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Epistle
Dear fellow pilgrims,
Last week we continued our journey into Chapter 3 of The Last Battle, “The Ape in Its Glory,” where Shift declares that he is a Man, not an Ape, and started a deeper dive into some of the themes Lewis introduced which intersect with some of his other works, notably Mere Christianity, The Abolition of Man, and That Hideous Strength. Join us tomorrow for class at 7:15 as we do a deeper dive into a few more themes from Chapter 3 and start our exploration of Chapter 4. Please come early if you like and join us for our informal Eucharist at 5:30 in the church and a delicious dinner in the Parish Hall starting around 6:30 p.m.
If you cannot join us in person, we will be livestreaming the class at this link.
The class is also available on Apple podcast, Spotify, and the church website within the next few days after the “live” class.
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I have pasted in below links from last week’s class and a summary of what we discussed.
I am so looking forward to continuing this journey with you–please come and bring a friend, or if you are in another city or country, gather some friends and share the class or podcast and discuss. Hope to see you soon!
Further up and further in,
Brian+The Rev’d Brian K. McGreevy, J.D.
Assistant to the RectorSt. Philip’s Church
142 Church StreetCharleston, SC 29401
www.saintphilips.church
Supporting Files
Notes – Chapter 3: The Ape in Its Glory: Deeper Dive
Setting:
–a clearing on a hill with a stable/thatched hut in the center
–the Ape holding court and surrounded by both Narnians and Calormenes
–the Ape declaring he is the intermediary for all communication with Aslan
Deeper Dive: Connections between The Last Battle and other Lewis works
Deceit and Discernment
“The Head Squirrel plucked up courage to say: “Please, would Aslan himself speak to us about it? If we might be allowed to see him — ” “Well you won’t,” said the Ape. “He may be very kind (though it’s a lot more than most of you deserve) and come out for a few minutes tonight. Then you can all have a look at him. But he will not have you all crowding round him and pestering him with questions…Then a deep voice — it belonged to a great tusked and shaggy Boar — spoke from another part of the crowd. “But why can’t we see Aslan properly and talk to him?” it said. “When He used to appear in Narnia in the old days everyone could talk to him face to face.” “Don’t you believe it,” said the Ape. “And even if it was true, times have changed. Aslan says he’s been far too soft with you before, do you see? Well, he isn’t going to be soft any more. He’s going to lick you into shape this time. He’ll teach you to think he’s a tame lion.”
The character of Aslan is at issue. Does he love his creatures? The unanimous witness/remembrance of the Narnians is that Aslan was kind and approachable; this is the TRUTH about Aslan. But note what the Ape says “Even if it was true, times have changed.” In other words, Truth is not immutable but changes with time. The past is not to be trusted; what matters is the present and the future.
Lewis was vehemently opposed to this type of flawed reasoning, which he called chronological snobbery.Reflections from 17th century Puritan scholar and cleric Stephen Charnock from The Existence and Attributes of God on this theme:
Of old you laid the foundation of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands.
They will perish, but you will remain;
they will all wear out like a garment.
You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away,
but you are the same, and your years have no end.
The children of your servants shall dwell secure;
their offspring shall be established before you.
–Psalm 102:25-28
Based on this psalm, Charnock makes the following observations about the immutability of God’s Truth:
“The design of the [psalmist] is to confirm the church in the Truth of the divine promises; that though the foundations of the world should be ripped up, and the heavens clatter together, and the whole fabric of them be unpinned and fall to pieces, the firmest parts of it dissolved; yet the church should continue in its stability, because it stands not upon the changeableness of creatures, but is built upon the immutable rock of the truth of God, which is as little subject to change, as his essence.”
“One of the often-heard objections to faith in Christ is that it is old fashioned or outmoded, a relic of the distant past and therefore easily discarded. After all, what could a two-thousand-year-old faith have to say to us in the twenty-first century? This was one of the obstacles that C.S. Lewis had to overcome in order to come to faith in Christ. He dubs the problem as one of “chronological snobbery.” His friend Owen Barfield often argued with him on this issue. Lewis’s question was: How could this ancient religion be relevant to my present setting?”
Lewis defines this chronological snobbery as
“the uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate of our own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that count discredited.”
“Lewis eventually came to understand the need to ask further questions such as:
Why did this idea go out of date?
Was it ever refuted?
If so, by whom, where, and how conclusively?
“In other words, you need to determine if an old idea is false before you reject it; we would not want to say that everything believed in an ancient culture was false. Which things are false—and why—and which things remain true?” –Dr. Arthur Lindsley, C.S. Lewis Institute
Throughout his Christian works, Lewis emphasizes how vital it is that we practice discernment based on the Truth of Scripture and God’s Kingdom, rather than succumbing to the Spirit of the Age. As pastor and scholar John MacArthur puts it:
“In its simplest definition, discernment is nothing more than the ability to decide between truth and error, right and wrong. Discernment is the process of making careful distinctions in our thinking about truth. In other words, the ability to think with discernment is synonymous with an ability to think biblically. I Thessalonians 5:21-22 teaches that it is the responsibility of every Christian to be discerning: “But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil.” The apostle John issues a similar warning when he says, “Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”
“The key to living an uncompromising life lies in one’s ability to exercise discernment in every area of his or her life. For example, failure to distinguish between truth and error leaves the Christian subject to all manner of false teaching. False teaching then leads to an unbiblical mindset, which results in unfruitful and disobedient living—a certain recipe for compromise.”
The ONLY way we can hope to exercise discernment is to know the Scriptures and how the Church has understood them and to sit under sound teaching, refusing to be led astray by false teachers like the Ape in the story.
In Mere Christianity, Lewis responds to those who object and say surely it would be a mistake for we modern folk to advocate “turning back the clock” with these words:
“… as to putting the clock back, would you think I was joking if I said that you can put a clock back, and thatif the clock is wrong it is often a very sensible thing to do? But I would rather get away from that whole idea of clocks.
“We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be and if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road,progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case, the man whoturns back soonest is the most progressive man. We have all seen this when we do arithmetic. When I havestarted a sum the wrong way, the sooner I admit this and go back and start over again, the faster I shallget on. There is nothing progressive about being pigheaded and refusing to admit a mistake.
“And Ithink if you look at the present state of the world, it is pretty plain that humanity has been making some bigmistakes. We are on the wrong road. And if that is so, we must go back. Going back is the quickest way on.”
THE SECOND COMING
William Butler Yeats (1919)
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?Deeper Dive
Pride, Objective Reality, and the Uniqueness of Man Made in God’s Image
“And now there’s another thing you got to learn,” said the Ape. “I hear some of you are saying I’m an Ape. Well, I’m not. I’m a Man. If I look like an Ape, that’s because I’m so very old: hundreds and hundreds of years old. And it’s because I’m so old that I’m so wise. And it’s because I’m so wise that I’m the only one Aslan is ever going to speak to. He can’t be bothered talking to a lot of stupid animals. He’ll tell me what you’ve got to do, and I’ll tell the rest of you. And take my advice, and see you do it in double quick time, for He doesn’t mean to stand any nonsense.”
Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. Prov. 16:18 Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the Lord; be assured, he will not go unpunished. Prov. 16:5 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. Rom. 12:3 After the Lord had spoken these words to Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite: “My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. Job 42:7 Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves Matt. 7:15 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. Ps. 8:5-8 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, to rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, and over all the earth itself and every creature that crawls upon it. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Gen. 1:26-27PRIDE: “I hear some of you are saying I’m an Ape. Well, I’m not. I’m a Man.”
“And it’s because I’m so wise that I’m the only one Aslan is ever going to speak to. He can’t be bothered talking to a lot of stupid animals.”
From Mere Christianity, Book 3, Chapter 8: The Great Sin: “Today I come to that part of Christian morals where they differ most sharply from all other morals. There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves. The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility. When I was talking about sexual morality, I warned you that the centre of Christian morals did not lie there.
The center of Christian morality According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere flea bites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind…Now what you want to get clear is that Pride is essentially competitive by its very nature—while the other vices are competitive only by accident Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others. Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone…Pride is essentially competitive in a way the other vices are not.
Enmity Pride always means enmity—it is enmity. And not only enmity between man and man, but enmity to God. In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that—and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison— you do not know God at all. As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you. How is it that people who are quite obviously eaten up with Pride can say they believe in God and appear to themselves very religious? I am afraid it means they are worshipping an imaginary God.
From Mere Christianity (continued)
“I never knew you”
“Whenever we find that our religious life is making us feel that we are good—above all, that we are better than someone else—I think we may be sure that we are being acted on, not by God, but by the devil. The real test of being in the presence of God is that you either forget about yourself altogether or see yourself as a small, dirty object. It is better to forget about yourself altogether. For Pride is spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense.”
Wrong image of Humility
“Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call “humble” nowadays: he will not be a sort of greasy, smarmy person, who is always telling you that, of course, he is nobody. Probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him. If you do dislike him it will be because you feel a little envious of anyone who seems to enjoy life so easily. He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all. If anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think, tell him the first step. The first step is to realise that one is proud. And a biggish step, too. At least, nothing whatever can be done before it.”
IMPLICATIONS
1. Understand what Pride is, as our narcissistic culture blinds us Definition of Pride (Hubris): dangerously corrupt selfishness, the putting of one’s own desires, urges, wants, and whims before the welfare of other people; irrationally believing that one is essentially and necessarily better, superior, or more important than others, failing to acknowledge the accomplishments of others. Dante’s definition of pride was “love of self perverted to hatred and contempt for one’s neighbour.”
2. Beware of Pride–the example of the PhariseesJesus also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ (Luke 19) God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. (James 4:6)
3. Cultivate Gospel self-forgetfulness, a servant heart, and empathy Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Philippians 2
And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Mark 10
Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another fervently from a pure heart I Peter 1:22
Ferventlyhaving or displaying a passionate intensity. Ardent, intense, zealous, hot, burning, wholehearted.
OBJECTIVE REALITY AND THE UNIQUENESS OF MAN MADE IN GOD’S IMAGE
“There! You see!” said the Ape. “It’s all arranged. And all for your own good. We’ll be able, with the money you earn, to make Narnia a country worth living in. There’ll be oranges and bananas pouring in — and roads and big cities and schools and offices and whips and muzzles and saddles and cages and kennels and prisons — Oh, everything.” “But we don’t want all those things,” said an old Bear. “We want to be free. And we want to hear Aslan speak himself.” “Now don’t you start arguing,” said the Ape, “for it’s a thing I won’t stand. I’m a Man: you’re only a fat, stupid old Bear. What do you know about freedom? You think freedom means doing what you like. Well, you’re wrong. That isn’t true freedom. True freedom means doing what I tell you.” “H-n-n-h,” grunted the Bear and scratched its head; it found this sort of thing hard to understand.
For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God Romans 8:20-21 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Galatians 5:1 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell. Matthew 5:22
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.—C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock
OBJECTIVE REALITY AND THE UNIQUENESS OF MAN MADE IN GOD’S IMAGE
The Ape is clearly NOT a Man, yet he continues to insist he is and that he deserves special treatment as a result—denying Objective Reality.
In February 1943, Lewis delivered three scholarly lectures at an academic conference on philosophy that were later published under the title The Abolition of Man, which Lewis considered to be perhaps his most important work. The three lectures Lewis delivered were titled as follows:
– “Men without Chests” (the importance of objective values and the poison of subjectivism),
–“The Way” (why the Tao, or Natural Law, is the sole source of all value judgments), and
–“The Abolition of Man” (to “see through” all things is not to see at all)
corresponding to the chapters in the published text.
Rev. Dr. Michael Ward in After Humanity, which is a guide to The Abolition of Man: “In this enduringly influential book, Lewis defends the objectivity of value, pointing to the universal moral ecology that all great philosophical and religious traditions have acknowledged as self-evident. Though Lewis writes as an apologist for Christianity in many of his other works, he here constructs his argument on purely philosophical grounds, making an anthropological claim, not advancing a theological case. Objective value, he maintains, is humanity’s ethical inheritance, which we can extend and develop but may not properly escape. Insofar as we try to deny or subvert this way of being moral, we make ourselves (and those whom we raise or teach or otherwise influence) essentially less than human. We produce ‘men without chests,’ or in other words, people who have no stable heart, no reliable capacity to liaise between intellect and appetite, no ability to distinguish between what is good in itself and what is good for them. Right thus dissolves into might, and sheer willpower takes the place of reason. The result is the erasure of our own true identity, ‘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.”
The Objective Room in That Hideous Strength:
“And day by day, as the process went on, that idea of the Straight or the Normal which had occurred to him during his first visit to this room, grew stronger and more solid in his mind till it had become a kind of mountain. He had never before known what an Idea meant: he had always thought till now that they were things inside one’s own head. But now, when his head was continually attacked and often completely filled with the clinging corruption of the training, this Idea towered up above him — something which obviously existed quite independently of himself and had hard rock surfaces which would not give, surfaces he could cling to.”
Selling your birthright for a mess of pottage
