“The serious magical endeavour and the serious scientific endeavour are twins: one was sickly and died, the other strong and throve. But they were twins. They were born of the same impulse.”

The Dangerous Trajectory of Those Who Seek to Be Gods

An excerpt from Joe Rigney’s new book, Live Like a Narnian: Christian Discipleship in
Lewis’s Chronicles.

Reading Lewis today, it’s easy to believe that he was a prophet (or at least the son of a prophet). His analysis of education, government, culture, society, and the church has proved to be unusually prescient. One of the chief reasons for this is that Lewis understood the deep reality of narrative, of story, of progression and trajectory.

This is something that many today, for all of our talk of Christian worldview, do not truly grasp—or at least, if we grasp it, we don’t always apply it with the level of insight that he does.
In Chapter 3, I showed how in Edmund’s character Lewis communicates to us the profound truth that we are all headed somewhere and sooner or later, we’re bound to arrive. We may not like our destination, but that is neither here nor there. We have all boarded the train, and it is inexorably going somewhere. This is what Douglas Wilson calls an inescapable question: It is not whether we will have a destination, but which destination we will have. Not whether we will choose to go, but where.

Lewis is capable of portraying this truth through a single character, or, as in The Magician’s Nephew, through a comparison of a few characters. As we read about Uncle Andrew, Jadis, and Digory, we are meant to see something crucial, not only for us as individuals, but for our communities and indeed the world as a whole.

The Tyranny of Scientific Conditioners

Before reflecting on these characters, it’s worth reminding ourselves of some things that Lewis writes about in The Abolition of Man.

There Lewis argues that men who have rejected the Tao (that is, traditional morality, the wisdom of the ages, the God-given order of the universe) have substituted for it the desire to conquer Nature through science and technology. A number of results follow from this.

First, “what we call Man’s power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument.” [1] Because we are aiming to conquer Nature through science and technology, those who possess the technology have the power and ability to give or withhold it from the rest of mankind. In this way, “Man’s conquest of Nature, if the dreams of some scientific planners are realized, means the rule of a few hundreds of men over billions upon billions of men.” [2]

Second, because the conquest of Nature includes the attempted modification of human nature, such an endeavor truly means Nature’s conquest of Man, that is, the reduction of Man to an “artefact,” an object, or, in other words, the turning of Man into a “thing”—a He into an it. The scientific planners primarily engaged in this conquest are therefore compelled by a lust for power, the desire to control and shape the destinies of the rest of humanity (this is why Lewis refers to them as “the Conditioners”).

Third, in order to modify Man, these Conditioners must begin to “use” particular men as test subjects and guinea pigs. To do this, they must set aside their shared humanity and reject the common Law which stands over all men (namely, the Tao). As Lewis says, “the conditioners have been emancipated from all that. . . . They themselves are outside, above.” In seeking to be gods, they have ceased to be men, at least men in the traditional sense. They are, in essence, Former Men, “men who have sacrificed their own share in traditional humanity in order to devote themselves to the task of deciding what ‘Humanity’ shall henceforth mean.” [3]

Fourth, the last quotation introduces the key element of Time into the picture. For the tyranny of the Conditioners extends beyond their own generation. Indeed, one of their fundamental motivations is to shape what Man shall be in the future.

In order to understand fully what Man’s power over Nature, and therefore the power of some men over other men, really means, we must picture the race extended in time from the date of its emergence to that of its extinction. Each generation exercises power over its successors: and each, in so far as it modifies the environment bequeathed to it and rebels against tradition, resists and limits the power of its predecessors. [4]

Finally, it’s worth highlighting the historical connection Lewis draws between the scientist’s quest for power and the magician’s lust for the same.

I have described as a ‘magician’s bargain’ that process whereby man surrenders object after object, and finally himself, to Nature in return for power. And I meant what I said. The fact that the scientist has succeeded where the magician failed has put such a wide contrast between them in popular thought that the real story of the birth of Science is misunderstood. You will even find people who write about the sixteenth century as if Magic were a medieval survival and Science the new thing that came in to sweep it away. Those who have studied the period know better. There was very little magic in the Middle Ages: the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are the high noon of magic. The serious magical endeavour and the serious scientific endeavour are twins: one was sickly and died, the other strong and throve. But they were twins. They were born of the same impulse. [5]

Later he writes,

There is something which unites magic and applied science while separating both from the ‘wisdom’ of earlier ages. For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men: the solution is a technique; and both, in the practice of this technique, are ready to do things hitherto regarded as disgusting and impious—such as digging up and mutilating the dead. [6]

With this background, we’re now in a position to compare Uncle Andrew, Jadis, and Digory . . . .

_________________________
1. Lewis, The Abolition of Man, 47.
2. Lewis, 49.
3. Lewis, 73.
4. Lewis, 47–46.
5. Lewis, 63.
6. Lewis, 63–68.

A thought-provoking post from Matthew Jepsen. (Reproduced here with permission).

Below, Lewis articulates a contemporary rendition of Augustine’s “God-shaped hole”:

Most people, if they have really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise. The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or first think of some foreign country, or first take up some subject that excites us, are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning, can really satisfy. I am not now speaking of what would be ordinarily called unsuccessful marriages, or holidays, or learned careers. I am speaking of the best possible ones. There was something we have grasped at, in that first moment of longing, which just fades away in the reality. I think everyone knows what I mean. The wife may be a good wife, and the hotels and scenery may have been excellent, and chemistry may be a very interesting job: but something has evaded us.

- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Ch.3

I’m tracking with him here for sure, but I’ve met quite a few Christian (with whom this also resonates) that are mystified at how few people around them seem to find this sort of thing compelling. Michael Spencer discussed the same thing about six years ago in light of a London Times study on religion and youth. The relevant summary goes like this:

“Nevertheless, young people do not feel disenchanted, lost or alienated in a meaningless world. “Instead, the data indicated that they found meaning and significance in the reality of everyday life, which the popular arts helped them to understand and imbibe.” Their creed could be defined as: “This world, and all life in it, is meaningful as it is”, translated as: “There is no need to posit ultimate significance elsewhere beyond the immediate experience of everyday life.” The goal in life of young people was happiness achieved primarily through the family… The researchers were also shocked to discover little sense of sin or fear of death. Nor did they find any Freudian guilt as a result of private sensual desires. The young people were, however, afraid of growing old.”

Capon though, (to string some metaphors together), gets closer to the bone, closer to the bare metal, closer to the raw psychology behind this and in the process borrows a page out of Girard’s book (whether he knows it or not).

The untamability of romance, the endlessness of the vision of the beloved, threaten constantly to send us off in successive limitless expeditions after something that grows successively harder to define. The movie star on her fifth marriage seems always to be less clear about what she wants and less free to make her wanting serve her well. For under it all lies the endlessly expansive pride of a being who cannot add a cubit to her stature or a minute to her life. That is our dilemma: desire is endless; we are not.

-Robert Capon, Bed and Board, p.56

Romance is never ultimately satisfying, not necessarily because we have this longing for God that is mistakenly misdirected at the nearest lover (thought that can be an accurate way to describe it at times), but because our desire is alive and regenerated and unlimited. Ambition for power and success can never be satisfied because our capacity to envy will always exceed the magnitude of our own frame.

A man who drinks gets thirsty again, but Christ explicitly(!) describes what He gives as a “spring of living water welling inside” (John 7). Oughourlian argues convincingly in his Genesis of Desire that this thirst is most certainly from God, not the product of our corruption or of the devil. Adam was thirsty in Eden, and then he was satisfied by drinking water. So are we. But we cannot add one cubit to our stature. We steadily covet more than our humble (but beautiful) selves can ever contain. To be satisfied in God and to find rest in him implies, chiefly, that we no longer need what our neighbor has, or what only our creator has. In due time He wills to give us all in an ongoing and eternal fashion.

William Booth’s eldest daughter, Founder of the Salvation Army in France and Switzerland, known later in life as “the Maréchale,” said, “Go for souls, and go for the worst.” So should we. After all, Jesus does.

Mark Driscoll posted on facebook last week about his meeting with a man who had once been a warlock, and recently almost died of a drug overdose. The man heard the Lord speak over Him, “This one is mine, and I love him.”

The Repentance and Baptism of Eustace Scrubb, Who Learned the Difference Between Sins and Sin: Shades of Daniel 4 in The Voyage of the Dawntreader

About six days after they had landed on Dragon Island, Edmund happened to wake up very early one morning. It was just getting grey so that you could see the tree-trunks if they were between you and the bay but not in the other direction.

As he woke he thought he heard something moving, so he raised himself on one elbow and looked about him: and presently he thought he saw a dark figure moving on the seaward side of the wood. The idea that it once occurred to his mind was. “Are we so sure there are no natives on this island after all?” Then he thought it was Caspian — it was about the right size — but he knew that Caspian had been sleeping next to him and could see that he hadn’t moved. Edmund made sure that his sword was in its place and then rose to investigate.

He came down softly to the edge of the wood and the dark figure was still there. He saw now that it was too small for Caspian and too big for Lucy. It did not run away. Edmund drew his sword and was about to challenge the stranger when the stranger said in a low voice, “Is that you, Edmund?”

“Yes, who are you?” said he.

“Don’t you know me?” said the other. “It’s me — Eustace.”

“By jove,” said Edmund, “so it is. My dear chap –”

“Hush,” said Eustace and lurched as if he were going to fall.

“Hello!” said Edmund, steadying him. “What’s up? Are you ill?”

Eustace was silent for so long that Edmund thought he was fainting; but at last he said, “It’s been ghastly. You don’t know… but it’s all right now. Could we go and talk somewhere? I don’t want to meet the others just yet.”

“Yes, rather, anywhere you like,” said Edmund. “We can go and sit on the rocks over there. I say, I am glad to see you — er — looking yourself again. You must have had a pretty beastly time.”

They went to the rocks and sat down looking out across the bay while the sky got paler and paler and the stars disappeared except for one very bright one low down and near the horizon.

“I won’t tell you how I became a — a dragon till I can tell the others and get it all over,” said Eustace. “By the way, I didn’t even know it was a dragon till I heard you all using the word when I turned up here the other morning. I want to tell you how I stopped being one.”

“Fire ahead,” said Edmund.

“Well, last night I was more miserable than ever. And that beastly arm-ring was hurting like anything –”

“Is that all right now?”

Eustace laughed — a different laugh from any Edmund had heard him give before — and slipped the bracelet easily off his arm. “There it is,” he said, “and anyone who like it can have it as far as I’m concerned. Well, as I say, I was lying awake and wondering what on earth would become of me. And then — but, mind you, it may have been all a dream. I don’t know.”

“Go on,” said Edmund, with considerable impatience.

“Well, anyway, I looked up and saw the very last thing I expected: a huge lion coming slowly towards me. And one queer thing was that there was no moon last night, but there was moonlight where the lion was. So it came nearer and nearer. I was terribly afraid of it. You may think that, being a dragon, I could have knocked any lion out easily enough. But it wasn’t that kind of fear. I wasn’t afraid of it eating me, I was just afraid of it — if you can understand. Well, it came close up to me and looked straight into my eyes. And I shut my eyes tight. But that wasn’t any good because it told me to follow it.”

“You mean it spoke?”

“I don’t know. Now that you mention it, I don’t think it did. But it told me all the same. And I knew I’d have to do what it told me, so I got up and followed it. And it led me a long way into the mountains. And there was always this moonlight over and round the lion wherever we went. So at last we came to the top of a mountain I’d never seen before and on the top of this mountain there was a garden — trees and fruit and everything. In the middle of it there was a well.

“I knew it was a well because you could see the water bubbling up from the bottom of it: but it was a lot bigger than most wells — like a very big, round bath with marble steps going down into it. The water was as clear as anything and I thought if I could get in there and bathe it would ease the pain in my leg. But the lion told me I must undress first. Mind you, I don’t know if he said any words out loud or not.

“I was just going to say that I couldn’t undress because I hadn’t any clothes on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sorts of things and snakes can cast their skins. Oh, of course, thought I, that’s what the lion means. So, I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and, instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after an illness, or as if I was a banana. In a minute or two I just stepped out of it. I could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty. It was a most lovely feeling. So I started to go down into the well for my bathe.

“But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as they had been before. Oh, that’s all right, said I, it only means I had another smaller suit on under the first one, and I’ll have to get out of it too. So I scratched and tore again and this underskin peeled off beautifully and out I stepped and left it lying beside the other one and went down to the well for my bathe.

“Well, exactly the same thing happened again. And I thought to myself, oh hear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.

“Then the lion said — but I don’t know if it spoke — “You will have to let me undress you.” I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.

“The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure off feeling the stuff peel off. You know — if you’ve ever picked the scab off a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” said Edmund.

“Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off — just as I thought I’d done it myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt — and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there I was as smooth and soft as a peel switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me — I didn’t like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I’d no skin on — and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again. You’d think me simply phoney if I told you how I felt about my own arms. I know they’ve no muscle and are pretty mouldy compared to Caspian’s, but I was so glad to see them.

“After a bit, the lion took me out and dressed me –”

“Dressed you. With his paws?”

“Well, I don’t exactly remember that bit. But he did somehow or other: in new clothes — the same that I’ve got on now, as a matter of fact. And then suddenly I was back here. Which is what makes me think it must have been a dream.”

“No. It wasn’t a dream,” said Edmund.

“Why not?”

“Well, there are the clothes, for one thing. And you have been — well, un-dragoned, for another.”

“What do you think it was, then?” asked Eustace.

“I think you’ve seen Aslan,” said Edmund.

“Aslan!” said Eustace. “I’ve heard that name mentioned several times since we joined the Dawn Treader. And I felt — I don’t know what — I hated it. But I was hating everything then. And by the way, I’d like to apologize. I’m afraid I’ve been pretty beastly.”

“That’s all right,” said Edmund. “Between ourselves, you haven’t been as bad as I was on my first trip to Narnia. You were only an ass, but I was a traitor.”

“Well, don’t tell me about it, then,” said Eustace. “But who is Aslan? Do you know him?”

“Well — he knows me,” said Edmund.

or Three Ways to Live

“You are already full! You are already rich! You have reigned as kings without us — and indeed I could wish you did reign, that we also might reign with you! For I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, last, as men condemned to death; for we have been made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men. We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are distinguished, but we are dishonored!” 1 Corinthians 4:8-10

John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and its sequel speak some sharp truths and great comforts to the heart of a Christian, in bold images and colourful scenarios that are impossible to forget. But there’s something the famous author got terribly wrong. He omitted Hierarchy.

The storyline follows Christian as he leaves his family in the City of Destruction. Sometimes he is alone. Sometimes he has companions. Sometimes these are a godly help and sometimes they are satanic distractions, bad apples (and in the sequel, there are some quite literal bad apples.) But when do we ever see Christian in a position of authority or stewardship before his death?

As we progress through our lives with God, he puts us in greater and greater positions of responsibility. As we qualify, we become “public servants.” As Christ was obedient, the Father exalted Him. Jesus kept “giving this authority away” until He had none of it left — and then the Father gave Him all authority.

A comment on an earlier post reads:

“The Bible is not to be read to entertain us. Jesus was not sent to enlighten us but to save us. It is a detailed urgent message to you personally. God made the word flesh. Theologians wish to turn it back into the word. My favorite theologian? John Bunyan’s desperate Christian in Pilgrim Progress.”

Are we supposed to be desperate all the time? In one sense, yes. We feel spiritually dry because we are spiritually dry, or at least our DIY cisterns are. But the Garden of faithful service is kept green by a hidden spring. Jesus, and Elijah, had food that came from a secret source. While everyone else is suffering a famine under the Covenant curse (and being eaten by birds and beasts), God gives the faithful a miraculous perseverance: “unharmed” oil and wine. Constant desperation is the outcome of disobedience.

Now, we all have times of desperation. The saints do need each other. And the challenge is surely for Christian to persevere until the end. But at the end of the pilgrim’s progress he isn’t that much different. Sure, he has learned to trust God more through some crucial lessons. But he is taken out of the world before he is able to be much use to anyone else! It’s all about him.

I know, it’s an allegory, and it hammers home its point brilliantly, which is the reason for the novel’s cultural longevity. But the Narnia books of C. S. Lewis handle this matter of hierarchy a great deal better. Well, the books do. The movies recoil from it. The producers of the Narnia films do not have, or do not understand, Lewis’ worldview at all. Steven D. Boyer writes:

“Understanding [Lewis'] basic outlook does bring with it, however, one really substantial obstacle: we have to think carefully about a significant element in Lewis’s vision that does not play very well in our world, even among contemporary Christians. That element is Lewis’s peculiar fondness for hierarchy.

The word “hierarchy” does not have very pleasant connotations in our day, so to speak of someone being “fond of hierarchy” sounds very “peculiar” indeed. It is like admitting that your great-uncle Jack, really a fine old gentleman, never got over his childhood delight in pulling the wings off flies. Of course, this odd and even repulsive idiosyncrasy might be ignored by members of the family, out of their affection for Uncle Jack.

The only problem with treating Lewis this way is that his particular oddity reappears everywhere in his work, usually quite explicitly, and it has an exceptionally strong bearing upon the way he understands orthodox Christianity. If we are going to understand Lewis’s deeply Christian vision of the world, we will need to try hard to understand how this suspicious attraction to hierarchy is a part of it.

Lewis’s thinking begins with the Christian understanding of God as the Creator of the world, and of the world as God’s creation. The historic Christian doctrine of Creation requires Christians to insist on uniting two fundamental principles, and oddly enough, two principles that the contemporary outlook is often prone to separate.

First, it insists upon hierarchy. We might not use this term very often, but it is clear that any serious doctrine of creatio ex nihilo (“creation out of nothing”) involves the recognition of a very real hierarchical distinction between God and world. The difference between the great Creator who gives reality and the cosmos that receives reality is absolute. The one is utterly independent, the other utterly dependent. The one is worthy of all worship; the other rightly offers this worship. There is here a hierarchy of the deepest, richest kind, for in every imaginable respect, the world is subordinate—and rightly subordinate—to the God who creates and constantly sustains her.

Yet right alongside this affirmation of hierarchy in the Christian doctrine of Creation, we find the insistence that creation is fundamentally, unambiguously good—and with a goodness that grows directly out of its unqualified dependence upon its Creator. Note the surprising interpenetration of these two principles. Creation is not good in spite of its subordination to God, in spite of the hierarchy; it is good because of its subordination, because of the hierarchy. It is good because it is created, and to be created is to be glorious precisely by virtue of reflecting or showing forth the greater, higher glory of the Creator.

Indeed, as soon as any created thing ceases to be rightly subordinate to God, that creature ceases also to be good. It becomes a competitor with God, like Molech or Baal or Satan, rather than a servant of God. This is the essence of sin in Lewis’s mind: it is a turning away from our true creaturely status. It is an attempt to replace the goodness that naturally comes from being subordinate to God the Creator with a different, independent, autonomous goodness. It is a rejection of God.” [1]

Towards the end of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the four children are given, by grace, the four thrones the witch had been intent on keeping from them. By this stage, they rightfully deserve them, even Edmund. Unlike the Celestial City in Pilgrim’s Progress, these thrones are positions, not of safety and comfort, but of authority and responsibility. As qualified delegates of Aslan, they guarded the domain given to them for many years and were a great blessing to it.

That was the entire purpose of the Testing of Adam: qualifying him to rule, to sit on the throne God had prepared for Him as Covenant head.

As the grace of God changes us, and brings us to spiritual maturity, we are not simply sitting tight until Jesus comes to rescue us. We are to be soldiers and farmers and athletes thirsty for the success that only comes with sacrifice. [2]

That is the element that is missing from Bunyan’s stories. This world is something to be escaped, not brought into captivity to Christ. There is no hierarchy. There is Faithful’s companionship and martyrdom, but other than that it’s every man for himself. In the Narnia books, Lewis is intent on allowing Covenant hierarchy to shine at every opportunity.

Jesus’ disciples squabbled about who would sit on Jesus’ left and right. He didn’t tell them off for desiring thrones. He redefined rulership for them, by His own example. He told His disciples that they would indeed sit on twelve thrones and judge Israel. The more they humbled themselves, the more the Firstfruits church was exalted. The New Testament, and subsequent history, shows us that they had good success in all they did. [3] They ran the race for a crown, but in this race the last are first. Like Jesus, whatever sacrifices they made as “heads” brought a brilliant abundance in the Covenant body. [4]

Your responsibilities, however mundane they may seem, are thrones. If we are faithful in small things, God gives us bigger things. The first task of Solomon was to (very wisely) wipe out David’s enemies. The first task of the saints at the final resurrection will be to judge angels. Just imagine what daunting and glorious quests the King of Kings has for us after that!

“When you think ‘success,’ think Abel.” –Gary North, The Five Pillars of Biblical Success.

__________________________________________________
[1] Steven D. Boyer, Narnia Invaded.
[2] See The Go-Betweens.
[3] See Twelve Thrones.
[4] For a good read, see Why My Church Rebelled Against the American Dream.

“Deny that God speaks to any area of life, and you have denied God’s jurisdiction in that area of life.”

A very intelligent Christian recently posed the question, “What will be the most pressing intellectual challenge facing the church over the next 50 years?” What if the biggest challenge facing the church is not intellectual at all, but ethical. [1]

Through the Reformation, the church regained the understanding that obedience to the Law cannot merit salvation, even in part. But since the Reformation, the church seems to have lost the understanding that obedience to the Law is, as always, the tool of dominion.

Modern theologians are adept at identifying the church’s problems, but hopeless at providing solutions. The Old Testament terrifies them. The very idea of Christendom terrifies them. [2] Preaching obedience to God’s laws terrifies them. Authority terrifies them. Male headship offends them. Executing any kind of church discipline is bullying. Authority will always be abused. Just look at the conniving so-called Christians in politics. Look at Constantine! We are Christians, and we have God’s Spirit, so we don’t need God’s Law. We can do what is right in our own eyes now.

Fed with sermons below the level of Sunday school lessons:

J E S U S   S A I D,   “B E   N I C E.”

the “true” church is seen as one relegated to the ghettos and catacombs and soup kitchens (after all, isn’t real Christianity always menial?), and that is where the church is to stay. Is that the kind of kingdom Christ promised? One that is irrelevant and powerless in the public square until the very last day, when all-of-a-sudden downtrodden and marginalised Christians will have what it takes to judge angels? Is that what we see modelled for us in the Bible? Joseph can run Potiphar’s household and Pharaoh’s gaol, but public power, as a Christian, in the name of God, will mean getting his hands dirty? Are the Law and the Prophets now redundant because Jesus summed them up in a simple soundbite?

Gary North writes,

C. S. Lewis understood that there is a war going on between Christ and Satan. His magnificent novel, That Hideous Strength, subtitled A Modern Fairy-Tale for Grown-Ups, deals with the fusion of magic, technology, and the demonic quest for power. Perhaps better than any Christian writer of this century, he understood Satan and Satan’s mode of operations.

We cannot say as much for his understanding of Christianity. His theology was muddled, at best, and his epistemology was clearly a mixture of Platonism and the Bible. So we would not normally go to Lewis to discover a solution to our problems. We go to him for an understanding of our era, however.

His view of history was very much like Van Til’s. He believed in the increase of epistemological self-consciousness over time. This progress over time removes the latitude for making moral decisions, for the issues of life become clearer. Here is a speech given by a college professor (possibly modeled after Lewis himself) in That Hideous Strength:

“If you dip into any college, or school, or parish, or family — anything you like — at a given point in its history, you always find that there was a time before that point when there was more elbow room and contrasts weren’t quite so sharp; and that there’s going to be a time after that point when there is even less room for indecision and choices are even more momentous. Good is always getting better and bad is always getting worse: the possibilities of even apparent neutrality are always diminishing. The whole thing is sorting itself out all the time, coming to a point, getting sharper and harder.”

The problem with Lewis’ outlook is that he never suggested any way that Christians could make these moral decisions in the public realm. He told us of the war, told us that we would not be able to escape our responsibilities, told us that our decisions would become ever-clearer, and yet refused to offer any hope that the public issues of any era could be solved by an appeal to the Bible. Indeed, he specifically rejected such a suggestion.

He dismissed as unrealizable the creation of any distinct or distinctly Christian political party — a long-time ideal of many Dutch Christians. Christians do not agree on the means of attaining the proper goals of society, he argued. A Christian political party will wind up in a deadlock, or else the winning faction will force all rivals out. Then it will no longer be representative of Christians in society. So this minority party will attach itself to the nearest non-Christian political party.

The problem as Lewis saw it is that the party will speak for Christendom, but will not in fact represent all of Christendom. “By the mere act of calling itself the Christian Party it implicitly accuses all Christians who do not join it of apostasy and betrayal. It will be exposed, in an aggravated degree, to that  temptation which the Devil spares none of us at any time — the temptation of claiming for our favorite opinions that kind of degree of certainty and authority which really belongs only to our Faith.”

This is an odd line of argumentation. First, what he describes as a strictly political problem is in fact the problem with any distinctly Christian institution. Christians need to do what is God’s will, but in doing it, they exclude other acts as not being in God’s will. Yet according to his view of history, these decisions will become clearer over time, and the range of Christian (as well as non-Christian) choices will become much narrower. So what is the problem? It should be easier as time goes on to build Christian institutions of all kinds, not just political organizations.

Second, why doesn’t this same problem of speaking in the name of the accepted moral sovereign afflict every religious, political, or ideological group? Why single out politics? Isn’t ascertaining God’s will equally a problem in all other institutions? Furthermore, why are Christian political coalitions so evil, so doomed to defeat? Aren’t coalitions going on in every area of life all the time? Besides, why is the problem of coalitions a uniquely Christian problem? Humanists make coalitions all the time – yes, even highly ideological humanists. Coalitions are basic to life.

What he is really saying is that humanists can run their institutions and our lives just fine, but Christians cannot – not because Christians are presently incompetent, but simply because they are Christians. He argues that anyone who adds “Thus saith the Lord” to his earthly utterances will insist that his conscience speaks more clearly “the more it is loaded with sin. And this comes from pretending that God has spoken when He has not spoken.” Hath God said? That was what Satan asked Eve. But God had said. And He has spoken to us, too: in His Bible. Dare we deny His words? Eve dared. See where it got her. And us. But Lewis feared those who speak concretely to real-world problems in the name of God.

We are back to Barthianism. God’s will in history cannot be conveyed in cognitive sentences, creeds, political programs, economics, or anything else in this scientific, factual universe. God does not speak to specific problems in history. This is the essence of Barthianism. It is also the essence of antinomianism.

Perhaps Lewis was willing to accept creeds as God’s word, but creeds are written by Christians who disagree with other Christians. That is the function of creeds: to separate (exclude) wrong-thinking Christians from better-thinking Christians. Creeds are hammered out in the midst of controversy, sometimes including political controversy, and sometimes even life-and-death controversy. Are we to deny, as Barth did, that God speaks cognitively to men in creeds? Deny that God speaks to any area of life, and you have denied God’s jurisdiction in that area of life. Deny that men are responsible before God for searching out God’s will and then working to apply it, and you have adopted the theology of mysticism.

Then how are Christians to make moral decisions? Lewis appeals to that old Stoic standby, natural law. “By the natural light He has shown us what means are lawful: to find out which one is efficacious He has given us brains. The rest He left to us.”

In short, do your own natural thing, but do not do it in the name of Jesus.

What he recommended was an interdenominational voters society whose members will write letters to their political representatives. They will “pester” the politicians. But in whose name should they pester them? In God’s name? If not, then haven’t Christians become just another special-interest group with no distinctly Christian platform?

But he did offer some hope — a postmillennial hope. He ends the essay with these words: “There is a third way — by becoming a majority. He who converts his neighbour has performed the most practical Christian political act of all?”

What can we make of all this? He said that choices in life will become more epistemologically self-conscious. He was afraid of politicians who speak in God’s name. He appealed to natural reason. He told Christians to pester politicians. Then he said to spread the gospel and become a majority.

What then?

It is all a muddle, but at least it is a four-page muddle. The endless publications of those who call for Christian relevance in society, but who refuse to turn to biblical law as God’s inspired “platform” in every area of responsibility, are no less muddled than Lewis, and far more verbose.

The principle is simple enough: no law of God, no jurisdiction of God. Until Christians get this straight in their thinking, they will remain either Christian activists who are publicly muddled and culturally irrelevant, or else Christian retreatists who are privately muddled and culturally irrelevant. [3]

Making clear the distinction between the mandate given to Adam, and the mandate given by Christ, is crucial. The first was flesh; the second is Spirit. The first was a Law written on stone; the second is this very same Law written on our hearts. (As in Esther, there were two decrees: bread and wine, priesthood and kingdom.)

The church’s job is not to impose biblical law on society by coercion. The church’s role is to humble God’s people under God’s Law, training them in governmental roles within the “household” until they are ready to take on positions of leadership within society and teach the nations. The modus operandi of the Great Commission is yeastlike infiltration. That usually does involve ghettos and catacombs — and soup kitchens — to begin with (priesthood), but if the Old Testament and Christendom 1.0 are anything to go by, God exalts those who humble themselves, and uses them to change the world (kingdom). [4] As Doug Wilson says, authority flows naturally to those who take responsibility.

Everything God does in the Garden flows out into the Land and the World. Yes, we are to bring every thought into captivity to Christ. But then we are also to bring every nation into captivity to Christ as well — under His jurisdiction. This is not triumphalism. It is authority delegated from the throne of Greater Joseph, the Servant-King. And He will reign, through the church, until He has put all His enemies under His feet. We live in a world where there is still great suffering and horrific abuses of human rights. But it was the West, despite all its faults, with the church at its heart, that taught the world that foreign aid is a good thing, that there are such things as human rights, and that brought incredibly increased health and prosperity to many nations over the past few centuries. [5]

As James Jordan says, I believe, and then I understand. Obedience to the Law, and the subsequent world-changing biblical wisdom, are the order of the day. Intellectual debate is not. If a man cannot manage his household, he cannot be a steward of the church. If the church cannot manage its household, why would the world want its opinion on anything at all?

We live in a culture desperate to maintain the blessings of Christianity but without Christ; do its rulers look for help to a church (and the families within the church) integrated miraculously by God’s Law-Spirit, running businesses that are productive and prosperous because they are obedient and blessed by God? Or do they see Christianity’s skills shortage when it comes to practical government?

The American Dream flowed out of the Bible: faithful obedience to God, hard work (and innovative, wise thinking), brings from God the miraculous increase, and a cup that overflows into the nations. The church has followed the humanistic barons of barrenness and bankruptcy in their attempt to turn the world into one big soup kitchen. We need some new Josephs to reinterpret the Constantinian (postmillennial) dream for the nations, the construction of a kingdom of plenty according to the manufacturer’s instructions, the “Tabernacle” pattern given on the mountain by Christ that turns the world upside down, both spiritually and materially.

Western New South Wales, after many years of drought, has recently suffered terrible flooding. Imagine an Australian Parliament where a Christian politician could suggest that the nation’s immorality was the problem, that obedience to God’s Law would bring the rain in season, and due to his reputation for wisdom the Parliament would not laugh but listen.

Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Inasmuch as God has shown you all this, there is no one as discerning and wise as you. You shall be over my house, and all my people shall be ruled according to your word; only in regard to the throne will I be greater than you.” And Pharaoh said to Joseph, “See, I have set you over all the land of Egypt.” Then Pharaoh took his signet ring off his hand and put it on Joseph’s hand; and he clothed him in garments of fine linen and put a gold chain around his neck. And he had him ride in the second chariot which he had; and they cried out before him, “Bow the knee!” So he set him over all the land of Egypt. (Genesis 41:39-43)

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[1] Another very intelligent Christian answered that the challenge was proving to the world that life has purpose, as if this can be done intellectually, and with a mythical interpretation of Genesis. “Hey, come and believe the Bible, just like we don’t!”

[2] See Toby Sumpter’s assessment of Walter Bruggemann’s misunderstanding of Solomon’s kingdom in Oppressing the Text.

[3] Gary North, Dominion and Common Grace, pp. 148-153.

[4] See Did Plato Read Moses? by Peter Leithart, and Church and State.

[5] Doug Wilson posted this video.

We saw Voyage of the Dawntreader last night. Biblical themes and symbols abound. Of course, the story follows the Bible Matrix formula, but the message of a courageous Maturity via Testing at God’s hand, in such a visual form, was striking, especially for young people. All the characters are transfigured by the end, particularly Eustace, whose cowardice and courage were really the heart of the proceedings. Narnia is foolishness to him, but a time in the wilderness gives him a different Spirit. He moves from the unbroken natural, through brokenness, to a humble, spiritual wisdom that judges rightly between good and evil.

The final scene encapsulated everything I have been trying to communicate concerning baptism. It pictures the reception of saints into government as enrobed heavenly elders, God’s council of wise men who sit at court with Him as Great Prophets, co-Mediators.

Although only one character “passes across” into Aslan’s country, all the saints “pass through” in their return home as human argosies of wisdom and understanding. Wise distinctions and tough decisions must be made before the crystal walls and gates.

Doug Wilson writes:

“But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14).

According the apostle, there are two kinds of men in the world—the natural man and the spiritual man. The natural man is described here as “not receiving” and “not knowing” certain things, the things of the Spirit of God, and the reason he cannot receive or know them is because they are just so much foolishness to him. These things are spiritually discerned, and a natural man has no capacity for spiritual discernment.

This division is important to keep in mind whenever we are talking about the external aspects of the covenant. There are other divisions which we can make in the world as well—baptized and unbaptized, tall and short, rich and poor, and so on. But the most fundamental of all divisions is this division mentioned here, that between the natural and the spiritual man, the unconverted and converted, the unregenerate and regenerate. The Spirit blows where He wills, and we cannot capture Him to make Him do our bidding. We cannot do it with unbiblical antitheses, like race or tribe, and we cannot do it with biblical categories, like baptized and unbaptized.

The presence of this category is made obvious by what we might call Spirit-logic. The Spirit communicates His ways, which results in some receiving them with gladness, and others blinking with no comprehension. When a man is converted, his Bible, as if by magic, turns into English.

Yes, but a baptist might say:

Race and tribe were biblical distinctions under the Old Covenant, and there were Levitical distinctions even within that. There were bloody walls and gates and guards everywhere. Blood was the distinction. Enacting God’s division didn’t take much wisdom, just priestly obedience. If you were male, you went under the knife. God was putting the meat on the Altar.

The ascent of the blood, and the descent of the fiery Spirit, changed all that. Race, tribe and family were put into the grave forever, joint and marrow divisions incinerated once and for all.

So baptism, although just as biblical, is entirely different. A spiritual man is to be judged so by wise spiritual men. The church is no longer called to enact, to mediate, God’s distinction between clean and unclean meat, but between meat and smoke, natural and spiritual. This takes wisdom. This takes Spirit-logic. We have the Spirit-lot within us. We are all prophets now.

Baptism must be divorced from family. It is only for those who comprehend. And those who are baptized are called to testify, and to govern with wisdom. Elders might not always judge correctly, but they are called to discernment.

Only paedobaptism looks like forcing God’s hand. Credobaptism is simply a reflection of what He has already obviously done. The key is not always the outward life. There are children under discipline (another thing the church is called to enact) and their repentance will make plain whether they were truly children. The basic key is the wound, the cut heart, the fear of God, that eventually flows as water into the outward life.

Divorcing baptism from Spirit-logic turns God’s simple New Covenant categories into a sad game of Scattergories. That is what a baptist might say.

or Understanding Apostolic Wine Science

Scholars talk about identifying the “apostolic hermeneutic,” which sounds intimidating. The reason for this phrase is that according to the commonsense rules of interpretation, the apostles are merrily delinquent. They quote many Old Testament texts, rip them out of their historical contexts and claim they are fulfilled in Christ.

Our problem is that the apostles are neither hacks nor mystics. They are authoritative. Some rightly explain that the apostles are just seeing Christ prefigured in the Old Testament Scriptures, which they are, but this explanation is too vague. God’s Word is meticulous.

The apostles lived and breathed the Old Testament. They were familiar with its historical and literary patterns and Jesus’ allusions to it. We can deduce this because they themselves employ these throughout the New Testament. Thus, it was no big deal to refer to an Old Testament event and see its fulfilment in the work of Christ because Jesus deliberately followed the same patterns, not only in the structure of His ministry but also in His carefully prepared sermons.

Although the Bible’s literature often appears disorganised to us, it has in fact been extremely carefully crafted. Yet, for the last hundred years or so, many scholars have treated the Scriptures as a shoddy, primitive jumble. Analysis of the Bible’s literary structures has proven these scholars wrong. It has shown that this Book is infinitely smarter than we are. 

The apostles—like their Lord—had acquired a taste for the deep things of Scripture. [1] They had moved from the milk and bread to the wine. The apostles seem to us to be breaking the rules because we have never seen this game played before!

We have been harsh critics of an art we neither understand nor appreciate. These men of God quoted the Bible in the way C. S. Lewis constantly and deftly alluded to ancient literatures. It was in their blood and at their  fingertips.

So, our pathetic JEDPs are like adolescent beer swillers jeering at the studied subtleties of the full-bodied gents at the wine fair. Unlike Matthew, Peter, Paul and John, we have no interest in clarity, nose or finish. [2]

“and how from childhood you have been acquainted
with the sacred writings” –2 Timothy 3:15

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[1] See also The Perils of Deep Structure.
[2] See also So You Think You Know the Bible. 

Literary agent Peter Rubie would undoubtedly have read many story synopses, both fiction and non-fiction. His colleague Janet Reid advises that anyone wishing to write a bestseller should read at least two thousand novels before attempting to write their own. Peter gives some helpful advice:

My friend Gary Provost and I created what we teasingly called the Gary Provost Sentence (with some help from Aristotle). Here it is:

Once upon a time… something happened to someone, and he decided that he would pursue a goal. So he devised a plan of action, and even though there were forces trying to stop him, he moved forward because there was a lot at stake. And just as things seemed as bad as they could get, he learned an important lesson, and when offered the prize he had sought so strenuously he had to decide whether or not to take it, and in making that decision he satisfied a need that had been created by something in his past.

This is classic dramatic structure. It works because it’s story telling that is most satisfying to the reader. Aristotle defined good drama as storytelling that defined character, created atmosphere, and advanced the action of the plot. No one has ever really substantively improved on this beautifully simple yet profound definition, though I think Norman Mailer came close when he said in a TV  interview “The best fiction is where art, philosophy, and adventure all meet.”

Let’s go through Gary’s paragraph again. This time we’ll stop along the way and I’ll talk about the elements of plotting. Once you understand these elements whether you’re a literary novelist or a writer of non-fiction, or a genre writer you’ll be able to plot any story you like… [1]

Perhaps one of the reasons Mr Rubie understands the rhythm of good storytelling is the fact that besides having been a journalist on Fleet Street, Radio and TV, he is also a jazz musician. He has a sense of the melody, harmony and rhythm that all good literature possesses.

The Gary Provost sentence describes the Bible Matrix perfectly, although mainly the Dominion element of it. There are three heptamerous elements: Creation, Feasts and Dominion, or Word, Sacrament and Government. The shape of Biblical history, like music, is triune. It is more than just a good story.

In An Experiment in Criticism, C. S. Lewis describes the “literary few” as those whose literary taste matures beyond the desire for mere “Events” (ie. wanting to find out what happens next) and are able to appreciate the texts as works of art; those who are able to move beyond delight in a picture because it is a reminder of pleasant or stimulating things that are in fact elsewhere, to the place where they can open themselves to be changed by the picture (or the text). [2]

The Bible offers us both. It is no wonder the narrative sections are more well-known and popular. People want to know what happens next! Will Abraham slay his promised son? Will Peter betray Jesus as He predicted? The Bible contains the most gripping stories in all of literature, and has arguably inspired the best of literature throughout history. But even in its translations, by its form, the Bible’s books are literary works of art. Moreover, the literary structure is, I would say, a major method of communication for the authors.

The beauty is that, in the Bible’s DNA, the Events thread of this matrix is fully compatible with both the architecture of the Creation and the annual harvest festivals of Israel. Since there are around 40 human authors, this integration of event, community and architecture in bookform makes the Bible an organic objet-d’art far beyond the skill of mere mortals; beyond even our ability to conceive of such a project. Every “story” resonates in triune form from deep within the heart the One who said “Let there be light.”

We analyse the language of popular culture to death. We pride ourselves on being able to identify TV tropes. We are so saturated with dramas and sitcoms that writers no longer need explain every point of the story. [3] We have seen it all before. Beyond “Events”, we analyse the artistry of the director and the composer of the soundtrack.

Do we have ears willing to hear the Scriptures at this level, to be Bible-saturated to the point where Ezekiel or Jesus uses an irony based on the Torah, without explaining it, and we are an audience au fait? Or when it comes to the Bible, as Lewis says, are we those of the “many” who are content to leave the performance of a symphony with only the memory of a simple tune to whistle?

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[1] Peter Rubie, The Peter Rubie-Gary Provost Dramatic Sentence.
[2] On the abuse of Scripture by many modern preachers as an opaque sounding board for their own agendas, see Why Johnny Can’t Preach and Exploiting Nehemiah.
[3] “Tropes are devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members’ minds and expectations. On the whole, tropes are not clichés. The word clichéd means ‘stereotyped and trite.’ In other words, dull and uninteresting.” TV Tropes

“If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you had asked almost any of the great Christians of old, he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is more than a philological importance.

The negative idea of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire.

If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak.

We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, pp. 25-26.

On this theme, see Desire, Envy, The Whole Bloody Bible and Military Cross.

In the movie Collision, Christopher Hitchens relies a lot on the idea of a moral consensus, the idea that humanity has an innate sense of what’s right and what’s wrong and that we all agree on the basics. Is there any merit in this assumption? Or is Hitchens assuming that the benefits of Christianity are the result of human reason? Peter Leithart argues that Calvin, as an heir of 1200 years of Christendom, made exactly this mistake.

(I present below just the head and tail of Dr Leithart’s argument. I highly recommend getting a hold of the essay and reading his full argument and evidences.)

Excerpts from Did Plato Read Moses?

Peter Leithart on Middle Grace and Moral Consensus

The Bible presents a bleak view of the moral potential of the natural man. In this respect it seems to fly in the face of the facts. What are we to make of the empirical phenomenon of the “good pagan”?

Though Christians can agree that pagan goodness is insufficient to gain entrance to the kingdom of God, the fact that the good pagan exists at all seems to undermine the New Testament’s assertion that the “flesh is hostile to God” and that unredeemed sinners approve those who break God’s commandments. How, moreover, can a Christian explain the moral consensus that is said to exist among all cultures and religions, a consensus ably summarised in C. S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man?

I am very skeptical that any such universal moral consensus exists. Reformed discussions of this question have generally been highly nuanced. At a very general level, Calvin said, there is a consensus of moral principle, but when one gets down to specifics the consensus disappears. This argument is confirmed by history and experience. Every society says murder is wrong. But is killing an unborn child murder? Many, perhaps a majority of groups, would say no. Seneca and Zeno say no, and even advocated infanticide and exposure of infants. Everyone says murder is wrong, but are human and child sacrifice wrong? Many cultures have practised such rites. Every people says murder is wrong, but is it murder to befriend a member of a neighbouring tribe, win his confidence and trust, invite him to your hut for dinner, and then fall upon him and beat him to a pulp? Don Richardson, a missionary to the Sawi people of Irian Jaya, reports that in the tribe among whom he worked it was considered a badge of honour to befriend and then betray a member of a neighbouring tribe.

Nuanced as he tried to make his formulation, I believe Calvin was too sanguine. Living in Europe as an heir of 1200 years of Christendom, Calvin observed that everyone, whether Protestant or Catholic, heretic or Jew, held to the same basic moral perspective, and he apparently took this as a universal phenomenon. In late twentieth century America, we should not be so blind…

…on the contrary, the Bible indicates that special revelation was transmitted through the ancient world in written form, and no doubt in oral tradition as well. Extra-biblical evidence supports this conclusion. I would thus generalise Augustine’s final conclusion about Plato: It is impossible to determine whether whatever moral or theological consensus existed in the ancient world was the product of general or special revelation. The evidence shows that ancient cultures were exposed to both.

What is true of the ancient world is even more obviously true of Western civilisation. The Word of God has been so intertwined with our civilisation that the two are nearly impossible to separate. Distinctly biblical moral precept seem to the Western mind to be precepts of nature, accessible to every reasonable man with a modicum of common sense. Nature has been permeated and therefore transformed by grace. The God in whom Western atheists disbelieve is the biblical God (not Baal or Kronos), and many relativists claim that the one absolute is that preeminent Pauline virtue, love. One ancient near eastern flood myth recorded that the gods sent a flood because the people swarming over the earth were so noisy that the gods could not sleep at night. To the extent that moderns find this quaint or appalling, to the extent that biblical religion–not some abstraction called “common grace”–has shaped our conception of what conduct is proper to God. What the West has held in common is precisely what is, theological speaking, special.

The practical conclusion of the argument presented here is that the moral foundations of civilisation as opposed to barbarism are the product of the working of God’s grace as it is distributed through His Word and Spirit, not the product of some vague and abstract general grace of God. Or, to put it differently, the general grace of God is not a constant, but is directly proportional to the spread of the special saving grace of God. If this is the case, then any moral consensus in American civilisation will increasingly vanish as people abandon the Word of God. Romans 1 says that God abandons idolaters to moral confusion, so that they approve what they know to be evil. This is our future; increasingly, this is our present.

If this is true, encouragement to virtue is a paltry and ultimately foolhardy response to the crisis of Western civilisation. The only answer is to be found in the universal and uncompromising proclamation of an undiluted gospel.