Our sense of futility itself, like our belief in error, evil, and emptiness, testifies to some notion of utility or purpose or meaning that we desire and yet sometimes lack.

futility: (n) the quality or state of being futile; uselessness or pointlessness

All of us, on occasion or often, have felt a sense of futility descend upon us like a fog. Perhaps we find ourselves overwhelmed by the evil and apparent absurdity in the world, or the tragedies and hardships in our own lives. Sickness, suffering, death, and even at times trivial inconveniences like rush-hour traffic can lead us to speak into the ether, “What even is the point of anything?”

Sometimes, this sense of futility passes quickly. Other times, it lingers and haunts our consciousness like a dripping faucet. Even when our attention is elsewhere, that steady sense of futility presses upon us and clouds our minds and chastens our affections. Many of us know the frustration of futility. With the help of C.S. Lewis, I’d like to explore the less-traveled road of the bright side of futility.

More Than Matter

As a defender of the Christian faith, Lewis was known especially for his clear and compelling use of arguments from reason, morality, and desire. He deployed these arguments primarily as a way of refuting naturalism or materialism, the view that nature or matter is all there is.

Reason

The argument from reason runs something like this: Human thought cannot merely be a fact about ourselves, but must instead, in principle, be capable of giving us real insight into reality. Lewis frequently quoted Professor J.D.S. Haldane to the effect that “If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true, and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.”

In other words, all knowledge depends on the validity of logic, and therefore logic must in principle be more than a subjective phenomenon but instead a “real insight into the way in which real things have to exist” (“De Futilitate,” 63). If this is so, then human reason testifies to the existence of a cosmic or super-cosmic Reason in which the universe is saturated. While this argument doesn’t get you the whole way to Christian theism, it does seem to effectively refute strict materialism.

Morality

The argument from morality is similar: Human beings make moral judgments. We call certain things good and certain things evil, certain things right and certain things wrong. In doing so, we appeal to an objective standard of behavior that is outside of us. Whether we are judging our neighbors or the Nazis, the very fact of our judgment testifies to our belief in a real objective Good that stands over us and to which we ought to conform. There is a real moral law that is constantly pressing upon us.

Again, this argument doesn’t get us the whole way to Christianity, but the existence of a universal moral law does seem to imply a Lawgiver, and thus open the way for further discussion of what this Lawgiver might be like.

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