Reverend Brian McGreevy continues his series, Not as Unwise but as Wise: Reflections from C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man and That Hideous Strength on Living Christianly in a Post-Christian World. This is available as a podcast on iTunes.
Not as Unwise but as Wise: Reflections from C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man and That Hideous Strength on Living Christianly in a Post-Christian World
Summary: Main themes of each chapter in The Abolition of Man
1. “Men without Chests”: The importance of objective values and the poison of subjectivism
2. “The Way”: Why the Tao, or Natural Law, is the sole source of all value judgments
3. “The Abolition of Man”: “Man’s control of Nature” is in reality a means for some men (Conditioners) to control other men, using Nature as their instrument. To “see through” (deconstruct) all things is not to see at all.
A final comment from Rev. Dr. Michael Ward, eminent Lewis scholar and author of After Humanity, the most important guide to The Abolition of Man:
“[Lewis is] arguing that moral law is a premise; it’s not a conclusion. We have to accept it as a given; we can’t argue to it, we must argue from it. It’s an objective reality which we didn’t make up: we must submit to it, we must surrender to it and grow up within it. It’s like a trellis with which you would train a climbing rose.
But if you take the opposite view, that we create moral law according to our own subjective preferences, you can do whatever you like—because there’s nothing that is objectively real in the moral world. No, it’s just whatever you happen to choose.
“Happiness consists in conforming oneself to reality, not twisting reality to suit your own convenience, or your own desires. The common modern-day phrase “speaking my truth” connects very precisely with this prophecy that Lewis is making—that we’ll all just determine reality according to our own particular perspective, which leads to moral anarchy and therefore to a “post-truth” world.”
Background to That Hideous Strength
Convinced of the crucial importance of the themes he addressed in The Abolition of Man, Lewis decided to portray them in the form of a story for the last volume in the Ransom trilogy, which he entitled That Hideous Strength. The title comes from a line in a poem by Sir David Lyndsay called “Ane Dialog” (1555) in which Lyndsay was describing the biblical Tower of Babel (Genesis 11: 1-9): “The shadow of that hideous strength, Six miles and more it is of length.” In the Preface to That Hideous Strength, Lewis states, “This is a ‘tall story‘ [pun probably intended] about devilry, though it has behind it a serious ‘point’ which I have tried to make in my Abolition of Man.”
In The Abolition of Man, among many things, Lewis offered his thoughts to a scholarly audience, arguing (without reference to theology) on the purpose of education, the natural law tradition, and the necessity of moral oversight of the institution of science and its practitioners. In That Hideous Strength: A Modern Fairy-Tale for Grown-Ups, first published in 1945, he breathes life into these same ideas in his description of the aggressive vision of the scientific group called the N. I. C. E. (National Institute for Coordinated Experiments), and in his attribution of the N. I. C. E.’s views and actions to the demons, or … “devilry.”
PLOT SUMMARY OF THE RANSOM TRILOGY
Adapted from Taylor Dinerman, The Space Review
“Out of the Silent Planet tells how Ransom, a Cambridge don on holiday, is kidnapped by the physicist Weston and his partner Devine, a sleazy businessman, and taken to Malacandra (Mars), supposedly as a human sacrifice. Once on Mars he escapes, hides in a Martian village, and learns to speak the local language. He learns that each planet has its own tutelary spirit—essentially an angel or archangel—called an Oyarsa, who rules under the authority of God. Earth, unfortunately, is the central battleground between Good and Evil and is ruled by a fallen angel, a dark Oyarsa.
“Perelandra, the name Lewis gives to Venus, is also the title of the second book in the series. Retelling the story of Adam and Eve, it is the most explicitly biblical of the three. Weston plays the role of the serpent sent to tempt the woman who is to become the mother of the world into rejecting God’s will. Ransom is sent by the Oyarsa to challenge the evil one and to save Venus from the fate of Earth.
“That Hideous Strength has little to do with space travel, and everything to do with the conflict between Good and Evil. It is perhaps the most subtle of the stories. It combines a sordid tale of intra-university politics, Arthurian legend, and spiritual combat. In a small British University town, based loosely on Durham, in the North of England, one of the colleges finds itself seduced and then engulfed by the newly established National Institute for Coordinated Experiments (N.I.C.E). This organization is secretly controlled by a pair of initiates, who plan to revive the wizard Merlin from his long, enchanted slumber and to use his powers for their own malevolent purposes. To find him they need the services of a ‘seer’; Jane Studdock, the wife of Mark Studdock, a shallow young sociologist. Mark is entrapped by promises of power, money, and above all membership in the secret, elite clique that controls the N.I.C.E. Ransom leads a small eccentric company of friends who, with the aid of the Oyarsa, take on and defeat them.”
Cosmology of Deep Heaven
“Ransom gets much information on the cosmology of Deep Heaven from the Oyarsa (presiding angel) of Malacandra, or Mars. Maleldil (God) rules the Field of Arbol (the Solar System) directly. But then the Bent One (the Oyarsa of Earth) rebelled against Maleldil and all the eldila of Deep Heaven (Outer Space). In response to this act, the Bent One suffered confinement on Earth where he first inflicted great evil. Thus he made Earth a Silent Planet, cut off from the Oyéresu of other planets, hence the name ‘Thulcandra’, the Silent Planet, which is known throughout the Universe. Maleldil tried to reach out to Thulcandra and became a man to save the human race. According to the Green Lady, Tinidril (Mother of Perelandra, or Venus), Thulcandra is favored among all the worlds, because Maleldil came to it to become a man. In the Field of Arbol, the outer planets are older, the inner planets newer. The Asteroids are called the “dancers before the threshold of the Great Worlds.”
“Earth will remain a silent planet until the end of the great Siege of Deep Heaven against the Oyarsa of Earth. The siege starts to end with the Oyéresu of other worlds descending to Earth at the finale of the Trilogy, That Hideous Strength. But there is still much to happen until the fulfillment of what is predicted in the Book of Revelation, when the Oyéresu put an end to the rule of the Bent Eldil and, on the way, smash the Moon to fragments. This, in turn, will not be “The End of the World”, but merely “The Very Beginning” of what is still to come.
Old Solar language
“According to the Space Trilogy’s cosmology, the speech of all the inhabitants of the Field of Arbol is the Old Solar language, or Hlab-Eribol-ef-Cordi. Out of all the planets, only Earth lost this language, due to the Bent One’s influence. Old Solar can be likened to the Elvish languages invented by Lewis’s friend, Tolkien. The grammar is little known, except for the plurals of nouns. Old Solar is also referred to as “the Great Tongue,” for this was the language spoken before the Fall and beyond the Moon:
“It was as if the words spoke themselves … from some strong place at a distance–or as if they were not words at all but present operations of God, the planets, and the Pendragon. For this was the language spoken before the Fall and beyond the Moon and the meanings were not given to the syllables by chance, or skill, or long tradition, but truly inherent in them as the shape of the great Sun is inherent in the little waterdrop. This was Language herself, as she first sprang at Maleldil’s bidding out of the molten quicksilver of the first star, called Mercury on Earth, but Viritrilbia in Deep Heaven.”—from That Hideous Strength
Practices of Hope and of Wisdom
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.—Philippians 4:8-9
1. Listen to Gustav Holst’s The Planets and reflect on the wonder of God’s creation of the night sky. The Planets is a seven-movement orchestral suite by the English composer Gustav Holst written between 1914 and 1917, and this work was a great favorite of Lewis’s. In the last movement the orchestra is joined by a chorus. Each movement of the suite is named after a planet of the Solar System and its astrological character, related to the medieval cosmology which Lewis loved. The premiere of The Planets was at the Queen’s Hall in London on 29 September 1918, conducted by Holst’s friend Sir Adrian Boult. The seven movements are
Mars, the Bringer of War
Venus, the Bringer of Peace
Mercury, the Winged Messenger
Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity
Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age
Uranus, the Magician
Neptune, the Mystic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSqb7gD5acY
2. Meditate on these verses about the beauty of God’s creation in the Heavens:
–He who made the Pleiades and Orion, who turns midnight into dawn and darkens day into night, who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out over the face of the land— the LORD is his name. (Amos 5:8)
–Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing. (Is. 40:26)
–“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone,
when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? (Job 38:4-7)
–Psalm 8
3. Go somewhere outdoors where you can see the night sky and spend some time in prayer praising God for the Beauty He has created.
We magnify Thee, O Lord, we bless the excellency of thy name in the great work of thy hands, the manifold vestures of earth and sky and sea, the courses of the stars and light, the songs of the birds, the hues of flowers, the frame and attributes of everything that hath breath, and, upholding all, thy wisdom, marvelous worthy to be praised, but most, that by thy sure promise we now do only taste the glory that shall be revealed, when thou, O God, wilt take the power and reign, world, without end. Amen. (prayer by the Rev. Eric Milner-White, 1933)
