Narnia Revelations

I am just back from a talk by Rev. Dr. Michael Ward , a Cambridge scholar, on what C.S. Lewis is up to in The Chronicles of Narnia – and why it matters. The event was organised by the Darden Christian fellowship. Well! before I go further and comment on the talk I have 3 disclaimers to make

1. I have not read any of the Narnia books, I did read up the history of Chronicles and Narnia, the story behind the first book on wikipedia before I went to the talk.

2. I am an atheist and have been for a while

3. I know little bit about C.S. Lewis and I did attempt to read "mere Christianity" but could not complete it

OK, having read the disclosure if you are still reading this post you are probably an Atheist, agnostic looking for a conforming point of view or a Christian hoping that I was finally enlightened and have turned around in my ways. Well at least at this point I am going to please neither. I am just writing some observations, thoughts and raising some questions based on my observations.

Firstly let me recap what the talk was about i.e. from what I understood. Rev. Dr. Michael Ward conjectured that C.S. Lewis's had a central theme behind The Chronicles of Narnia that related to the planets and deeper all encompassing divinity. That C.S. Lewis believed that planets and heavenly bodies are not mere matter but more and divine presence is everywhere and all encompassing and hence hard for us to notice. The reason he left it secretive was that he believed in "kappa element of romance" i.e. the meaning/motive behind writing stories that does not immediately present itself. Hence we wanted to leave things to reader's imagination and hoped that they would connect the dots. This is probably not a very accurate description of what he said but what I understood and truly hope its close to what he was trying to convey. In either case its not very relevaant to what I am about to discuss.

Whats interesting to me is that while the "Chronicles of Narnia" is considered fantasy/fairy tales by many, others associate it with theology and mythology. Most people, especially people of faith, I found are trying to find a deeper meaning or association with theological concepts from some other text. Why? that's an interesting question. Why does it matter if there are connections or not? Maybe people are curious, they want to understand the intent of the reader. If we talk about intent there has to be some speculation on the conclusion. Maybe C.S. Lewis drew ideas from his belief and modelled each story on different planets and their mythological characters. Maybe this was just a way think about new concepts or stories. Or maybe he did intend to bring out certain subtle relations and connections to make a deeper point about "more than just matter" and "divine all-encompassing presence". Why is it so important for people to draw meaning from a primarily fantasy series? Maybe association is another validation to a belief derived from something stated elsewhere?

While I was listening to this eloquent speaker who really retained audience attention so well, I jotted down some notes. Key theme that reappeared were analogies. If something represents something in one context, it can help infer a similar meaning in another context. Example here was that of light illuminating series of dust particles and being very evident when we were besides it. However if we were in the path of light beam we could not see the light beam but only what it illuminated. I guess the point was not everything meets the eye. I think that's a good example to convey that point. However, I am sceptic. I believe in frame of reference so I see analogies skeptically. In sharp contrast I found that these were very reassuring to the audience. One of the reasons I went to this talk was to observe. I assumed that most people in this audience if not all would be devout Christians and I was curious to find what is convincing to someone with faith. I definitely need to research this more thoroughly but it seemed to me that associations and analogies were very important.

As an Atheist I totally understand and agree in finding meaning in everything. That's been the crux of my existence. Ask questions, find out how? why? what it means? So the question that is on my mind is why do people looking for associations when they try to find meaning in something? I don't know why yet but I hope someone can enlighten me.