Non-Tolkien Bookish Stuff

Narnia, to discuss an instance that I hope won't spoil you, has this problem majorly in the Death and Resurrection of Aslan.

I'll quote Lewis here, for clarity:

"(But remember, if there are other worlds and they need to be saved and Christ were to save them as He would–He may really have taken all sorts of bodies in them which we don’t know about.)" - Lewis, Letters to Children ~ Lyle W. Dorsett and Marjorie Lamp Mead, parenthesis original

I never exactly felt comfortable with this, as it (I believe, unintentionally) flies in the face of what is explicitly stated in Hebrews 7:27, that Christ "sacrificed for sin once for all when He offered up Himself."

Since, in Lewis' telling, Narnia shares a parallel timeline with our own world, I don't really think a second Passion would have been necessary.

On a purely technical level, it significantly weakens an allegory to have it coexist with what it is meant to represent. It feels clumsy and overbearing, as if he doesn't trust the reader to draw the connection on their own and has to spell out the religious significance for them rather than letting it speak for itself, thereby introducing a new layer of confusion.

I hated Perelandra for several reasons, not the least of which was the combination of oppressively hamfisted religious pontificating and a complete switch in tone, pacing, style, and every other storytelling element that made the first book so interesting.

Image 1:

difficult but ok --- that's how I think it works --- the Bible but I think you could do it in a normal book

No. Why. (Narnia)

Ok (Tolkien)

Image 2:

Yes! (Till we have faces)

Ok, I hope?

Narnia, to discuss an instance that I hope won't spoil you, has this problem majorly in the Death and Resurrection of Aslan.

I'll quote Lewis here, for clarity:

"(But remember, if there are other worlds and they need to be saved and Christ were to save them as He would–He may really have taken all sorts of bodies in them which we don’t know about.)" - Lewis, Letters to Children ~ Lyle W. Dorsett and Marjorie Lamp Mead, parenthesis original

I never exactly felt comfortable with this, as it (I believe, unintentionally) flies in the face of what is explicitly stated in Hebrews 7:27, that Christ "sacrificed for sin once for all when He offered up Himself."

Since, in Lewis' telling, Narnia shares a parallel timeline with our own world, I don't really think a second Passion would have been necessary.

On a purely technical level, it significantly weakens an allegory to have it coexist with what it is meant to represent. It feels clumsy and overbearing, as if he doesn't trust the reader to draw the connection on their own and has to spell out the religious significance for them rather than letting it speak for itself, thereby introducing a new layer of confusion.

I hated Perelandra for several reasons, not the least of which was the combination of oppressively hamfisted religious pontificating and a complete switch in tone, pacing, style, and every other storytelling element that made the first book so interesting.

But for the people who have really done evil things?

For the people who don’t “deserve” love but need it anyway, as much as we all do?

Who is there to love the unlovable people, the unforgivable people, the truly monstrous people?

Good people don’t need Christianity. Respectable, unproblematic, unimpeachable people don’t need Christianity. Young trendy atheists who donate to all the right causes and respectable Christians who show up on time for Sunday services don’t think they need Christianity, not really.

After all, good people know they don’t need forgiving. And that’s why they know they don’t have to forgive anyone else, either.

…

“There is a limit to human charity,” said Lady Outram, trembling all over.

“There is,” said Father Brown dryly; “and that is the real difference between human charity and Christian charity. You must forgive me if I was not altogether crushed by your contempt for my uncharitableness to-day, or by the lectures you read me about pardon for every sinner. For it seems to me that you only pardon the sins that you don’t really think sinful. You only forgive criminals when they commit what you don’t regard as crimes, but rather as conventions. So you tolerate a conventional duel, just as you tolerate a conventional divorce. You forgive because there isn’t anything to be forgiven.”

“But, hang it all,” cried Mallow, “you don’t expect us to be able to pardon a vile thing like this?”

“No,” said the priest; “but we have to be able to pardon it.”

He stood up abruptly and looked round at them.

“We have to touch such men, not with a bargepole, but with a benediction,” he said. “We have to say the word that will save them from hell. We alone are left to deliver them from despair when your human charity deserts them. Go on your own primrose path pardoning all your favorite vices and being generous to your fashionable crimes. And leave us with the men who commit the mean and revolting and real crimes, mean as St. Peter when the cock crew—and yet the dawn came.”

“The dawn,” repeated Mallow doubtfully. “You mean hope—for him?”

“Yes,” replied the other. “Let me ask you one question: You are great ladies and men of honor and secure of yourselves; you would never, you can tell yourselves, stoop to such squalid treason as that. But tell me this. If any of you had so stooped, which of you would have confessed to stooping. Which of you, years afterward when you were old and rich and safe, would have been driven either by conscience or confessor to tell such a story of yourself?”