Monday, July 11, 2005

Was C.S. Lewis a universalist?

Yesterday I finished my latest school book, Flame of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit, by Clark Pinnock. I'm not interested in turning this blog into a a play by play of all the classes I'm taking and the books that go with them, but I did run into some things here that triggered some thinking I hadn't yet done - especially regarding the concept of universalism. Now, like most "good" evangelicals, I've always automatically considered universalism, well, universally wrong. But this book got me to begin separating the terms universalism (God's Spirit and truth are active everywhere in the world, drawing people to Himself, including within "pagan" people and their religions) and syncretism (all religions are equally true and equally justify people before God), which I had always sort of held to be synonymous. But Pinnock got me going when he exerpted the following from C.S. Lewis' The Last Battle, the final book in The Chronicles of Narnia book series. A pagan soldier, Emeth, discovers that his service to Aslan's enemy, Tash, was more than it seemed:

I fell at his feet and thought, Surely this is the hour of death, for the Lion (who is worthy of all honour) will know that I have served Tash all my days and not him. Nevertheless, it is better to see the Lion and die than to be the Tisroc of the world and live and not to have seen him. But the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, Son, thou art welcome. But I said, Alas, Lord, I am no son of Thine but the servant of Tash. He answered, Child, all the service that thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me. Then by reason of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one? The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him, for I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for oath's sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then though he say Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. Dost thou understand, Child? I said, Lord, thou knowest how much I understand. But I said also (for the truth constrained me), Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days. Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.

I know nothing about the movie that's coming out this December, but this makes me want to go back and read the chronicles before seeing it (I was in third and fourth grades when I read the books the first time). It's highly unlikely that I'll have the time, but I should go back and read them again anyway.

posted by Steve at 5:53 AM
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