Religious Freedom, Education Amid Today’s Intellectual Confusion

Lewis goes on to argue that this denial of the existence and necessity of truth—whether deliberate or not—cannot but result in an increasing loss of freedom. Toward the end of the book, Lewis concludes that “a dogmatic belief in objective value [i.e., objective truth] is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery.” Now, eighty years after the publication of The Abolition of Man, we can say with a high degree of certainty that Lewis’ diagnosis was correct. Our Western societies have become ever more determined in their rejection of truth and of true freedom. The most fundamental freedom, namely freedom of religion, has perhaps suffered the most. Because the notion of objective truth has fallen into disrepute, the contemporary conception of religious freedom bears little similarity to what religious freedom actually is. And all of this has gone hand in hand with the increasing decadence of our educational institutions.