside.' How could you find that out by studying simply Nature?" (Lewis, 1970, pg. 37).  He further explains a significant restriction to the laws of nature, stating “The laws tell you what will happen if nothing interferes. They can't tell you whether something is going to interfere” (Lewis, 1970, pg. 37).

In G.K. Chesterton’s writing he criticizes the laws of nature and claims them to be much less intellectual than those of fairy land.  He questions the inevitability of the laws of nature, suggesting that they are not true laws at all, but are only based on mere observation.  He states “ I observed that learned men in spectacles were talking of the actual things that happened—dawn and death and so on—as if THEY were rational and inevitable. They talked as if the fact that trees bear fruit were just as NECESSARY as the fact that two and one trees make three. But it is not. There is an enormous difference by the test of fairyland; which is the test of the imagination.”

I found these particular quotes and claims of Lewis and Chesterton intriguing as they deviate significantly from the dominant narratives in our culture.