An Oft Repeated Historial Fallacy

In speaking of the announcement last week that two more planets orbiting other stars have been found in habitable zones, Ross Douthat assumes an oft repeated fallacy regarding Medieval cosmology here. He writes,

"The first possibility obviously raises theological as well as scientific questions. In one sense, it elevates humanity, restoring us to an almost pre-Copernican position in the cosmos. At the same time, though, plenty of religious believers are untroubled (or even inspired) by the idea of extraterrestrial life, while the possibility that the cosmos might be as empty as it is vast raises troubling questions about what, exactly, its Designer had in mind. (“The eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with dread,” wrote the great Christian philosopher Blaise Pascal.)"

The false and often repeated belief is that Medieval cosmology elevated humanity by viewing the universe geocentrically as if the earth was the hub or the centre. This was not their understanding or assumption. Rather, C.S. Lewis explains,

"...men had realized that movement towards the centre of the earth from whatever direction was downward movement. For ages men had known, and poets had emphasized, the truth that earth, in relation to the universe, is infinitesimally small: to be treated, said Ptolemy, as a mathematical point (Almagest, i.v). Nor was it generally felt that earth, or Man, would lose dignity by being shifted from the cosmic centre. The central position had not implied pre-eminence. On the contrary, it had implied, as Montaigne says (Essais, n. xii), "the worst and deadest part of the universe', 'the lowest story of the house', the point at which all the light, heat, and movement descending from the nobler spheres finally died out into darkness, coldness, and passivity. The position which was locally central was dynamically marginal: the rim of being, farthest from the hub." 

English Literature in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama

Waistdeep in Romanticism

“I had already been waist­deep in Romanticism; and likely enough, at any moment, to flounder into its darker and more evil forms, slithering down the steep descent that leads from the love of strangeness to that of eccentricity and thence to that of perversity. Now Phantasies was romantic enough in all conscience; but there was a difference. . . . What it actually did to me was to convert, even to baptise . . . my imagination. It did nothing to my intellect nor (at that time) to my conscience. Their turn came far later and with the help of many other books and men.”

Rediscovered: C. S. Lewis TIME Magazine Cover Story – Sep. 8, 1947

Is today's fascination with vampires and zombies a new romanticism?

Will the New Creation be a withering fast?

"The letter and spirit of scripture, and of all Christianity, forbid us to suppose that life in the New Creation will be a sexual life; and this reduces our imagination to the withering alternative either of bodies which are hardly recognisable as human bodies at all or else of a perpetual fast. As regards the fast, I think our present outlook might be like that of a small boy who, on being told that the sexual act was the highest bodily pleasure should immediately ask whether you ate chocolates at the same time. On receiving the answer ‘No,’ he might regard absence of chocolates as the chief characteristic of sexuality. In vain would you tell him that the reason why lovers in their carnal raptures don’t bother about chocolates is that they have something better to think of. The boy knows chocolate: he does not know the positive thing that excludes it. We are in the same position. We know the sexual life; we do not know, except in glimpses, the other thing which, in Heaven, will leave no room for it. Hence where fullness awaits us we anticipate fasting. In denying that sexual life, as we now understand it, makes any part of the final beatitude, it is not of course necessary to suppose that the distinction of sexes will disappear. What is no longer needed for biological purposes may be expected to survive for splendour. Sexuality is the instrument both of virginity and of conjugal virtue; neither men nor women will be asked to throw away weapons they have used victoriously. It is the beaten and the fugitives who throw away their swords. The conquerors sheathe theirs and retain them. ‘Trans-sexual’ would be a better word than ‘sexless’ for the heavenly life."

C. S. Lewis, Miracles

I have a feeling you will see this again.

Perfect Substance

“A girl I knew was brought up by ‘higher thinking’ parents to regard God as perfect ‘substance.’ In later life she realized that this had actually led her to think of Him as something like a vast tapioca pudding. (To make matters worse, she disliked tapioca.) We may feel ourselves quite safe from this degree of absurdity, but we are mistaken. If a man watches his own mind, I believe he will find that what profess to be specially advanced or philosophic conceptions of God are, in his thinking, always accompanied by vague images which, if inspected, would turn out to be even more absurd than the manlike images aroused by Christian theology. For man, after all, is the highest of the things we meet in sensuous experience.”
Rediscovered C.S. Lewis Time Magazine Cover Story, September 8, 1947

Jovial Kingship

“Before the other angels a man might sink: before this he might die, but if he lived at all, he would laugh. If you had caught one breath of the air that came from him, you would have felt yourself taller than before. Though you were a cripple, your walk would have become stately: though a beggar, you would have worn your rags magnanimously. Kingship and power and festal pomp and courtesy shot from him as sparks fly from an anvil. The pealing of bells, the blowing of trumpets, the spreading out of banners, are means used on earth to make a faint symbol of his quality. It was like a long sunlit wave, creamy-crested and arched with emerald, that comes on nine feet tall, with roaring and with terror and unquenchable laughter. It was like the first beginning of music in the halls of some King so high and at some festival so solemn that a tremor akin to fear runs through young hearts when they hear it. For this was the great Glund-Oyarsa, King of Kings, through whom the joy of creation principally blows across these fields of Arbol,…. At his coming there was holiday in the Blue Room…”

C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength

Lewis captures the jovial spirit in the descent of Glund in That Hideous Strength. Notice the similar language in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. Lucy asks regarding Aslan, "Is he—quite safe?" To which Mr. Beaver replies, "Safe? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."

Here's Michael Ward talking about the Jovial spirit.
And the second part...

"We Teach the World We Create"

Dr. Michael Ward author of Planet Narnia gave a lecture in 2010 at the University of Kansas, Lawrence on his discovery as to the imaginative theme of the the Chronicles of Narnia. To listen to the entire two-part lecture is a time commitment, but if you want to understand the clever craft of the Chronicles, these are a great place to start.



And here's Part 2

To Sea Like Lucy

Today is the feast day of Saint Lucy or Santa Lucia. Her feast day is celebrated by many denominations and traditions. Lucy's martyrdom was most likely during the Diocletian persecution. Tradition tells us that she was blinded prior to her execution and so St. Lucy is the patron of the blind.

Of course, I think of a certain Lucy Pevensie who is a literary heroine of mine. No doubt C.S. Lewis knew her name was derived from the Latin lux (light). In the Narniad, Lucy is more often than not the one who sees things first. In fact, in Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Edmund while talking about Aslan with Eustace, has this to say:

“Well, don’t tell me about it, then,” said Eustace. “But who is Aslan? Do you know him?” “Well—he knows me,” said Edmund. “He is the great Lion, the son of the Emperor-beyond-the-Sea, who saved me and saved Narnia. We’ve all seen him. Lucy sees him most often.
Lewis, C. S. (2008-10-29). The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: The Chronicles of Narnia (pp. 117-118). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition. 

"Lucy sees him most often." I love that.

In honor of all the heroines who bear the name "Lucy", here's a children's choir singing, "Santa Lucia".

Lewis: Out of the Silent Planet

Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I've read the 'excursionary' Space Trilogy numerous times since 1992. Only recently have I been clued into the influence of the medieval cosmology which Lewis loved so much. In the past I enjoyed the book on its merits, but since, I have grown in my enjoyment of the attempt made by Lewis to let us enter a martial world in which the will stands like caryatids under the weight of necessary obedience.



View all my reviews

Voyage of the Therapeutic, Moralistic Aslan

The Helm of the Dawn Treader

I've given myself since Friday to comment on the new Twentieth Century Fox and Walden Media film adaptation of C. S. Lewis', The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Time's up.

Enough has been said about a number failings and justifications about the film adaptation. Yes, we are grateful for those at Walden Media who've worked hard to preserve Lewis' intended Christian imagery. Yes, we know the story is episodic and that each island adventure makes for cumbersome movie making. Yes, Reepicheep is as winsome as Eustace is 'scrubbish' -- both were commendable, though I think Eustace more. And Yes, we know that concessions, negotiations, adaptations must occur when you take a 200 pages story and turn it into a two hour movie. And before I rant (for rant I will) I have not met anyone who did not come away with a favorable, first impression of the movie; this tells me that as it stands as a movie alone, Dawn Treader isn't that bad.

Here's an episodic list of charges against the lumbering old Leopard.

1. Firstly, if Warner Brothers had done to Harry Potter what Disney/Fox has done to Narnia, movie theaters would've been torn down and set ablaze with their own popcorn butter. I wonder if the Duffers had a hand in writing this screenplay.
2. Really? I mean, Really? I half-expected Edmund to have thought the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man into existence (ala Ghostbusters) while at the Dark Island. And speaking of the Dark Island, it's supposed to be DARK not MOSTLY dark. And what's with this Green Smoke Monster, evil-thing-which-is-never-named? I was ready to discover that Locke had made if off THE Island into Narnia and had shacked up with the White Witch.
3. I don't want a Morlistic, Therapeutic Aslan. In the book, Aslan is not a nurturing and consoling therapist, he is LIGHT. He appears and people are transformed. Each character is not merely encouraged to resist temptation, but when they are in the presence of Aslan, temptation gives way to sanity, soundness, and peace of mind. The proud become humble, the superior become servants, the fearful take heart, and the blinded see as his "sword of light hurts and humbles". Aslan is heavy-light, and Lewis intended that light to banish darkness, not manage it. The scenes in which people are encouraged or exhorted, come across preachy or worse, pathetic.
4. It left out the most important character. It's the DAWN Treader. Where was the sun? Where was light? The LIGHT is so vitally influential in all that happens in Lewis' Dawn Treader. This mistake marks a failed opportunity of cinematography. So much more beauty and dread could've been communicated without having to tell us everything. The photo above captures the only apparent acknowledgement to the sun and the land of the sun's rising in the movie.
5. Lastly, the Dawn Treader need not be episodic if one sees the story about transformation. The characters change as they come under LIGHT's greater influence. If the story is about the Alchemist, Aslan, as he transform's the character of each through the journey--then the story has an arc which is understandable and not clunky and even beautiful as each takes their proper station as knight, friend, woman, man.... And, even if Aslan were not central, they could've employed Reepicheep's quest to fulfill the prophecy about him as the central arc of the story. By all accounts, Simon Pegg's Reepicheep stole the show. If they would've left off the swords and the green smoke monster and explored Reep's history--it could've been so much better.
6. And speaking of swords, Did I say that THE sword in Dawn Treader is LIGHT?

Let me leave you with Lewis' words from his poem, "The Planets" regarding Sol (the sun) because this is what the Dawn Treader is about.

"...Far beyond her

The heaven's highway hums and trembles,

Drums and dindles, to the driv'n thunder

Of Sol's chariot, whose sword of light

Hurts and humbles; beheld only

Of eagle's eye. When his arrow glances

Through mortal mind, mists are parted

And mild as morning the mellow wisdom

Breathes o'er the breast, broadening eastward

Clear and cloudless. In a clos'd garden

(Unbound her burden) his beams foster

Soul in secret, where the soil puts forth

Paradisal palm, and pure fountains

Turn and re-temper, touching coolly

The uncomely common to cordial gold;

Whose ore also, in earth's matrix,

Is print and pressure of his proud signet

On the wax of the world. He is the worshipp'd male,

The earth's husband, all-beholding,

Arch-chemic eye."

Lastly, lastly, Thank you, Michael Ward for helping me delight in Lewis.

Voyage of the Dawn Treaderness

In order to encourage the Christian community's teachers, leaders, and pastors to engage and utilize the upcoming movie based on C.S. Lewis' Voyage of he Dawn Treader, a group of Christian leaders has created narniafaith.com. There are a number of resources including study guides and sermon outlines.

I am dwarvish generally, and a snob regarding the superiority of books over movies (especially Lord of the Rings and the Narniad). As I have viewed the trailer, I think I will be disappointed again. Can you discern what changes were made to the story by watching the trailer?

What is especially disappointing is that the writers of the screenplay seem to have not taken any clues regarding the imaginative key of the Narniad as discovered by Michael Ward and explained in his most recent book, The Narnia Code. Speaking of which, the BBC documentary on Ward's work also entitled, The Narnia Code, will be released in the U.S. in early January 2011. I'm thinking Christmas present?

And speaking of Christmas present this book is out now.

Wilson, Wilson, and Jacobs on C. S. Lewis

Justin Taylor posts and comments on C. S. Lewis here. The embedded video is long, but worth it. Then again, you knew I'd say that.


Alan Jacobs, ND Wilson, and Doug Wilson in conversation | Full Edition from Canon Wired on Vimeo.

Merry Meeting

I just learned that Tolkein and Lewis first met on May 11, 1926 my birthday--albeit not 1926. Alan Jacobs in his book on Lewis, The Narnian, writes of Lewis' first impression of Tolkein in this way,

"...the two young dons talked for the first time. In his diary entry...Lewis contrives to condescend to a man who, though just six years his senior, had achieved far more and whose career seemed at that time far more promising: 'He is a smooth, pale, fluent little chap.... No harm in him: only needs a smack or so.'"

In spite of the posturing, this is for me, a merry meeting which brought together two for whom and whose work I hold dear. And to discover their meeting happened on my birthday, provides a picture for me to better understand my fragmented and sundered self. Because of these two, I so enjoy the merry wedding of language and story--of epic and symbol. These twins: Tolkein and Lewis, are my Castor and Polux--the rider of Rohan and the boxing apologist.

Sorrow is Better: Ecclesiastes 7:1-7

Here's a summary of the teaching of Ecclesiastes 7:1-6 which I will elaborate on Sunday morning.

Ecclesiastes 7:1-6 (NIV) reads, "A good name is better than fine perfume, and the day of death better than the day of birth. It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, because a sad face is good for the heart. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure. It is better to heed a wise man's rebuke than to listen to the song of fools. Like the crackling of thorns under the pot, so is the laughter of fools. This too is meaningless."

"A good name is better than fine perfume, and the day of death better than the day of birth."

 Firstly, it is as if the Teacher is saying: a crowd will welcome a fool if he is wearing a good perfume even if he stinks, but when the perfume wears off he’ll be nothing but a stinking fool. However, if a man with a good name (character/wise-hearted) joins a crowd, his welcome will not wear off even if he stinks. Another way of illuminating the analogy would be to say, just as a good character and reputation are more important to a successful life than the accessories you might carry with you in life. So too, reflecting upon and living in light of your own death will enrich your experience and success in life. Remember: ‘success’ has to do with wisdom and not material gain or comfort. Derek Kidner explains the passage this way, "In the same way, the day of death has more to teach us about life than the day of our birth. The lessons we learn from death are more factual and paradoxically more vital.”

"It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of every man;"

Secondly, the Teacher tells us, a character of wisdom (a good name) is grown in painful places and not at parties. I wonder how many college freshman moving onto campus' this weekend believe this to be true?

"the living should take this to heart."  

Thirdly, he says, a heart of wisdom (a good name) is grown inside out not outside in. To take this into your heart means to meditate upon it, to work it in, and to receive it as a precious truth. Only in taking it in will you be able to live it out.

"Sorrow is better than laughter, because a sad face is good for the heart.The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure." 

Fourthly, the teacher shows us that a heart of wisdom (a good name) is not acquired by the avoidance of suffering and sadness. The avoidance of suffering and sadness is the predominate malady of our age. C.S. Lewis went so far as to say that this is the enchantment to which we had succumbed in our age. In his sermon “The Weight of Glory”, he writes, 

“Do you think I am trying to weave a spell? Perhaps I am; but remember your fairy tales. Spells are used for breaking enchantments as well as for inducing them. And you and I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness which has been laid upon us for nearly a hundred years.”

Alan Jacobs in his biography of Lewis, goes on to explain that that the evil enchanters of our age are the magicians and scientists who have told us and tell us that we can have heaven on earth. And what is the "strongest spell that can be found"? It is, of course, the God Spell or the gospel.

  

"It is better to heed a wise man's rebuke than to listen to the song of fools."

Fifthly, he teaches us that a character of wisdom (a good name) is acquired through discipline (wise man’s rebuke) and not diversion (song of fools) .

"Like the crackling of thorns under the pot, so is the laughter of fools. This too is meaningless."

(As an aside: Derek Kidner references another commentator who attempts to capture the Hebrew literary device either a pun or alliteration between "thorns" and "pot" as "nettles under kettles"--I just think that's cool.) And so finally, the Teacher is reminding us that a deep and abiding joy (wisdom) is not the fast igniting highly combustible fire of thorns, but it is a hard to ignite, slow burning, and long-lasting fire of an oak.
 

The point of these sayings as it relates to the larger theme of Ecclesiastes is not as one might initially reckon as a morose obsession with death, but rather he is addressing how one may acquire the deep, abiding joy that, as Paul says, "surpasses knowledge." For the Teacher, a deep, abiding, and unshakable joy is just that only if it is able to face death.

The Real Power

"Haven't you been told that it's strictly non-political?"

"I've been told so many things that I don't know whether I'm on my head or my heels," said Mark. "But I don't see how one's going to start a newspaper stunt (which is about what this comes to) without being political. Is it Left or Right papers that are going to print all this rot about Alcasan?"

"Both honey, both," said Miss Hardcastle. "Dont' you understand anything? Isn't it absolutely essential to keep a fierce Left and a fierce Right, both on their toes and each terrified of the other? That's how we get things done. Any opposition to the N.I.C.E. is represented as a Left racket in the Right papers and a Right racket in the Left papers. If it's properly done, you get each side outbidding the other in support of us--to refute the enemy slanders. Of course we're non-political. The real power always is."

C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength

Re-reading That Hideous Strength, I came across this discussion between Fairy Hardcastle and Mark Studdock. In light of the the growing animosity between Right and Left politics, I found the the insight offered by Fairy Hardcastle that the 'real power is non-political' very helpful. We know that that the gospel is neither conservative nor liberal, traditional nor contemporary. The presence of the Kingdom of God will not be defined by any other standard. I had, however, not considered that evil is the same way.

Because evil is neither Right nor Left means that it can employ either Fascist or Communist ideology -- or to put another way either traditional/conservative or progressive/liberal. Traditional values can be used to advance an agenda which oppress, violate, foster injustice -- so too can those who promote progressive values. Neither one is either Kingdom, but rather are means by which the real powers are obscured or hidden.

Surprised by Joy

From PBS's special A Question of God which compares the the lives and thought of Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis is the clip recounting Lewis' conversion.



The chapter in which Lewis recounts his conversion to Theism from Surprised by Joy can be read here.

How can right belief be maintained...?

Michael Ward on C.S. Lewis' The Silver Chair:

"How can right belief be maintained in a hostile environment? It is not through superior insight that the heroes win the day, but through corage, through sacrifice. Philosophizing and rhetoric cannot settle this dispute because the Witch's logic is impeccable -- only action is sufficient to counter it."

 These words remind me of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's resolve days before his execution for conspiracy against the Third Reich. He wrote these words in Stations on the Road to Freedom,

"Daring to do what is right, not what fancy may tell you,
valiantly grasping occasions, not cravenly doubting—
freedom comes only through deeds, not through
thoughts taking wing.

Faint not nor fear, but go out to the storm and the action,
trusting in God whose commandment you faithfully follow;
freedom, exultant, will welcome your joy."

Of Magicians and Mad Scientists

“The serious magical endeavour and the serious scientific endeavor are twins: one was sickly and died, the other strong and throve. But they were twins. They were born of the same impulse. I allow that some (certainly not all) of the early scientists were actuated by a pure love of knowledge. But if we consider the temper of that age as a whole, we can discern the impulse of which I speak. 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. If we compare the chief trumpeter of the new era (Bacon) with Marlow’s Faustus, the similarly striking. You will read in some critics that Faustus has a thirst for knowledge. In reality he hardly mentions it. It is not truth he wants from his devils, but gold and guns and girls….In the same spirit Bacon condemns those who value knowledge as an end in itself: this, for him, is to use as a mistress for pleasure what out to be used as a spouse for fruit. He rejects magic because it does not work, but his goal is that of the magician.”

C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

More Out There

David Brooks in a 2008 Op Ed piece on our need for enchantment and the benefits of the 'discarded image'.

The medievals had a tremendous capacity for imagination and enchantment, and while nobody but the deepest romantic would want to go back to their way of thinking (let alone their way of life), it’s a tonic to visit from time to time.

 In reconsidering the thought that astronomy is the study of numbers in space (geometry) and time (music), I can't help but think that for the Medievalist the study of astronomy was the study of 'the music of the spheres'.

How can you not be enchanted by the night sky? Check out the pictures at Space.com

Jove: Get your jocund revel on

This week two of Jupiter's moons, Europa and Io cross between it and the sun casting their shadows in a double eclipse which you can read about over at space.com.

Jupiter is king of the planets, Jove, and it is joviality which is the primary theme of the first of Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and Wardrobe.

This last snow has me hoping that this is the break or "turning of the tide" in this seemingly cosmic winter. Watching the snow melt and the birds at the bird feeder has me hoping that spring and cosmic summer are on their way in much the same way that Narnia is delivered from the clutches of winter and delivered into spring.

In homage spring or in defiance of the the winter that keeps on giving, here are Lewis' words from his alliterative poem "The Planets" on the virtues of Jove's orbit. The alliteration makes this a poem to be read allowed, so have it.

"...Soft breathes the air
Mild, and meadowy, as we mount further
Where rippled radiance rolls about us
Moved with music--measureless the waves'
Joy and jubilee. It's JOVE's orbit,
Filled and festal, faster turning
With arc ampler. From the Isles of Tin
Tyrian traders, in trouble steering
Came with his cargoes; the Cornish treasure
That his ray ripens. Of wrath ended
And woes mended, of winter passed
And guilt forgiven, and good fortune
Jove is master; and of jocund revel,
Laughter of ladies. The lion-hearted,
The myriad-minded, men like the gods,
Helps and heroes, helms of nations
Just and gentle, are Jove's children,
Work his wonders. On his wide forehead
Calm and kingly, no care darkens
Nor wrath wrinkles: but righteous power
And leisure and largess their loose splendours
Have wrapped around him--a rich mantle
Of ease and empire."

Saturnine

The Big Picture posted a number of images from Cassini which caught Saturn at its equinox. Saturn is the the last of seven planets and its sphere in Dante is inhabited by the great contemplatives. For Lewis, Saturn is not merely time or age or death but always give over to the Jovial spring.