Wallis said:
It may well be that Lewis believed in angels and demons; I have nothing at hand to support either side of the arguement/discussion.
I find this an astonishing assertion regarding the author of
The Screwtape Letters,
Perelandara, and
That Hideous Strength. In the introduction to
Screwtape, he explicitly discusses that the Enemy has generally followed two strategies throughout history: either getting people to focus too much on him, or to ignore him altogether. Lewis held that our current age was one that fell into the latter error, but he was unswerving in his belief in spiritual beings, both benevolent and malevolent. Nobody who knows his work could honestly come away with any other conclusion.
Wallis said:
As one who disregards the mythological aspect of angels and demons, I look at the world, its history, and the Last Battle in a context where we humans struggle within ourselves as to whom we are going to accept as God: Christ or ourselves.
I think you're missing the point, Wallis - the issue is not whether you regard or disregard angels or demons, but whether they objectively exist. If they do, then your disregard will not make them go away; if they do not, my belief in them will not create them.
Wallis said:
Tash, to me, represents the Old Adamic nature that is always at war with the New Adam. Paul, in his Hellenic tradition and nature, compared it with the spirit wrestling with the flesh. Tash is as inexorable (Not capable of being persuaded by entreaty; relentless) as we cannot shed the human (or animal, in some cases) nature from our being.
From a perspective on the spiritual side, we are in constant battle against our human nature in trying to be living Christs while in the flesh. The Tash represents those desires that originate in the flesh (human nature), and these desires become the objects that we begin to worship. In simple terms, we could quote "power, wealth, beauty" as just the tip of the iceberg. But in more subtle terms, we need to add "self-esteem, admiration, well-being" and many other ME-centered desires that are a part of our make-up.
The classic Christian view is that we fight three enemies during our earthly struggle: the World, the Flesh, and the Devil. It seems to me that you're confusing two of them: the Devil and the Flesh (i.e. concupiscence, the weakness and propensity to evil which is the consequence of Original Sin, even after it is removed.) Tash is clearly an external malevolent being - even if one disregards him.
Wallis said:
In response to your second point, I will admit up front that I might be a bit facetious in my response. I feel that the "first joke" was already indicative of human nature entering into the world of Narnia. It didn't really need a Jadis or a "fallen" human or any spirit of evil to enter into the world. Narnia was not created as perfect as we would like to think but with all of the foibles of every other world created in the real world and otherwise.
Tash is not necessarily an offshoot of Jadis and her ilk but a personification of the imperfectness of human nature, even as portrayed in animal and mythologic form.
Again, I'm astonished that you could get that out of the text. The "first joke" was an expression of the ability to speak and to love - a mark of the image of God in the selected creatures (who were not even human, so how could they have "human" natures?) It was Aslan who said to Digory that His new world was not hours old yet already evil had entered into it - in the person of Jadis. The clear message is that Narnia
was pure, virgin, clean of sin. Lewis proposes the same thing in
Perelandara - an unfallen world, until it is literally invaded by an evil man who acts as a bridge for an even worse spirit. You're assuming that evil is innate to human nauture, not something external. This defies Christian orthodoxy and much of what Lewis wrote.
Wallis said:
I believe there is an absence of Aslan ever having mentioned Tash, as much as there is an absence in the Old Testament of God talking about the other gods that are worshipped. There should be a great significance in this absence.
Dead wrong on both counts. Aslan discusses Tash directly and pointedly with the young Calormene officer Emeth when He explains why Emeth's service, which he thought was to Tash, was in fact to Aslan. Furthermore, God extensively discusses false gods, directly and by name, throughout the OT. Here are a few samples:
- Lev 18:21: You shall not give any of your children to devote them by fire to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the LORD.
- Lev 20:3: I myself will set my face against that man, and will cut him off from among his people, because he has given one of his children to Molech, defiling my sanctuary and profaning my holy name.
- Is 57:9: You journeyed to Molech with oil and multiplied your perfumes; you sent your envoys far off, and sent down even to Sheol.
- Jer 32:35: They built the high places of Ba'al in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to offer up their sons and daughters to Molech, though I did not command them, nor did it enter into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.
- Jer 48:7,13: For, because you trusted in your strongholds and your treasures, you also shall be taken; and Chemosh shall go forth into exile, with his priests and his princes... Then Moab shall be ashamed of Chemosh, as the house of Israel was ashamed of Bethel, their confidence.
Wallis said:
If we all speak with one voice: "there is One God!", then any reference to other gods by the One God would create the impression that there are many gods who all operate at the same level. I believe Aslan, like Christ, recognizes that people set up their own false gods within their own framework and view of the world, and it is this battle that we must fight on a minute-by-minute basis to reject all other gods.
The wages of sin is death. The sin against the Holy Spirit is the one unforgiveable sin. Thus, Tash's rightful prey is none other than the person who gives his/her entire being to his/her gods and rejects the Truth, the Life, and the Way. In my opinion, it is not God who damns but our own human nature that leads right down that path into hell, however you want to define the term.
While it is certainly true that we must fight our own tendency to idolatry, particularly self-idolatry, that is far from the only enemy we fight. To ignore the clear Word of God in this struggle is to set ourselves up to be assaulted on unguarded walls.
Wallis said:
Contrary to most posters here in this forum, I do not look at the Calormenes as being a distinct people (e.g., Moslem, Arabians, et al). I view the Calormenes as being all of the people inhabiting the Earth, and they represent the anti-Christ nature of our human nature. They glorify the physical world. They adorn themselves with pride as well as rich clothes. They blind themselves to a philosophy of the real world that refuses to include the glory of Christ and the Kingdom of God brought to Earth.
You are certainly right in that the Calormenes are all those things, but what is to prevent them from also being a separate race?
Wallis said:
In conclusion, I don't feel that Tash came to Narnia. He was part and parcel to Narnia upon its creation, especially with the creation of all creatures and imparting some of those with sentience and a soul, if you will.
My conclusion regarding your conclusion is that you brought a lot of assumptions to the text which seem to have blinded you not only to the immediate meaning but to much of the deeper meaning as well. For my part, I have no difficulty believing the mythology of demons and angels, as Lewis defined mythology - a story that means more than it says. Even as the beings in Perelandara were both real and mythological at the same time, so beings in our world - and Narnia - can be both symbolic and real. Lewis's work, the Scriptures he believed in, and the clear teaching of the Church are all in agreement: there are malevolent spiritual forces that are distinct and separate from the sinful tendencies of our fallen natures. Yes, there is an internal struggle, but there is an external one, too, as St. Paul makes clear in Ephesians 6:12:
For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
You may contend that you have a right to your opinion, which may be true, but I also have a right to believe my automobile runs on homogenized milk - if I want to live with the consequences of that decision. I defy you to find any reference to Tash at the creation of Narnia, or any other reference to his presence in Narnia before the closing chapters of
Last Battle - and by "reference", I mean actual text, not some sort of isogetic reading whereby you project your own presuppostitions onto what is plainly there.
