The Golden Compass by, C.S. Lewis

I went to see the Golden Compass yesterday, as I said I would.  I thought it was a good movie overall and I expect that the book is much better.  It did suffer from what I call Lord of the Rings syndrome,or LOTRS for short.  LOTRS occurs when a production team attempts to fit a long and complex story into a movie.  The LOTR all told, was at least nine hours long and an incredible movie but it did not do the story justice at all.  It was like a condensed children’s version of the story but, to do it right they would have had to at least double the length.  No one wants to sit through that so, they did the best they could.  I suspect the Golden Compassis the same way, though I still have not read it.  They had to tell the story, introduce the audience to a foreign universe, introduce new characters, and get the audience emotionally invested in the characters’ individual plights all in less than two hours.  Still it is more than worth the price of a movie ticket.  The polar bear fight is worth the price of a movie ticket. 

So what is my fundamentalist Christian take on the movie?  Well, one of the primary reasons I wanted to see the movie was to see if they could make a entertaining good v. evil story, without it being an allegory for Christ.  They could not.  I think this is telling.  It was (and is, it is a trilogy so the story is not over) a beautiful messiah narrative.  The Christian undertones where at least as strong as the Chronicles of Narnia. C.S. Lewis would have been proud to call it his own. 

I find it interesting that the Magisterium, the organization that represents the church or religion and evil looks more like a secular anti-religious organization than a church.  The truththat the Magisterium is attempting to stamp out is a world filled with the supernatural and the mystical.  The most poignant example of this is the daemons.  In Pullman’s universe, the souls of humans walk beside them at all times in the form of animals, known as daemons.  They are like the person’s spirit.  They are part of what makes a person who they are.  The Magisterium preforms experiments to deprive children of their daemons, that is their souls.  So, the Magisterium is working to rid the world of the spiritual.  That does not sound like any religion that I know of. 

The heroes of the story are attempting to preserve the truth and the villains are persecuting them, in an attempt to smother the truth.  This is exactly the story of the early church and persecution by the Roman Empire and others.  It is the story of the protestant revolution and persecution by the Vatican.  It is a Christian story. 

I still await the day when some one will have the creativity to make a good and evil story with out paralleling reality. 

See also my previous post on the Golden Compass, The Compass and the Cross

The Barnyard Dialogues: Explained, Evil is the Problem

I hope you have enjoyed reading my previous two posts entitled, The Barnyard Dialogues, “Part I, Two Chickens Take on the Problem of Evil” and “Part II, Two Chickens Take another Swipe at the Problem of Evil.”  .  If you have not then, click the links and enjoy them. 

If you have read them then I’m sure you are aware that they are written as satire and not merely for entertainment value.  I want to present here a partial explanation of what was meant by the stories.  I want to say here, what I meant to say there, only this time without any talking chickens.  So here goes.

As the subtitles say, the story is about the problem of evil.  For those of you who are not familiar with the problem of evil, I have placed the “Logical Problem of Evil” below.  It is taken from Wikipedia.

Logical problem of evil

1. God exists. (premise)
2. God is omnipotent and omniscient. (premise — or true by definition of the word “God”)
3. God is all-benevolent. (premise — or true by definition)
4. All-benevolent beings are opposed to all evil. (premise — or true by definition)
5. All-benevolent beings who can eliminate evil will do so immediately when they become aware of it. (premise)
6. God is opposed to all evil. (conclusion from 3 and 4)
7. God can eliminate evil completely and immediately. (conclusion from 2)
   1. Whatever the end result of suffering is, God can bring it about by ways that do not include suffering. (conclusion from 2)
   2. God has no reason not to eliminate evil. (conclusion from 7.1)
   3. God has no reason not to act immediately. (conclusion from 5)
8. God will eliminate evil completely and immediately. (conclusion from 6, 7.2 and 7.3)
9. Evil exists, has existed, and probably will always exist. (premise)
10. Items 8 and 9 are contradictory; therefore, one or more of the premises is false: either God does not exist, evil does not exist, or God is not simultaneously omnipotent, omniscient, and all-benevolent (i.e. God is omnipotent and omniscient but not all-benevolent, omnipotent and all-benevolent but not omniscient, or omniscient and all-benevolent but not omnipotent).

To be simplistic and brief, the problem of evil says that a good god and evil cannot co-exist, therefore one or the other must not exist.  Because most people have experienced evil in some form, it is used to make a case against the existence of god.  A solution to the problem of evil is called a “theodicy”.  Though many different theodicies exist, what I have tried to demonstrate through the Barnyard Dialogues is a particular theodicy based on semantics.  I suspect that others have noticed it before me and, I believe that this should only lend credence to it.  I will explain it below.

Evil is not an entity that exists on its own merit.  Evil exists as a parasite to good.  In the absolute absence of good there could be no evil.  The opposite is not true, good does not require evil in order to be good.  Something is good when it fulfills the purpose it was meant to serve.  Something lacks goodness when it fails to fulfill the purpose it was meant for.  Something is evil when it fulfills a purpose contrary to what it was meant for.  Therefore, having a good purpose is a prerequisite for being evil. 

So in order to call something evil someone, must first give it a purpose for it to pervert.  So Evil must be defined in relation to somebody.  The vast majority of the time evil is defined in relation to either man or to God. 

In the first illustration with the chickens, Clare defines Evil (missing eggs) by chickens (man).  She then comes to the conclusion that because evil exists, the farmer (God) must not.  She sees this as a mistake when she learns that the farmer is the one taking the eggs for his own good purpose.  In the Problem of Evil, it is a mistake to define evil on man’s terms and then apply it to God.  God is by definition a greater being than man, just as the farmer in the story, is a greater being than the chickens. 

In Part II, Clare defines evil in terms of the farmer (God) but this also is a mistake as it presupposes that the farmer does in fact exist.  If evil as defined by God exists then, God must exist.  If God does not exist, then neither does evil as defined by God and the whole argument falls apart as, evil must exist in order to be a problem. 

It seems to me that the problem of evil is that it cannot be defined in terms that would cast doubt on the existence of God. 

The Barnyard Dialogues: Part II, Two Chickens Take another Swipe at the Problem of Evil

Click for Barnyard Dialogues Part 1 

The Scene: Two Chickens in nesting boxes at night.

Clare: You still awake, Marsha?

Marsha:

Clare: Marsha!

Marsha: Hu! What?

Clare: I’ve been doing some figuring again

Marsha: The kind you do with your toes, or the kind you do with your brain?

Clare: The brain kind.

Marsha: Clare, the last time you did brain figures, you set my rheumatoids off into a scuttle and I laid pear shaped eggs for three weeks!  Besides, I talked to Herman the Goat, and he told me all about the eggs.

Clare: You spoke with Herman the Goat?  What did he say?

Marsha: He said that you’re just an afarmerist and he’s seen your kind before.  And he told me what really happens to our eggs.

Clare: Well out with it!  What did he say?

Marsha: Well, you’re not going to believe this but… I didn’t believe it either when Herman the Goat first told me but…

Clare: Marsha!

Marsha: OK. Herman the Goat said that what really happens to the eggs is that… that the farmer takes em!

Clare: What?!  What would the farmer want with our eggs?

Marsha: He takes them in the house so that his wife can sit on them.  Herman the Goat says that she can’t lay eggs.  It has something to do with the blue jean overalls getting the way, but he reckons that a woman of her girth could sit on at least three dozen at a time!

Clare: Well I’ll be!  If I had teeth, I’d whistle through em!  How did Herman the Goat get to be so smart?

Marsha: The beard and the trash.

Clare: What?

Marsha:Its the beard and the trash.  That’s what makes him so smart.  Just think about it for a second.  The beard is what Herman the Goat has that no other animal has.

Clare: Hmmm.  Makes sense, but what about the trash?

Marsha: Well, important documents and manuscripts and such get put in the trash.  Herman the Goat, he eats the trash, see?  Well when he finds an important manuscript, he doesn’t eat it straight away. 

Clare: He doesn’t?

Marsha: Nope, he reads it first.  Then he eats it.

Clare: He never ceases to amaze.

Marsha: And you know the farmer’s wife tells him important stuff too.  Just the other day, she had to tell him something so important that she yelled it out the kitchen window instead of walking outside to tell him.

Clare: What was it?

Marsha: “Herman, zen tha turn up patcha gin!”  And do you know what he did?

Clare: What?

Marsha: He kicked up his hoofs and ran off as fast as he could to take care of whatever emergency it was that she told him about!

Clare: What a trooper!

Marsha: So, the point is that, the farmer takes the eggs so that his wife can sit on them.  That is not evil and, that should be the end of your nonsense about the farmer not existing.

 Clare: Oh, but that is what I was going to tell you.

Marsha: What?

Clare: I have another theory about the farmer.  This one has nothing to do with eggs.

Marsha: What is it this time?

Clare: Its Old Stella.

Marsha: What about her?

Clare: Well, didn’t you hear?

Marsha: No?  I don’t think so?

Clare: She finally kicked the bucket!

Marsha: No! You don’t say!

Clare: Yep, she just up and keeled over, by the windmill yesterday mornin’.

Marsha: Was it the droppsies?

Clare: I heard it was cold feet, but of course I can’t be sure.

Marsha: Well that’s a shame.  She was a good hen.

Clare: That’s my point.

Marsha: What’s your point?

Clare: That she was a good hen.  She was a prize layer.  The farmer paid sixteen dollars for her at the fair.

Marsha: Sixteen!

Clare: Yes, sixteen.  Least-ways, that’s what Thelma told me.  So, my theory about the farmer and the eggs didn’t work…

Marsha: No, it sure didn’t.  The farmer exists and he is the one taking the eggs, so its not an evil after all.

Clare: Well I’m still not convinced.

Marsha: Oh Clare!  Give it a rest!

Clare: Just hear me out.

Marsha: Remember my rheumatoids.

Clare: The farmer needs chickens, right?  Its part of being a farmer, right?

Marsha: Makes sense.

Clare: So, Old Stella, being what she is…

Marsha: MmmmHmmm.

Clare: Well that’s an evil that even the farmer would see.  He’s out sixteen dollars!  He’s got to replace Stella!

Marsha: Clare, I’m starting to get goose-pimply again.

Clare:  How could the farmer allow such a thing to happen?

Marsha: Clare.

Clare: The farmer cannot exist!

Marsha: Clare!

Clare: At last! I have proved it!

Marsha: Oh oh! I just don’t know what to think!  Now you’ve got me thinking like an afarmerist!

Clare: Yeah?  How’s it feel?

Marsha:  Oh, My feathers are all in a tizzle!  I need to talk to Herman the Goat about this.  I’m sure he’s got an expla —Ploop— You’ve made me go and lay an egg!

Clare: Is it pear-shaped?

Marsha: No. Its more like a potato! 

Clare: Well, the truth can be difficult to swallow at first. 

The Barnyard Dialogues: Part I, Two Chickens Take on the Problem of Evil

The scene: Two chickens (hens) in a barnyard, early one morning, happily pecking away at grain and grasshoppers.

Clare: (pausing from pecking) Marsha,?

Marsha: –Peck, peck– Yes, Clare? What is it?

Clare: I’ve been doing some figuring, and…

Marsha: (Interrupting) Do you count with you back toes too?

 Clare: What?

Marsha: When doin your figures…do you count on your back toes or just the front three?

Clare: No. No. Not that kind of figuring.  I mean, I’ve been thinking about something.

Marsha: Well –Peck– do you?  Use your back toe, I mean.

Clare: Well…I, only when the numbers are greater than six.  But that’s not what I was talking about.  I was thinking about our eggs.

 Marsha: What about them?

Clare: They were gone again last night, when we went back into the barn.

Marsha: Well, so –peck, peck– what?  They’re gone every night.

Clare: Yes, that’s just it.  We spend all night laying eggs and sitting on them and the next night they are gone again! 

Marsha: Clare Honey, you have a brain smaller than a shelled pecan.  Leave the thinking to the goats, and use your back toes when doin your figures. 

Clare: No.  Don’t you see what I’m getting at?

Marsha: I see what you’re not getting at.  Grasshoppers, that’s what.

Clare:  The farmer.  I’m getting at the farmer!

Marsha: Where is the farmer any way? –peck–

Clare: Oh, I think he’s in the barn, cleaning out our nesting boxes.  But, what I was saying was… The farmer is good right?

Marsha: There’s one!

Clare: (turning quickly) –Peck– mmmm… thanks, Marsha. –Gulp-… So the farmer is good, right?  I mean he gives us cracked corn, he cleans out our nesting boxes, he keeps the fox away…

Marsha: Yeah?

Clare: And, he is powerful.  No one else can drive the tractor, or get cracked corn.

Marsha: –Peck– Or –peck– kill snakes.

Clare: The dog killed a snake, last April.

Marsha: That’s true.

Clare: But, the dog works for the farmer, so that still counts.

Marsha: Good, I thought so.

Clare: So the farmer is good and he can do all these things.  Why doesn’t he save our eggs!

Marsha: What!?

Clare: He is good, so he wants to save our eggs.

Marsha: Well, yeah.

Clare: And, he should be able to.  After all, if he can drive a tractor and kill snakes then surely he can save our eggs!

Marsha: So what exactly are you getting at?

Clare: Well what I was thinkin was that maybe, the farmer doesn’t exist at all.

Marsha: Oh, Clare! shhh.  Sit down. You are giving me the heebie-jeebies!  Of course the farmer exists, he is in the barn right now!  I told you to leave the thinking to the goats.

Clare:  Maybe we just think he exists.  Maybe our primitive ancestors made up the farmer to explain where the cracked corn comes from.  All this time we have been deceiving ourselves into thinking we see the farmer when in reality he does not exist at all! 

Marsha: Oh, oh, I just don’t know what to think of all this!  You’ve made me goose-pimply all over and made my feathers stand on end! 

Clare: You said it yourself, we have brains the size of a shelled pecan.  We have been deceived all this time! 

Marsha:  I said you had a brain smaller than a shelled pecan, and I’m sure of it now!

Clare: (gazing up) I feel as if I have broken through a glass ceiling and a new age has begun! -peck-

Barnyard Dialogues Part II

The Compass and the Cross

The movie dreaded by all good gentiles, “The Golden Compass” is set to come out on December 7th.  It has caused a lot of commotion, especially in Christian circles.  The controversy has centered around the story being inherently anti-Christian.  The author, Philip Pullman has been called the anti-C.S. Lewis and his fantasy trilogy, “His Dark Materials” the anti-Chronicles of Narnia.”  “The Golden Compass” is the first book in the series and has just been made into a full length film, complete with big name stars and a 150-million dollar budget. 

So what is the big deal?  To start with, Philip Pullman is an outspoken atheist and has called the “Chronicles of Narnia” “religious propaganda.”  In “His Dark Materials” the “Church” is an evil entity bent on controlling everything and “Christianity” is also spoken of as an evil.  (I should note at this point that I have neither seen the movie nor read the books, so I have no first-hand knowledge of it.  I know, I know, I was as surprised as you are that the author of “UnderAgeThinker” was not invited to any special screening but I wasn’t and there is nothing that I can do about it.  I’m not going to beg.)  So with the church and Christianity as the bad guys it was obviously not written to be pro-Christian and I think it is safe to say, was meant to be anti-Christian.  I can’t wait to see it.  I am a Christian, by the way. 

Why, you ask, would I want do watch such a thing?  Because I have a sneaking suspicion that even a leader of the atheist community will not be able to write a good epic story with out paralleling the epic of the Bible (plus the trailer looks great.) Every great epic that I know of has done so.  They wouldn’t be great stories otherwise.  They speak to us because they are what we long for.  The late Dr. Joseph Campbell articulated this point in his book “The Hero with a Thousand Faces.”  Every great epic, from the “Iliad” to “Star Wars” has carried with it Christian undertones because it is these very undertones that make a story great. 

My prediction is that this atheist Chronicles of Narnia will have one or more Christ figures who will be called to action on behalf of the good or just.  They will face off against one or more Satan figures (though they may be called the Church or Christianity).  The Christ figures will have the guidance of some mentor along the way, but at some point they must stop relying on the mentor.  They will be tempted away from their calling.  They will be dealt some defeats.  They will resolve to do right whatever to cost.  Evil will seek to dominate through oppression, it will seek to take from others.  Good, the Christ figures, will triumph over evil by making a great, noble, and voluntary sacrifice for others, that is they will triumph by giving of themselves for others.  In short, I expect it to be a perfect allegory for Christianity. 

Now all that said, I still do believe it could be a dangerous movie and have detrimental as well as good effects.  This is because the church is the bad guy and will surely be portrayed in a negative light and one that is not representative of what the body of Christ is or should be.  Many people who know no better could be swayed into believing that the church is malicious.  So I would advise caution towards this movie especially when children are concerned, but I do not think there should be anything like a mass boycott or protests, these things only feed the stereotype of Christians that this movie is sure to promote.   Instead point out the parallels between the Christ figure and the figure of Christ. 

Be sure to check out my latter article on The Golden Compass, The Golden Compass by, C.S. Lewis.