Just a quick point—it’s not “what Christianity says about life after death” that 1 Cor. 15 is going on about, it’s “what Christianity says about Christ”—specifically whether he roses from the dead, but also a host of other issues dependent from that question, some of them having to do with our life after death, but others having to do with Christ’s identity and truthfulness (for instance, in the promises he made about forgiving sins for those who trust in him). So it isn’t life after death that is the heart of the Christian faith or Narnia—it’s Christ / Aslan. The rest of it is right—if Christ /Aslan is not who he says he is, as proven by the resurrection, then everything is futile and a waste of time, both in the real world and in Narnia.
Well, Narnia is about Christ, but it’s not an allegory—very symbolic, yes, but that’s not the same thing. Lewis’ Pilgrim’s Regress, with characters like Reason, the Spirit of the Age, and such, is an allegory, like Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (I’ve read the former and really should read the latter…).
As far as Lewis was concerned, it was a "supposal" (a what-if). Regarding his intentions (from the article Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What’s to Be Said):
Some people seem to think that I began by asking myself how I could say something about Christianity to children ... This is all pure moonshine.
...
I thought I saw how stories of this kind could steal past a certain inhibition which had paralysed much of my own religion in childhood. Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or about the sufferings of Christ? ... But supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday school associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency...
He seems to be speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
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I'll bring you back to how Puddleglum was deployed on this thread:
"of course one must follow one’s understanding of truth, but I could not see the appeal."
It seems to me that 1 Corinthians 15 rules out Christianity being the equivalent of Sam's dream at the end of Brazil, after all "If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. If the dead are not raised, Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die."
I wasn't expecting Terry Gilliam!
I'm not sure that the verses in 1 Corinthians 15 directly address the issue of appeal. So maybe this is in the more general sense of Christianity's truth about reality - that its viability, as a belief about our lives in the here and now, is ruled out as being worse than pointless unless what it says about life after death is also true.
One question that occurs to me is whether a reader of The Silver Chair, and the other books of Narnia, would be aware of 1 Corinthians 15. I wasn't, when I first read them. I've been wondering if C S Lewis incorporated the concept expressed in these verses in some way.
A related question, particularly in the light of Lewis' intentions (in the aforementioned article), is what happens to a reader who comes to realise that the stories of Narnia are saying something about the Christian faith - how does this reader resolve the beliefs and feelings evoked by Narnia with whatever beliefs (and any associated feelings) they are otherwise learning or being taught about Christianity? In my case, looking back, I seem to have taken on board quite a lot of the "feel" of the beliefs of Narnia.
On the question of life after death, C S Lewis (as many here know) addresses the resurrection of Christ in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and returns to the resurrection of the rest of us at the end of The Last Battle (which is the book that follows The Silver Chair, in Narnia's internal chronology). By that point in my reading of the series, it had become clearer that Lewis was talking about a conception of life after death, and heaven, in contrast to what I presumed was ordinary Christian doctrine.
What were your views of ordinary Christian doctrine before that? (I don’t know what denomination you were in at that time.)
Just a quick point—it’s not “what Christianity says about life after death” that 1 Cor. 15 is going on about, it’s “what Christianity says about Christ”—specifically whether he roses from the dead, but also a host of other issues dependent from that question, some of them having to do with our life after death, but others having to do with Christ’s identity and truthfulness (for instance, in the promises he made about forgiving sins for those who trust in him). So it isn’t life after death that is the heart of the Christian faith or Narnia—it’s Christ / Aslan. The rest of it is right—if Christ /Aslan is not who he says he is, as proven by the resurrection, then everything is futile and a waste of time, both in the real world and in Narnia.
I wasn't aware that I'd been addressing the heart of the Christian faith.
The immediate framing of my post was how the quoted verses from Corinthians relate to what Puddleglum says (in effect about faith) - about the reality of what is seen and what is unseen, and also (as it happens) alluding to the characters' attitude to death:
... That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say.
But, as you say, the wider context and focus is Aslan.
One aspect of the post was looking at Christianity through the lens of Narnia as well as at Narnia through the lens of Christianity. I was also trying to recall my perspective on these things from the period of my life when I came across them.
At this point in our lives we would centre Christian doctrine around Christ. But from the perspective of someone who grew up with Christianity, we first encounter all sorts of doctrines in all sorts of contexts in all sorts of order - initially (in my case) through assorted bits of liturgy at services in the Church of England, and through reading bible stories, being introduced to prayer, and other aspects of a Christian upbringing in a white English village.
So, by the time I'd finished The Last Battle, I'd say I'd gained the idea from a variety of sources that, whatever else Christianity was about (including good and bad, right and wrong), it was about life after death. From my perspective now, I'd suggest that the story arc of Narnia somewhat confirms that view.
Some of this also addresses ChastMastr's question. Further to the above comments, the short answer is that my early views are hard to untangle. Early thoughts that I recall include wondering what "for us men and for our salvation" meant. (What about women?) And whether "the last shall be first, and the first last" would be enforced regardless of whether someone actually wanted to be first (or last).
Just a quick point—it’s not “what Christianity says about life after death” that 1 Cor. 15 is going on about, it’s “what Christianity says about Christ”—specifically whether he roses from the dead, but also a host of other issues dependent from that question, some of them having to do with our life after death, but others having to do with Christ’s identity and truthfulness (for instance, in the promises he made about forgiving sins for those who trust in him). So it isn’t life after death that is the heart of the Christian faith or Narnia—it’s Christ / Aslan.
I wouldn't disagree, but for the same reason I don't think it's really possible to separate the trustworthiness of Christ, the fact that his promises are true and real, and that our hope is in the surety of those promises (which include Christ himself) coming to fruition.
I'm not sure that the verses in 1 Corinthians 15 directly address the issue of appeal. So maybe this is in the more general sense of Christianity's truth about reality - that its viability, as a belief about our lives in the here and now, is ruled out as being worse than pointless unless what it says about life after death is also true.
Right yes, and to the point of the particular appeal, I think absent that hope (though see above) constituting part of a wider reality, life with the characteristics that the OP was objecting to would be pretty bleak a lot of the time.
A related question, particularly in the light of Lewis' intentions (in the aforementioned article), is what happens to a reader who comes to realise that the stories of Narnia are saying something about the Christian faith - how does this reader resolve the beliefs and feelings evoked by Narnia with whatever beliefs (and any associated feelings) they are otherwise learning or being taught about Christianity? In my case, looking back, I seem to have taken on board quite a lot of the "feel" of the beliefs of Narnia.
Just a quick point—it’s not “what Christianity says about life after death” that 1 Cor. 15 is going on about, it’s “what Christianity says about Christ”—specifically whether he roses from the dead, but also a host of other issues dependent from that question, some of them having to do with our life after death, but others having to do with Christ’s identity and truthfulness (for instance, in the promises he made about forgiving sins for those who trust in him). So it isn’t life after death that is the heart of the Christian faith or Narnia—it’s Christ / Aslan.
I wouldn't disagree, but for the same reason I don't think it's really possible to separate the trustworthiness of Christ, the fact that his promises are true and real, and that our hope is in the surety of those promises (which include Christ himself) coming to fruition.
I'm not sure that the verses in 1 Corinthians 15 directly address the issue of appeal. So maybe this is in the more general sense of Christianity's truth about reality - that its viability, as a belief about our lives in the here and now, is ruled out as being worse than pointless unless what it says about life after death is also true.
Right yes, and to the point of the particular appeal, I think absent that hope (though see above) constituting part of a wider reality, life with the characteristics that the OP was objecting to would be pretty bleak a lot of the time.
A related question, particularly in the light of Lewis' intentions (in the aforementioned article), is what happens to a reader who comes to realise that the stories of Narnia are saying something about the Christian faith - how does this reader resolve the beliefs and feelings evoked by Narnia with whatever beliefs (and any associated feelings) they are otherwise learning or being taught about Christianity? In my case, looking back, I seem to have taken on board quite a lot of the "feel" of the beliefs of Narnia.
I think that life after death—and not merely being unbodied souls, but resurrected—is at least deeply connected to our focus on Christ, as He is the wellspring of life itself, definitely. I think it’s very much a “both/and” situation, and perhaps the emphasis on the life to come (both the afterlife and the general resurrection) is not a bad thing, given modern society’s lack of belief in the supernatural, in souls, etc. And perhaps given some very, very difficult times we’re all living through. (And as we age, more and more loved ones being on the other side, too…)
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He seems to be speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
In the article, Lewis attempts to provide some justification for this. The article starts:
In the sixteenth century when everyone was saying that poets (by which they meant all imaginative writers) ought to please and instruct, Tasso made a valuable distinction. He said that the poet, as poet, was concerned solely with pleasing. But then every poet was also a man and a citizen in that capacity he ought to, and would wish to, make his work edifying as well as pleasing. ... All I want to use is the distinction between the author as author and the author as man, citizen, or Christian.
For Lewis, writing a story starts with him as Author:
In the Author’s mind there bubbles up every now and then the material for a story. For me it invariably begins with mental pictures. This ferment leads to nothing unless it is accompanied with the longing for a Form: verse or prose, short story, novel, play or what not.
And he writes the following about his perspective as Author:
Some people seem to think that I began by asking myself how I could say something about Christianity to children; then fixed on the fairy tale as an instrument ... This is all pure moonshine. I couldn’t write in that way at all. Everything began with images; a faun carrying an umbrella, a queen on a sledge, a magnificent lion. At first there wasn’t even anything Christian about them; that element pushed itself in of its own accord.
But he writes the following about his perspective as Man:
Then of course the Man in me began to have his turn. I thought I saw how stories of this kind could steal past a certain inhibition which had paralysed much of my own religion in childhood. Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or about the sufferings of Christ? ... But supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday school associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency? Could one not thus steal past those watchful dragons? I thought one could. That was the Man’s motive.
Clearly, we might think he is being disingenuous. And there's a train of thought that Lewis is least convincing when writing about his own works. (Related to his desire, as a Christian, not to put himself first.)
In passing, one of the things I take from this is that storytellers are used to adopting multiple perspectives.
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He seems to be speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
In the article, Lewis attempts to provide some justification for this. The article starts:
In the sixteenth century when everyone was saying that poets (by which they meant all imaginative writers) ought to please and instruct, Tasso made a valuable distinction. He said that the poet, as poet, was concerned solely with pleasing. But then every poet was also a man and a citizen in that capacity he ought to, and would wish to, make his work edifying as well as pleasing. ... All I want to use is the distinction between the author as author and the author as man, citizen, or Christian.
For Lewis, writing a story starts with him as Author:
In the Author’s mind there bubbles up every now and then the material for a story. For me it invariably begins with mental pictures. This ferment leads to nothing unless it is accompanied with the longing for a Form: verse or prose, short story, novel, play or what not.
And he writes the following about his perspective as Author:
Some people seem to think that I began by asking myself how I could say something about Christianity to children; then fixed on the fairy tale as an instrument ... This is all pure moonshine. I couldn’t write in that way at all. Everything began with images; a faun carrying an umbrella, a queen on a sledge, a magnificent lion. At first there wasn’t even anything Christian about them; that element pushed itself in of its own accord.
But he writes the following about his perspective as Man:
Then of course the Man in me began to have his turn. I thought I saw how stories of this kind could steal past a certain inhibition which had paralysed much of my own religion in childhood. Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or about the sufferings of Christ? ... But supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday school associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency? Could one not thus steal past those watchful dragons? I thought one could. That was the Man’s motive.
Clearly, we might think he is being disingenuous. And there's a train of thought that Lewis is least convincing when writing about his own works. (Related to his desire, as a Christian, not to put himself first.)
In passing, one of the things I take from this is that storytellers are used to adopting multiple perspectives.
I don’t think he’s being disingenuous at all and I find him totally convincing when writing about his own works… Your mileage may vary I suppose.
...
He seems to be speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
In the article, Lewis attempts to provide some justification for this. The article starts:
In the sixteenth century when everyone was saying that poets (by which they meant all imaginative writers) ought to please and instruct, Tasso made a valuable distinction. He said that the poet, as poet, was concerned solely with pleasing. But then every poet was also a man and a citizen in that capacity he ought to, and would wish to, make his work edifying as well as pleasing. ... All I want to use is the distinction between the author as author and the author as man, citizen, or Christian.
For Lewis, writing a story starts with him as Author:
In the Author’s mind there bubbles up every now and then the material for a story. For me it invariably begins with mental pictures. This ferment leads to nothing unless it is accompanied with the longing for a Form: verse or prose, short story, novel, play or what not.
And he writes the following about his perspective as Author:
Some people seem to think that I began by asking myself how I could say something about Christianity to children; then fixed on the fairy tale as an instrument ... This is all pure moonshine. I couldn’t write in that way at all. Everything began with images; a faun carrying an umbrella, a queen on a sledge, a magnificent lion. At first there wasn’t even anything Christian about them; that element pushed itself in of its own accord.
But he writes the following about his perspective as Man:
Then of course the Man in me began to have his turn. I thought I saw how stories of this kind could steal past a certain inhibition which had paralysed much of my own religion in childhood. Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or about the sufferings of Christ? ... But supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday school associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency? Could one not thus steal past those watchful dragons? I thought one could. That was the Man’s motive.
Clearly, we might think he is being disingenuous. And there's a train of thought that Lewis is least convincing when writing about his own works. (Related to his desire, as a Christian, not to put himself first.)
In passing, one of the things I take from this is that storytellers are used to adopting multiple perspectives.
Why disingenuous? The process he outlines seems to me a very ordinary and common one. I'm also a writer, and when I sit down to write, this is basically what happens to me. I don't plot out my theme and purposes, etc. ahead of time, and THEN go looking for a story to clothe them in--it starts with the story, and the theme etc. creep up on me. Sometimes things show up that I don't recognize as being there until a reader points them out--at which point I re-read and say, "Oh yeah, you're right!"
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I wouldn't disagree, but for the same reason I don't think it's really possible to separate the trustworthiness of Christ, the fact that his promises are true and real, and that our hope is in the surety of those promises (which include Christ himself) coming to fruition.
I'm not sure that the verses in 1 Corinthians 15 directly address the issue of appeal. So maybe this is in the more general sense of Christianity's truth about reality - that its viability, as a belief about our lives in the here and now, is ruled out as being worse than pointless unless what it says about life after death is also true.
Right yes, and to the point of the particular appeal, I think absent that hope (though see above) constituting part of a wider reality, life with the characteristics that the OP was objecting to would be pretty bleak a lot of the time.
You appear to introduce the Christian redefinition of hope into the mix, which rather changes the topography in relation to concepts like bleakness.
I wonder if bleakness is, in itself, necessarily a problem, thinking about more stoic expressions of Christianity. And with relevance to various recent posts, the stoic emphasis on Reason and natural law puts me in mind of C S Lewis' The Abolition of Man. But I note that Christianity parts company with stoicism when it comes to the afterlife. (Although I see that the one Stoic quote that Lewis includes in his illustrations of the Tao is ‘Praise and imitate that man to whom, while life is pleasing, death is not grievous’.)
To the extent that Lewis the Author might have been writing about Narnia for Lewis the Man who had lost his mother at the age of 9 (and was also writing about his subsequent journey away from faith and back again), I wouldn't be surprised if he heard some of what he was saying. (Surprised by Joy was published in 1955, The Last Battle in 1956.)
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Why disingenuous? The process he outlines seems to me a very ordinary and common one. I'm also a writer, and when I sit down to write, this is basically what happens to me. I don't plot out my theme and purposes, etc. ahead of time, and THEN go looking for a story to clothe them in--it starts with the story, and the theme etc. creep up on me. Sometimes things show up that I don't recognize as being there until a reader points them out--at which point I re-read and say, "Oh yeah, you're right!"
We're all writers here. We can all contemplate what the Author says about the Self (and maybe what the Self thinks about the Author). It can be quite instructive to read our posts after we've written them - it can reveal all sorts of interesting details about ourselves.
It has been pointed out frequently that Narnia is not a coherent world like Middle-Earth (you cannot draw a sensible map of it) and inconsistencies abound. I think Lewis was writing at white heat and channelling his subconscious to some extent. I find a significant passage at the end of The Last Battle. Narnia has been destroyed and the Friends of Narnia are on their way to Aslan's Country. Eustace (I think) remarks that King Tirian and Lucy are weeping. 'Sir,' says Tirian, 'I have seen my mother die. It were no praise, but great dishonour, if I did not weep.' And then we find that the 'Real Narnia' still exists in Aslan;s country. Which raises in my mind whether Narnia was smbolically Lewis' mother, and a way of coming to terms with her death.
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Clearly, we might think he is being disingenuous.
We might think, for example, that in choosing to present his reasoning in the way that he does, he gives the appearance of avoiding addressing the question of when he realised that he was incorporating symbolic references to Christian themes in his Narnia books, and decided to carry on doing so. (We know that he showed early chapters of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to several friends, for comment, with apparently mixed results, but not a lot more with any certainty.)
By the time of the New York Time article (in 1956), it seems quite possible that he would have been unimpressed about having to defend his motives, which is rarely a good starting point for explaining yourself in public.
Reverting to Puddleglum's speech, whish is still quite a way from this cosmos of which you speak, the message is that even if there is no Narnia, beyyer to live and di as a free Narnua than as an Underland slave. Rven if there ys no God, better to live according to the Way of Christ than as an amoralist.
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Clearly, we might think he is being disingenuous.
We might think, for example, that in choosing to present his reasoning in the way that he does, he gives the appearance of avoiding addressing the question of when he realised that he was incorporating symbolic references to Christian themes in his Narnia books, and decided to carry on doing so. (We know that he showed early chapters of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to several friends, for comment, with apparently mixed results, but not a lot more with any certainty.)
By the time of the New York Time article (in 1956), it seems quite possible that he would have been unimpressed about having to defend his motives, which is rarely a good starting point for explaining yourself in public.
Okay, there’s the misunderstanding. Lewis never claimed there were no symbolic elements In Narnia. He claimed it was not an allegory. An allegory is a very specific kind of symbolic writing, much more tightly controlled even than a parable, which he would have been fully familiar with because allegory was a major literary form used in medieval and Renaissance literature. Lewis is correct in claiming that Narnia is not an allegory, because to be an allegory the piece needs to have a strict one to one correspondence between object and symbolic meaning, and nothing can be included that has no symbolic meaning—or that waffles between two or more meanings. You ought to be able to draw up a table of objects and characters in the story and have a column right next to it that gives the meaning of each. If you can’t do that, the thing is not an allegory.
I’m trying to come up with a list of things, off the top of my head, that are disqualified from being symbols. Let’s see— Mr and Mrs Beaver; her sewing machine; Tumnus’ umbrella; the White Witch’s sleigh; the four children themselves (one might stand for Everyman, but not four); the romp after Aslan is raised from the dead; the giant Aslan breathes on; The various dryads, river spirits, and talking animals. None of these can be said to represent such things as courage, chastity, new love, death, baptism, and the like. There are other elements in the story that have more symbolic overtones (the stone table clearly stands for the Law of Moses, even as it stands in the place of the cross). But having a handful of symbolic elements mixed in with all the others it’s not enough to make an allegory. If it were, most classic English literature could be called allegories!!!
In sum, Lewis wasn’t wrong. It’s not an allegory, anymore than the Lord of the Rings is an allegory.
I wasn't referring to the use of the word "allegory" but rather to the quotes @ChastMastr posted, to wit:
Some people seem to think that I began by asking myself how I could say something about Christianity to children ... This is all pure moonshine.
...
I thought I saw how stories of this kind could steal past a certain inhibition which had paralysed much of my own religion in childhood. Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or about the sufferings of Christ? ... But supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday school associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency...
In quote #1 he says I didn't start out by asking how I could say something about Christianity to children. In quote #2 he says he conceived of the books as saying something about Christianity to children. It seems a rather clear and patent contradiction. Did he, or did he not, seek to "say something about Christianity to children"?
To note that it wasn't ChastMastr who posted those quotes, it was me, writing in response to ChastMastr (from whose post I quoted, just before the quotes in question. They are from an article in the New York Times that Lewis wrote in 1956).
Also to confirm what mousethief says in response to Lamb Chopped's post: that the issue being addressed in our posts wasn't whether or not Narnia is an allegory, it was about Lewis' motivation and intentions in writing the Narnia series.
In quote #1 he says I didn't start out by asking how I could say something about Christianity to children. In quote #2 he says he conceived of the books as saying something about Christianity to children. It seems a rather clear and patent contradiction. Did he, or did he not, seek to "say something about Christianity to children"?
I think the words "began by" in quote 1, or "start out" in your summary, are important.
Quote 1 says he didn't begin with that idea or purpose; quote 2 does not say he began with that purpose either.
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I wouldn't disagree, but for the same reason I don't think it's really possible to separate the trustworthiness of Christ, the fact that his promises are true and real, and that our hope is in the surety of those promises (which include Christ himself) coming to fruition.
I'm not sure that the verses in 1 Corinthians 15 directly address the issue of appeal. So maybe this is in the more general sense of Christianity's truth about reality - that its viability, as a belief about our lives in the here and now, is ruled out as being worse than pointless unless what it says about life after death is also true.
Right yes, and to the point of the particular appeal, I think absent that hope (though see above) constituting part of a wider reality, life with the characteristics that the OP was objecting to would be pretty bleak a lot of the time.
You appear to introduce the Christian redefinition of hope into the mix, which rather changes the topography in relation to concepts like bleakness.
I'm not entirely sure that's avoidable tbh to the extent that 'Narnian' thinking is reflective of Christianity.
I wonder if bleakness is, in itself, necessarily a problem, thinking about more stoic expressions of Christianity. And with relevance to various recent posts, the stoic emphasis on Reason and natural law puts me in mind of C S Lewis' The Abolition of Man. But I note that Christianity parts company with stoicism when it comes to the afterlife. (Although I see that the one Stoic quote that Lewis includes in his illustrations of the Tao is ‘Praise and imitate that man to whom, while life is pleasing, death is not grievous’.)
I think 'the afterlife' and 'Christian hope' in general makes it very difficult to compare Christianity and Stoicism, and it seems to me (contra Eirenist) that there are better versions of stoic beliefs than orthodox Christianity, if that's what appeals (including forms of Daoism).
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I wouldn't disagree, but for the same reason I don't think it's really possible to separate the trustworthiness of Christ, the fact that his promises are true and real, and that our hope is in the surety of those promises (which include Christ himself) coming to fruition.
I'm not sure that the verses in 1 Corinthians 15 directly address the issue of appeal. So maybe this is in the more general sense of Christianity's truth about reality - that its viability, as a belief about our lives in the here and now, is ruled out as being worse than pointless unless what it says about life after death is also true.
Right yes, and to the point of the particular appeal, I think absent that hope (though see above) constituting part of a wider reality, life with the characteristics that the OP was objecting to would be pretty bleak a lot of the time.
You appear to introduce the Christian redefinition of hope into the mix, which rather changes the topography in relation to concepts like bleakness.
I'm not entirely sure that's avoidable tbh to the extent that 'Narnian' thinking is reflective of Christianity.
I wonder if bleakness is, in itself, necessarily a problem, thinking about more stoic expressions of Christianity. And with relevance to various recent posts, the stoic emphasis on Reason and natural law puts me in mind of C S Lewis' The Abolition of Man. But I note that Christianity parts company with stoicism when it comes to the afterlife. (Although I see that the one Stoic quote that Lewis includes in his illustrations of the Tao is ‘Praise and imitate that man to whom, while life is pleasing, death is not grievous’.)
I think 'the afterlife' and 'Christian hope' in general makes it very difficult to compare Christianity and Stoicism, and it seems to me (contra Eirenist) that there are better versions of stoic beliefs than orthodox Christianity, if that's what appeals (including forms of Daoism).
Better in what sense? If you believe that a given form of Daoism, or orthodox Christianity, is more true than the other, surely whichever of them you believe is truer would be a better approach to stoicism?
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I wouldn't disagree, but for the same reason I don't think it's really possible to separate the trustworthiness of Christ, the fact that his promises are true and real, and that our hope is in the surety of those promises (which include Christ himself) coming to fruition.
I'm not sure that the verses in 1 Corinthians 15 directly address the issue of appeal. So maybe this is in the more general sense of Christianity's truth about reality - that its viability, as a belief about our lives in the here and now, is ruled out as being worse than pointless unless what it says about life after death is also true.
Right yes, and to the point of the particular appeal, I think absent that hope (though see above) constituting part of a wider reality, life with the characteristics that the OP was objecting to would be pretty bleak a lot of the time.
You appear to introduce the Christian redefinition of hope into the mix, which rather changes the topography in relation to concepts like bleakness.
I'm not entirely sure that's avoidable tbh to the extent that 'Narnian' thinking is reflective of Christianity.
I wonder if bleakness is, in itself, necessarily a problem, thinking about more stoic expressions of Christianity. And with relevance to various recent posts, the stoic emphasis on Reason and natural law puts me in mind of C S Lewis' The Abolition of Man. But I note that Christianity parts company with stoicism when it comes to the afterlife. (Although I see that the one Stoic quote that Lewis includes in his illustrations of the Tao is ‘Praise and imitate that man to whom, while life is pleasing, death is not grievous’.)
I think 'the afterlife' and 'Christian hope' in general makes it very difficult to compare Christianity and Stoicism, and it seems to me (contra Eirenist) that there are better versions of stoic beliefs than orthodox Christianity, if that's what appeals (including forms of Daoism).
Better in what sense? If you believe that a given form of Daoism, or orthodox Christianity, is more true than the other, surely whichever of them you believe is truer would be a better approach to stoicism?
The point was specifically about the case where orthodox Christianity (resurrection, after life and all) isn't true.
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I wouldn't disagree, but for the same reason I don't think it's really possible to separate the trustworthiness of Christ, the fact that his promises are true and real, and that our hope is in the surety of those promises (which include Christ himself) coming to fruition.
I'm not sure that the verses in 1 Corinthians 15 directly address the issue of appeal. So maybe this is in the more general sense of Christianity's truth about reality - that its viability, as a belief about our lives in the here and now, is ruled out as being worse than pointless unless what it says about life after death is also true.
Right yes, and to the point of the particular appeal, I think absent that hope (though see above) constituting part of a wider reality, life with the characteristics that the OP was objecting to would be pretty bleak a lot of the time.
You appear to introduce the Christian redefinition of hope into the mix, which rather changes the topography in relation to concepts like bleakness.
I'm not entirely sure that's avoidable tbh to the extent that 'Narnian' thinking is reflective of Christianity.
I wonder if bleakness is, in itself, necessarily a problem, thinking about more stoic expressions of Christianity. And with relevance to various recent posts, the stoic emphasis on Reason and natural law puts me in mind of C S Lewis' The Abolition of Man. But I note that Christianity parts company with stoicism when it comes to the afterlife. (Although I see that the one Stoic quote that Lewis includes in his illustrations of the Tao is ‘Praise and imitate that man to whom, while life is pleasing, death is not grievous’.)
I think 'the afterlife' and 'Christian hope' in general makes it very difficult to compare Christianity and Stoicism, and it seems to me (contra Eirenist) that there are better versions of stoic beliefs than orthodox Christianity, if that's what appeals (including forms of Daoism).
Better in what sense? If you believe that a given form of Daoism, or orthodox Christianity, is more true than the other, surely whichever of them you believe is truer would be a better approach to stoicism?
The point was specifically about the case where orthodox Christianity (resurrection, after life and all) isn't true.
In quote #1 he says I didn't start out by asking how I could say something about Christianity to children. In quote #2 he says he conceived of the books as saying something about Christianity to children. It seems a rather clear and patent contradiction. Did he, or did he not, seek to "say something about Christianity to children"?
I think the words "began by" in quote 1, or "start out" in your summary, are important.
Quote 1 says he didn't begin with that idea or purpose; quote 2 does not say he began with that purpose either.
You're implying he got them partially done and then went back and worked the evangelism into them. In which case how they began is rather irrelevant. One might almost say focusing on that particular point in time is disingenuous (on his part, not yours). Yeah, you didn't start with that, but you got there fast enough. As soon as they go to Digory and he lays the Trilemma on them, chapter 5 of LWW, he (Lewis) is working evangelism in.
I suppose... but really, a man of his profession would certainly realize he was writing a Christ figure before ever the book hit midway through, let alone publication. Heck, I suspect he knew it before the first chapter was over. I still wouldn't call that disingenuous from my own writing process, but that's because my pre-writing can take years--and there's no saying at which point the Christianity thing became overt to him. I have no idea how it was for him, but I hesitate to accuse others of lying about their own experiences.
I suppose... but really, a man of his profession would certainly realize he was writing a Christ figure before ever the book hit midway through, let alone publication. Heck, I suspect he knew it before the first chapter was over. I still wouldn't call that disingenuous from my own writing process, but that's because my pre-writing can take years--and there's no saying at which point the Christianity thing became overt to him. I have no idea how it was for him, but I hesitate to accuse others of lying about their own experiences.
You're implying he got them partially done and then went back and worked the evangelism into them. In which case how they began is rather irrelevant. One might almost say focusing on that particular point in time is disingenuous (on his part, not yours). Yeah, you didn't start with that, but you got there fast enough. As soon as they go to Digory and he lays the Trilemma on them, chapter 5 of LWW, he (Lewis) is working evangelism in.
Details of the creative process are apt to be of more interest to people who actually try to write than to others, and people who try to write are no doubt apt to treat what they see as misconceptions as of greater significance.
Lewis says he started with the image of a faun standing under a lamppost. That is not the first paragraph of the story.
Ursula Le Guin said one of her novels, Left Hand of Darkness, started with the image of two people pushing a sleigh across an icy landscape - which happens very late in the book - and it took her quite some time to find out what sex and gender one of them was.(*) I think that's one of it's strengths as an exploration of sex and gender: it's built around a core that isn't about sex and gender at all.
(*) Not really a spoiler: the people of Gethen are asexual most of the time and then become male or female, probably different on different occasions, during fertile periods.
Reverting to Puddleglum's speech, whish is still quite a way from this cosmos of which you speak, the message is that even if there is no Narnia, beyyer to live and di as a free Narnua than as an Underland slave. Rven if there ys no God, better to live according to the Way of Christ than as an amoralist.
Is it though? Is it really?
Puddleglum’s speech comes across as heroic and inspiring, but only because the reader knows that Narnia is in fact real and the witch’s magics are fake. If the reverse were true, and the reader knew with absolute certainty that Narnia was false, then Puddleglum would come across as a deluded fool rather than the hero who kept the truth alive.
The Way of Christ is narrow and hard (Matt 7:14), full of self-denial and sacrifice (Rom 12:1), and basically a bit crap in and of itself, but worth following because (and only because) it is the Way to eternal life, rather than the wide and easy way that leads to destruction (John 6:68). But there’s the rub - if it’s not actually true then BOTH ways lead to destruction! There is no benefit or advantage whatsoever in taking the narrow and hard way rather than the wide and easy way, so you may as well have a bit of fun before you die (S Crow, “All I Wanna Do”). I’m pretty sure that’s what Paul was on about in the already-quoted passage from Corinthians.
I think 'the afterlife' and 'Christian hope' in general makes it very difficult to compare Christianity and Stoicism, and it seems to me (contra Eirenist) that there are better versions of stoic beliefs than orthodox Christianity, if that's what appeals (including forms of Daoism).
"Better" could mean several things - whether they are more "stoic", or whether they are more appealing. In the context of the OP, the idea of liking a Stoic cosmos is quite intriguing.
I wonder to what extent Paul's own attitude to stoicism influenced the way he addressed the issue in his letter to the Corinthians, in contrast to whatever traditions and systems of thought lay behind their attitudes to the afterlife (as well as other issues addressed in the epistle).
I suppose... but really, a man of his profession would certainly realize he was writing a Christ figure before ever the book hit midway through, let alone publication. Heck, I suspect he knew it before the first chapter was over. I still wouldn't call that disingenuous from my own writing process, but that's because my pre-writing can take years--and there's no saying at which point the Christianity thing became overt to him. I have no idea how it was for him, but I hesitate to accuse others of lying about their own experiences.
In my book, disingenuity encompasses a broader range of attitudes than wilful, conscious deception. It could include what Lewis would like to believe, or has come to believe, about himself as a writer. It might even be possible to say that a certain amount of disingenuity regarding self is required for certain types of writing, or that such an author would often be someone who has adopted a similar self-view or self-understanding.
In any event, I tend to think of us all being a bit disingenuous, when it comes to how we represent our motives and intentions to ourselves, as well as to others.
If everyone is disingenuous, and in particular, certain unspecified forms of writing actually require disingenuity, then claims against any author using the term become fairly useless.
Not all authors write works of fiction for children that are also, in some unclearly-defined way, about the central figure of a belief system that emphasises the trustworthiness of His unique claims about reality.
When an influential person writes publicly about their motives and intentions in producing influential works, it doesn't seem unreasonable to wonder how their words might be received.
Less publicly, Lewis wrote the following about Narnia -
In 1954 (in a letter, later published in Letters to Children):
I did not say to myself 'Let us represent Jesus as He really is in our world by a Lion in Narnia'; I said, 'Let us suppose that there were a land like Narnia and that the Son of God, as he became a Man in our world, became a Lion there, and then imagine what would happen.
In 1961 (in a letter):
The whole Narnian story is about Christ. That is to say, I asked myself 'Supposing there really were a world like Narnia and supposing it had (like our world) gone wrong and supposing Christ wanted to go into that world and save it (as He did ours) what might have happened?' The stories are my answer. Since Narnia is a world of Talking Beasts I thought he would become a Talking Beast there, as he became a Man here. I pictured Him becoming a lion there because (a) the lion is supposed to be the King of beasts: (b) Christ is called 'The Lion of Judah' in the Bible: (c) I'd been having strange dreams about lions when I began writing the books.
Comments
He seems to be speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
What were your views of ordinary Christian doctrine before that? (I don’t know what denomination you were in at that time.)
The immediate framing of my post was how the quoted verses from Corinthians relate to what Puddleglum says (in effect about faith) - about the reality of what is seen and what is unseen, and also (as it happens) alluding to the characters' attitude to death: But, as you say, the wider context and focus is Aslan.
One aspect of the post was looking at Christianity through the lens of Narnia as well as at Narnia through the lens of Christianity. I was also trying to recall my perspective on these things from the period of my life when I came across them.
At this point in our lives we would centre Christian doctrine around Christ. But from the perspective of someone who grew up with Christianity, we first encounter all sorts of doctrines in all sorts of contexts in all sorts of order - initially (in my case) through assorted bits of liturgy at services in the Church of England, and through reading bible stories, being introduced to prayer, and other aspects of a Christian upbringing in a white English village.
So, by the time I'd finished The Last Battle, I'd say I'd gained the idea from a variety of sources that, whatever else Christianity was about (including good and bad, right and wrong), it was about life after death. From my perspective now, I'd suggest that the story arc of Narnia somewhat confirms that view.
Some of this also addresses ChastMastr's question. Further to the above comments, the short answer is that my early views are hard to untangle. Early thoughts that I recall include wondering what "for us men and for our salvation" meant. (What about women?) And whether "the last shall be first, and the first last" would be enforced regardless of whether someone actually wanted to be first (or last).
I wouldn't disagree, but for the same reason I don't think it's really possible to separate the trustworthiness of Christ, the fact that his promises are true and real, and that our hope is in the surety of those promises (which include Christ himself) coming to fruition.
Right yes, and to the point of the particular appeal, I think absent that hope (though see above) constituting part of a wider reality, life with the characteristics that the OP was objecting to would be pretty bleak a lot of the time.
I assume that would get into Lewis' thoughts on myths and true myths (https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/70504-now-the-story-of-christ-is-simply-a-true-myth ) although your post did make me wonder if he might have written The Silver Chair differently latter in life (say after the events of 1960)
What do you think might have been different? Not that (as Aslan says) anyone knows what “would have happened,” of course.
In passing, one of the things I take from this is that storytellers are used to adopting multiple perspectives.
I don’t think he’s being disingenuous at all and I find him totally convincing when writing about his own works… Your mileage may vary I suppose.
Why disingenuous? The process he outlines seems to me a very ordinary and common one. I'm also a writer, and when I sit down to write, this is basically what happens to me. I don't plot out my theme and purposes, etc. ahead of time, and THEN go looking for a story to clothe them in--it starts with the story, and the theme etc. creep up on me. Sometimes things show up that I don't recognize as being there until a reader points them out--at which point I re-read and say, "Oh yeah, you're right!"
I wonder if bleakness is, in itself, necessarily a problem, thinking about more stoic expressions of Christianity. And with relevance to various recent posts, the stoic emphasis on Reason and natural law puts me in mind of C S Lewis' The Abolition of Man. But I note that Christianity parts company with stoicism when it comes to the afterlife. (Although I see that the one Stoic quote that Lewis includes in his illustrations of the Tao is ‘Praise and imitate that man to whom, while life is pleasing, death is not grievous’.) To the extent that Lewis the Author might have been writing about Narnia for Lewis the Man who had lost his mother at the age of 9 (and was also writing about his subsequent journey away from faith and back again), I wouldn't be surprised if he heard some of what he was saying. (Surprised by Joy was published in 1955, The Last Battle in 1956.)
We're all writers here. We can all contemplate what the Author says about the Self (and maybe what the Self thinks about the Author). It can be quite instructive to read our posts after we've written them - it can reveal all sorts of interesting details about ourselves.
By the time of the New York Time article (in 1956), it seems quite possible that he would have been unimpressed about having to defend his motives, which is rarely a good starting point for explaining yourself in public.
Okay, there’s the misunderstanding. Lewis never claimed there were no symbolic elements In Narnia. He claimed it was not an allegory. An allegory is a very specific kind of symbolic writing, much more tightly controlled even than a parable, which he would have been fully familiar with because allegory was a major literary form used in medieval and Renaissance literature. Lewis is correct in claiming that Narnia is not an allegory, because to be an allegory the piece needs to have a strict one to one correspondence between object and symbolic meaning, and nothing can be included that has no symbolic meaning—or that waffles between two or more meanings. You ought to be able to draw up a table of objects and characters in the story and have a column right next to it that gives the meaning of each. If you can’t do that, the thing is not an allegory.
I’m trying to come up with a list of things, off the top of my head, that are disqualified from being symbols. Let’s see— Mr and Mrs Beaver; her sewing machine; Tumnus’ umbrella; the White Witch’s sleigh; the four children themselves (one might stand for Everyman, but not four); the romp after Aslan is raised from the dead; the giant Aslan breathes on; The various dryads, river spirits, and talking animals. None of these can be said to represent such things as courage, chastity, new love, death, baptism, and the like. There are other elements in the story that have more symbolic overtones (the stone table clearly stands for the Law of Moses, even as it stands in the place of the cross). But having a handful of symbolic elements mixed in with all the others it’s not enough to make an allegory. If it were, most classic English literature could be called allegories!!!
In sum, Lewis wasn’t wrong. It’s not an allegory, anymore than the Lord of the Rings is an allegory.
I wasn't referring to the use of the word "allegory" but rather to the quotes @ChastMastr posted, to wit:
In quote #1 he says I didn't start out by asking how I could say something about Christianity to children. In quote #2 he says he conceived of the books as saying something about Christianity to children. It seems a rather clear and patent contradiction. Did he, or did he not, seek to "say something about Christianity to children"?
Also to confirm what mousethief says in response to Lamb Chopped's post: that the issue being addressed in our posts wasn't whether or not Narnia is an allegory, it was about Lewis' motivation and intentions in writing the Narnia series.
Quote 1 says he didn't begin with that idea or purpose; quote 2 does not say he began with that purpose either.
I'm not entirely sure that's avoidable tbh to the extent that 'Narnian' thinking is reflective of Christianity.
I think 'the afterlife' and 'Christian hope' in general makes it very difficult to compare Christianity and Stoicism, and it seems to me (contra Eirenist) that there are better versions of stoic beliefs than orthodox Christianity, if that's what appeals (including forms of Daoism).
Better in what sense? If you believe that a given form of Daoism, or orthodox Christianity, is more true than the other, surely whichever of them you believe is truer would be a better approach to stoicism?
The point was specifically about the case where orthodox Christianity (resurrection, after life and all) isn't true.
Ah, thank you.
You're implying he got them partially done and then went back and worked the evangelism into them. In which case how they began is rather irrelevant. One might almost say focusing on that particular point in time is disingenuous (on his part, not yours). Yeah, you didn't start with that, but you got there fast enough. As soon as they go to Digory and he lays the Trilemma on them, chapter 5 of LWW, he (Lewis) is working evangelism in.
Amen.
Lewis says he started with the image of a faun standing under a lamppost. That is not the first paragraph of the story.
Ursula Le Guin said one of her novels, Left Hand of Darkness, started with the image of two people pushing a sleigh across an icy landscape - which happens very late in the book - and it took her quite some time to find out what sex and gender one of them was.(*) I think that's one of it's strengths as an exploration of sex and gender: it's built around a core that isn't about sex and gender at all.
(*) Not really a spoiler: the people of Gethen are asexual most of the time and then become male or female, probably different on different occasions, during fertile periods.
Is it though? Is it really?
Puddleglum’s speech comes across as heroic and inspiring, but only because the reader knows that Narnia is in fact real and the witch’s magics are fake. If the reverse were true, and the reader knew with absolute certainty that Narnia was false, then Puddleglum would come across as a deluded fool rather than the hero who kept the truth alive.
The Way of Christ is narrow and hard (Matt 7:14), full of self-denial and sacrifice (Rom 12:1), and basically a bit crap in and of itself, but worth following because (and only because) it is the Way to eternal life, rather than the wide and easy way that leads to destruction (John 6:68). But there’s the rub - if it’s not actually true then BOTH ways lead to destruction! There is no benefit or advantage whatsoever in taking the narrow and hard way rather than the wide and easy way, so you may as well have a bit of fun before you die (S Crow, “All I Wanna Do”). I’m pretty sure that’s what Paul was on about in the already-quoted passage from Corinthians.
I wonder to what extent Paul's own attitude to stoicism influenced the way he addressed the issue in his letter to the Corinthians, in contrast to whatever traditions and systems of thought lay behind their attitudes to the afterlife (as well as other issues addressed in the epistle).
In my book, disingenuity encompasses a broader range of attitudes than wilful, conscious deception. It could include what Lewis would like to believe, or has come to believe, about himself as a writer. It might even be possible to say that a certain amount of disingenuity regarding self is required for certain types of writing, or that such an author would often be someone who has adopted a similar self-view or self-understanding.
In any event, I tend to think of us all being a bit disingenuous, when it comes to how we represent our motives and intentions to ourselves, as well as to others.
Not all authors write works of fiction for children that are also, in some unclearly-defined way, about the central figure of a belief system that emphasises the trustworthiness of His unique claims about reality.
When an influential person writes publicly about their motives and intentions in producing influential works, it doesn't seem unreasonable to wonder how their words might be received.
Less publicly, Lewis wrote the following about Narnia -
In 1954 (in a letter, later published in Letters to Children): In 1961 (in a letter):