There are books that become more true over time than their authors may ever have anticipated. One of them is C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man, published in 1943 at the height of the Second World War. In its three chapters, Lewis articulated the problem of his age: a collapse in anthropology. In the 80 plus years since, that collapse has continued apace.
Lewis was not simply a cultural critic. He was also a prophet. And the problem of his age is the problem of ours. Indeed, the Psalmist’s question demands an answer today more perhaps than ever: What is man? But while the Psalmist immediately answered that he is a creature made by God to be a little lower than the angels, yet crowned with glory, in this present age his cry has more the character of a rhetorical question, a revelation of our confusion.
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