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Narnia - Tim’s Thought
January 25, 2006 · Print This Article
I used to love “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe”, and I used to love reading anything by C.S. Lewis; whether it be fiction, or theology. Or—as was often the case—both.
Watching the “The Chronicles of Narnia", I was disappointed to feel that this time around, I wasn’t able to bear with him in the same way. Allegory with which I had earlier identified, and which at the time seemed to wonderfully capture a deeper truth,… now sounded hollow, trite, and completely unsatisfying.
One quote of Lewis which gets a lot of airtime in Christian circles (and which is not so subtly woven into dialogue between Peter and the Professor), is the question of Jesus being either “a liar, a lunatic, or Lord”. The logic being that he was either deliberately lying, crazy—because of the claims he made—or was actually who he said he was. I wonder now why I fell for this logic, which sets up a choice of three options, ignoring the possibility of any others. Just because somebody is honestly mistaken in their world view (which, obviously, is a matter of opinion) doesn’t make them a lunatic. A forth option could very easily be that Jesus was a fallible human: A human capable of being misguided in some ways, but still being an authoritative voice in others. A human with flaws, but with gifts.
In fact, this Jesus makes complete sense to me. This is a Jesus I can believe in, and believe in such a way that the truths he spoke (those truths which I can understand to be true) don’t have to be tied into centuries of religious dogma, and which don’t have to be tied into totally unrelated spiritual questions or otherwise. It’s an honest Jesus. A Jesus who I can learn from, in the same way that I can learn from anybody with a bit of insight.
The concept of a blood sacrifice, and the necessity to appease wrongdoing with death (of either the sinner or an innocent substitute) makes no sense to me.
In fact, we have a saying about it… “two wrongs don’t make a right”.
Moretim
Thanks Tim.
My understanding of the ‚ÄòLunatic‚Äô line of thought is that even if Jesus was a well-meaning deluded man he would not be as consistent in character (control of himself, compassionate, patient…) or have cohesive teaching about life, death, power and human behaviour or have such a quick wit/brain in public debate/argument with the religious leaders.
This thought as you mentioned is then linked to spiritual questions of divinity and sinlessness because of what he said and did. (I am the door/way, believe in me, all power has been given to me, his forgiving sin, only way to the father, miracles, cross, resurrection etc) Some of these are most likely unrelated to the truths you are talking about. Some may not be.
I like your way forward with Jesus as inspiration and teacher for your life based on His truths as you understand them apart from religious dogma and tradition. I think Jesus would be happy with such responds to his teachings from those in the Church and out. He never did like dogma and religious rules much.
I can almost here someone ask “but are we not making God’s claims and truths subject to man’s reason?” This question worries me and at the same time I think don’t we always do that? Even this quest for a formula to prove Jesus (and your own position) instead of encouraging relationship with Jesus and a deepening of spiritual life keeps man in control.
Age
I can see where you’re coming from, but if there’s one thing I’ve learnt about humans it’s that we aren’t necessarily consistent in our characters, and that very few people are able to stubbornly hang on to a single cohesive understanding of the world from the day they’re born until the day they die. We change; our ideas constantly adapt to the world we find ourselves in.
To a Christian, Jesus divinity - and the subsequent blood sacrifice and all that goes with it - is absolute, and fundamentally worth preserving over and above any other consideration. Hence the distaste at settling for the lunatic option.
I don’t expect that my understanding of Jesus has an accepted place within the traditional boundaries of christianity. That’s OK with me, because I don’t define myself that way either - but like many a christian, I share a common upbringing, culture, outlook, and role model. Church doesn’t provide a forum to express myself or to explore what I believe (because many of these beliefs are foundational, and assumed); fortunately, websites like these - and friends, do.
To me there aren’t any questions of divinity, and as such no -divine- concept of sin and redemption.
Jesus very famously reduced the many commandments to just two. He could have gone further. Perhaps Paul did, when he said:
“The commandments, “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,”and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”
How much better this is, than the picture of a misunderstood messiah, battered, bleeding, and tortured - just for me. For me? Who invented these rules? … I don’t know. But love … love is the fulfillment of the law.
The rule of love; this is something that makes sense. This is something that I can live by. This is something that can colour my world. This is one piece of the puzzle, of which I choose to attach all other pieces
‘One more in the name of love.’
Bono also saw in the lives of MKL (Romero, Jesus, Tutu, Mandela and the usual suspects) that love colouring our world and as a base for life is not easy and often dangerous. To connect to our nieghours (and not harm them) mixed with Romeros famous commitment to truth is a deadly cocktail.