Long post today.
My favorite part in The Silver Chair (and there aren't many) is when the children and Puddleglum are captured underground, and the witch is busily placing a spell on them with the help of her magical lute and fire. She's convincing them that the only world is the world they're in now, the Underworld, and anything else they think is real from above ground was invented from smaller, "realer" things from the Underworld. “'You have seen lamps," the witch purrs, "'and so you imagined a bigger and better lamp and called it the sun. You’ve seen cats, and now you want a bigger and better cat, and it’s to so called a lion. Well, ‘tis a pretty make-believe though, to say a truth, it would suit you all better if you were younger."'
Between this logic, the lute, and the fire, everyone goes down except Puddleglum.
"But Puddleglum, desperately gathering all his strength, walked over to the fire. The he did a very brave thing. He knew it wouldn’t hurt him quite as much as it would hurt a human; for his feet (which were bare) were webbed and hard and cold-blooded like a duck’s. But he knew it would hurt him badly enough; and so it did. With his bare foot he stamped on the fire, grinding a large part of it into ashes on the flat hearth. …
“'One word, Ma’am,” he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. “'One word. All you’ve been saying is quite right, I shouldn’t wonder. I’m a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won’t deny any of what you said. But there one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things – trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that’s a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play world. I’m on Aslan’s side even if their isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we’re leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that’s small loss if the world’s as dull a place as you say.'”
Philosophy majors have it tough. There's a continual onslaught of facts and ideas in every class I walk into, and there comes a moment in every argument where I have nothing else to say. You argue every point, fight every line, and then you realize that 21 years of life has nothing on 2500 years of philosophy, and you just sit, totally defeated. One option is to start to doubt. Another option is to pout and think how wrong everyone else is, and if only they listened to you they'd be right.
The third option is to be a Puddleglum, and to let logic fall away and analysis die, and realize that there is a point where your brain will always fail you. You don't have anything left - allow yourself to have nothing left. Be wiped totally clean. There are no more proofs for God's existence, no more logically valid argument for a human soul, nothing that shows that there is morality or beauty or Truth. There's no logic left but love.
"I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't an Aslan to lead it." That's not the voice of stubborn insistence, I don't think - it's the voice of pure, rock hard love, the kind of love that doesn't let go even if everything else dies. There's something to be said for being intellectually stubborn, and for refusing to see the Truth when it's presented to you. But there's also something to be said for standing on something that will always be deeper and stronger and more powerful than any brainpower we'll ever have - love. Love God, and that will hold you stronger than "believing God" ever will.
"We know that we all possess knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. But the man who loves God is known by God." - Paul, 1 Cor. 8:1b-3
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