Through a Wardrobe Darkly: Notes on Narnia

I'm a bit of a Narnia geek and it's been a long-cherished project to write a set of notes/commentaries on the spiritual and literary themes in each of the Narnia stories. So far I've only done The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (my personal favourite), and with the film about to come out it seemed like a good time to share these. Prospective publishers, feel free to get in touch. ;-)

Here's an extract from the intro...

Talking with Trees

"Oh, Trees, Trees, Trees," said Lucy... "Oh, Trees, wake, wake, wake. Don’t you remember it? Don’t you remember me? Dryads and Hamadryads, come to me."

Though there was not a breath of wind they all stirred about her. The rustling noise of the leaves was almost like words. The nightingale stopped singing as if to listen to it. Lucy felt that at any moment she would begin to understand what the trees were trying to say.
(Prince Caspian: What Lucy Saw)

Trees are symbolically important in Narnia

Trees and woods are symbolically important in Narnia as they are in the Bible. In The Magician’s Nephew, Digory has to pick an apple from the special tree in the walled garden and bring it to Aslan, and from it grows the great tree of protection for Narnia, as well as the apple which will heal his mother. From that second apple comes the tree whose wood will be made into the wardrobe by which Lucy enters Narnia in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – emerging straight into a Narnian wood. Trees play a central role in Prince Caspian (as hinted in the passage quoted above), culminating in their reawakening to rout Miraz’s army (and a doorway of three wooden stakes forms the portal back into our world). In The Last Battle, the cruel felling of the talking trees is the portent of the great evil to come in the last days of Narnia. At the start of The Silver Chair, Jill and Eustace come into a forest of great trees on Aslan’s mountain. In the other books, trees and woods are present and important, albeit in subtler ways: trees, after all, are what Narnian ships are made out of (The Voyage of the Dawn Treader).

Trees are also of course what books are made of, and pages are sometimes called leaves. Awakening the trees, trying to catch what they are saying, could be a metaphor for finding new life and meaning in books, especially books that may seem dead or dry, or to have already given up all their meaning – such as the Bible, or of course the Narnia Chronicles themselves.

Take the passage from Prince Caspian quoted above: there is far more going on in it than we might take in at first glance – or even after repeated readings. The sheer depth and potential for meaning in Lewis’s Narnian writing is one of the reasons why I have written these notes – seeking to unearth some of the hidden treasures and depths of meaning in the Narnia Chronicles; to ‘awaken the trees’ and hear what else they may be saying to us, what wisdom they can teach us. Just as Lucy feels she has missed something when she cannot get the trees to wake and speak, we too may have read these books countless times and yet missed much of what they are whispering to us.

The Wood between the Worlds

Woods - and books - can be doorways to new worlds

The other great wood in Narnia is the 'Wood between the Worlds' in The Magician’s Nephew. Through the pools in this timeless wood, it is possible to enter any one of countless worlds. The wood may represent many things, one of which is our imagination by which we too can enter Lewis’s mythic world of Narnia and live in its landscape. So woods and trees – and books – can be doorways to new worlds, new experiences and new understandings.

Finally, the Narnian woods can be a symbol for our own souls and imaginations, which need to be stirred, awakened and heard. I can think of few better ways of beginning this process than immersing oneself in the rich depths of Lewis’s tales.

Read more...

Spirit and matter

Reflections on the sacredness and significance of matter...

More than the sum of its parts

there is to all things an invisible spiritual component

I believe that everything in this world is more than the sum of its (visible) parts. For there is to all things an invisible spiritual component or dimension which transforms and transfigures the ordinary into the extraordinary, the mundane into the miraculous. It is the eternal element in the everyday. It is what gives meaning and life to mere things.

Reductionism

If we look at anything in an (ontologically) reductionist, materialist way we can reduce it to a set of component parts with no meaning, purpose, significance, value or life. As Wordsworth put it, 'we kill to dissect' - or rather, in dissecting we lose the essence of the composed creation. A human can be deconstructed into flesh, bones and organs or further down into cells, then genes, then chemicals and finally atoms and their components; or else humans can be seen as 'just' apes or mammals.

A comedian once quipped "life is nature's way of keeping meat fresh". Thoughts can be reduced to electro-chemical impulses; love can be explained as evolution's means of ensuring the survival or reproductive success of genes or species; Beethoven's 9th can be disassembled into a set of sound waves.

Incidentally, I don't believe there is such a thing as 'just' anything, whether it's sound waves, sinews or cells. Even these component parts have a kind of selfhood; they are something important even in and of themselves.

But furthermore, we know instinctively that all these sets of component parts are not what humans, thoughts, love, life or symphonies are - merely what they're made of:

"In our world", said Eustace, "a star is a huge ball of flaming gas."
"Even in your world... that is not what a star is but only what it is made of." (C.S. Lewis, Voyage of the Dawn Treader)

The meaning of love?

It may well be true that romantic love is, on a biological or evolutionary level, merely the means by which humans are induced to pair up, mate and bring up their offspring, ensuring the survival of their genes. Viewed in this way it is a mere phantom, a meaningless but biologically-useful trick played on us by our DNA. But it can be both that and something more, for there is a spiritual as well a physical component to everything; an eternal as well as a temporal aspect. Human romantic love can - and I believe does - have a reality, meaning, significance and value that transcend and suppress its utilitarian biological function.

even animals are not merely animals

Human beings are not merely animals; indeed, even animals are not merely animals. Our bodies and actions matter. Sex is not merely a meaningless and transient physical act; perhaps even eating and excreting have a sacredness, linking us all in the great chains and cycles of life in which all living creatures participate and interdepend.

Matter matters

So matter matters. Matter matters in its own right, simply as itself, and it matters because of the spirit which fills, vivifies, lifts and transfigures it. Matter is spirit's body, its means of expression in a physical universe, the instrument through which its music plays.

Perhaps then almost nothing is entirely meaningless - even the most apparently random of chance events...

A poem

The body's more than earth by nature formed,
The brain is more than cells by sense informed,
The mind is more than brain's projection-screen
Where visions, dark subconscious-bred, are seen;
The Earth is more than soil swinging through space,
And man is more than monkey aping grace,
And music's more than heard-vibrating air;
For Truth is more than Reason can lay bare:

Beside, beyond, above body, brain, mind,
Unseen, ignored, rejected; undesigned
Designer, Maker, Lover, Source of love
and light and life, without whom none can live -
O Spirit, may we hear your soundless call;
For spirit is the greater part of all.

Related posts

• Reality as Sacrament and Icon

Evolution, fall and morality

Our evolutionary heritage | Adam and Eve | Talking Beasts

Were humans created perfect and then fell, or did we already bear the baggage of our evolutionary heritage?

Uncle Den, Irenaeus and the evolution of conscience

I'm rather proud to be related by marriage to Dr Denis Alexander, founder of the Faraday Institute and author of Rebuilding the Matrix and Creation or Evolution: do we have to choose? (Read my review) 'Uncle Den' is a bit of an expert in the field of evolutionary biology and is also a strongly evangelical Christian in the Reformed tradition. I have great respect for both his scientific views and for his faith, though my own theology is rather different.

After hearing him speak on Darwin and evolution at a conference at Spurgeon's College last year, I asked him what he thought about the role evolution may have played in the development of human conscience and moral sense, and also whether our evolutionary heritage had predisposed us to sin. I can't remember his answer in full but he seemed inclined to believe that we were originally fully able to obey God and had chosen not to - very much the standard evangelical line.

Irenaeus believed that humans were created immature

However, he did mention the 2nd-century theologian Irenaeus who believed that humans were created immature/imperfect and we were intended to reach maturity through a lengthy process of change, growth and development. Denis doesn't agree with this view but to me it makes a lot of sense, particularly in light of evolutionary theory.

Our evolutionary heritage

humans share millions of years of evolutionary history and heritage with other animals

If Darwinian evolution is broadly true, as I believe it is, then we humans share millions of years of evolutionary history and heritage with other animals, including all the instinctive mechanisms of lust, greed, aggression and selfishness that have always been vital for survival in a competitive world of limited resources. We know that nature is at best amoral, and we may not like it but we do not blame lions for killing zebras, frigate birds for robbing terns, robins for being aggressively territorial, cuckoos for laying eggs in other birds' nests, or ducks for having multiple partners. Our closest living relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos, are frequently violent and sexually promiscuous.

This leads me to two major questions:

1) If we do indeed owe much of our own evolutionary history and DNA to creatures like these, how on earth could humans have escaped bearing the marks of this in our own instincts and behaviour? Why wouldn't our earliest human ancestors have been every bit as aggressive and lustful - as amoral - as all these other creatures?

2) But in that case, how come humans do - apparently unlike all other creatures - have an inbuilt moral sense, a deep belief that so many of these 'natural' behaviours are in fact morally repugnant? As I say, we don't hold animals morally responsible for their behaviour, nor do we expect them to feel guilty for doing what comes naturally. But we ourselves have set up complex ethical, moral and legal systems to discourage indulgence in many evolutionarily-encoded activities. Why?

Adam and Eve

I've said before that I don't hold the Genesis chapter 2 'fall' story to be factual history, but nor do I believe it to be merely fictional. I see it as mythicised history, with elements of fact set in a highly symbolised myth to convey spiritual, psychological and theological truth.

'Adam and Eve' were already evolutionarily predisposed to sin

If my hypothesis is in any way correct, then 'Adam and Eve' were already evolutionarily predisposed to sin (qu 1 above). However, God somehow set them spiritually or morally apart from other creatures, giving them (whether by divine act or by natural means) a unique moral sense of right and wrong which enabled them to rise above the legacy of their brutish evolutionary past (qu 2 above). Their inability to do so in the long run is not only their story but the story of all their descendants - of you and me.

To me, this account seems the obvious way to marry classic Christian theology with current biological theory. However, I realise that it will please neither evangelicals nor evolutionary scientists. It pleases me though, and maybe Iranaeus too. :-)

Talking Beasts

"Do not go back to their ways lest you cease to be Talking Beasts"

As usual, C.S. Lewis and Narnia come to my aid at this point. In The Magician's Nephew, when Aslan has brought forth the animals from the earth he goes among them and touches a male and female of each kind to set them apart. Then he breathes on them, there is a flash of fire and he speaks words of power over them: 'Narnia, Narnia, Narnia, awake. Love. Think. Speak. Be walking trees. Be talking beasts. Be divine waters.' The Talking beasts reply: 'Hail, Aslan. We hear and obey. We are awake. We love. We think. We speak. We know.' Then he instructs them:

'Creatures, I give you yourselves... I give to you forever this land of Narnia. I give you the woods, the fruits, the rivers... I give you myself. The Dumb Beasts whom I have not chosen are yours also. Treat them gently and cherish them but do not go back to their ways lest you cease to be Talking Beasts. For out of them you were taken and into them you can return. Do not so.'

Of course this is a myth, and unlike the Eden story it is entirely fictional, but it is nonetheless powerful and instructive. Aslan - okay, God - has chosen beings from among the dumb beasts to think, love, speak and know. But they share a common origin and heritage with the dumb animals and can return to their un-talking state if they follow their unthinking, unloving ways. This is far closer to the Irenaean view as I understand it, and to mine, than the classic evangelical reading of Genesis.

Related posts:

• It's only natural (but it still sucks)
• Addressing Creationist concerns

Many ways to one God? (part 1)

A friend of mine has a saying, 'There are many mountains in the Himalayas and all of them point to God'. To a lot of Christians this just sounds like new-agey fluffiness - after all, didn't Jesus say 'I am the way... no-one comes to the Father except through me'? And some will understandably feel that if other ways did lead to God, then what on earth was the point of all the hassle of being a Christian - though this would perhaps miss the point somewhat.

While I can't perhaps go as far as my friend in believing that all roads lead ultimately to God, nor that all people will eventually be redeemed - though I do hope for that - I have moved quite a distance in that direction. I have reason to hope that many who do not know or consciously profess Christ will find themselves in God's Kingdom; and conversely I suspect that many who call themselves Christian will find their place among the chosen less guaranteed than they imagined.

Does this mean I'm becoming a wishy-washy anything-goes so-called liberal? Perhaps, but I don't believe so. Rather I'm trying to take Jesus' own words and character very seriously and not shoehorn them into watertight doctrines that don't actually hold water.

The Way, the Truth and the Life

In the next post I want to look at more of what the Bible has to say on the subject but let's start with 'I am the way, the truth and the life'. To my mind it's quite possible to interpret this verse in a way that's far from the standard 'only Christians go to heaven' version.

Yes, Jesus is the Way, but it is possible to follow a way without knowing its name or having been shown it on a map. All who, led by the Spirit, follow the true way are indeed following Jesus whether they know it or not. Similarly, Jesus is the Truth and the Truth is Jesus, so anyone who seeks the truth is surely seeking Jesus whether they realise it or not. And Jesus is the Life, but life whether spiritual or biological is a pretty mysterious thing, and those who have it may not exactly understand what it is or how they came by it.

So Jesus can truly say 'No-one comes to the Father except by me', for all who do come to the Father by whatever route will find - perhaps to their surprise - that they came in truth through Christ.

One of my favourite passages in C.S. Lewis's Narnia stories comes towards the end of The Last Battle. The young Calormene Emeth, a lifelong devotee of the pagan demon-god Tash, finds himself to his great surprise in the Narnian heaven. Aslan the Christ-Lion explains to him:

"Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me… For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him…

But I [Emeth] said also (for the truth constrained me), Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days. Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek."

This to me is the crux. Those who seek truth, goodness, beauty, justice and mercy will find it, for they are truly seeking God.

Love

We in the modern western church make much of right belief in a correct creed, and of following particular steps that will guarantee us a place in God's kingdom. But authentic Christian faith is not mere intellectual assent to right theories about God and salvation, nor following a five-step programme to eternal life. True belief is about who we are in the deepest place, and about the actions and attitudes towards God and other people that flow from that.

So the greatest command is simply - and almost impossibly - to love: to love God with all our heart, mind and strength; to love our fellow humans as ourselves. Those who seek to follow this law are, as Jesus said, not far from the kingdom, whatever theologies they do or don't profess. And conversely those who have not love, though they perform great miracles, are not actually on the Way of Christ at all.

My own view then is that Christ's presence and activity are not limited to those within the Christian church, and that he is often present incognito in other faiths and none. For wherever there is goodness, truth, love, kindness, honesty, generosity, compassion, or mercy, there at least to some degree is Christ. Even if all paths do not lead to him, in his grace he often chooses to meet us on whatever path we happen to be on.

Unapologetics

Okay, so apologetics - which I've always thought was a duff name - is the attempt to defend or present the truth of God or Christianity by means of overwhelming evidence, either logical/rational or miraculous. Great Christian apologists of the last century included C.S. Lewis and Francis Schaeffer, both of whose work I've often attempted to emulate in the past.

But God is not a hypothesis to be tested, a proposition to be proved or a problem to be solved. God is a reality - The Reality - to be encountered, experienced, engaged with, entered into. I can never prove God either by logic or by display of supernatural power. Miracles can be doubted as hoaxes, and by definition they can never be scientifically tested. And logic and reason can only take you so far in demonstrating that which is completely beyond all language and all human ability to conceptualise. They can't even satisfactorily describe something as normal and natural as, say, my love for my wife - reason is a useful tool but it is not the only or even the best way of knowing, particularly when what you need to know is a person more than it is an idea.

God and Christianity are not less than reasonable or rational; they are more than. I believe Lewis's greatest works were not his apologetics - good though those are - but his mythopoeic fiction, which allow us imaginatively to encounter and experience something of the divine reality which his powerful logic could only weakly hint at.

Clive Sexist Lewis?

Was C.S. Lewis really a rampant racist /sexist / arch-conservative monarchist? Lots of people think so, but his writings have long been a favourite of mine so I've decided to defend him against some of the many charges that have been levelled at his writings over the years. Have a read here and see what you think.