Lewis and Tolkien: G.K. Chesterton, Myth, and the Imagination

now that's the end of the history lesson why did we go through all this part of it is because we have to understand the context before we get into the the books themselves and that's that's where we're going to be going from here is the books who was tolking who was Louis we're gonna look at a little bit their biographies but we're going to be diving direct directly into the fiction and to the themes but before we go there I want to talk a bit about G K Chesterton in this book orthodoxy because the orthodoxy component of this course of the reading is I've said before it's the missing link it's it's the it's the it's the move that actually gives I put it this way orthodoxy by G K Chesterton is the philosophy of the fiction that Lewis and Tolkien write which is why I had to assign it because what what Chesterton does in a very winsome readable witty kind of way is he says let me tell you why the imagination and the Christian worldview is better than the one that you have concocted in this modern world and it is really it's an apologetics work and I here's a veil I have found I have hated that book to some Christians certain non-christians and had a had a really interesting positive response it's one of those kinds of books you could you have to have to use wisdom you have to know when to give it to certain people but I but but the way he writes in the way he describes the rationalism of our world actually has broken people out sometimes of that syndrome and what Chesterton goes through it I'm going to focus on real to really two elements of it he focuses first on the diagnosis of this modern world and they talks about the imagination as the cure for it now the diagnosis the chested engaged I think is phenomenally important his analogy that he uses of someone who has sort of pinned themselves in with his rationalism as he calls him a lunatic and it's actually a brilliant brilliant analysis because what he says is he says the problem with the rational world right now is it's just believe in yourself and we've all heard this of course repeatedly even down to until today it's just believe in yourself believe in yourself in Chesterton says if you want to find someone who believes in himself the most go to the lunatic asylum he says because the lunatic has nothing but himself that he believes in he has wrapped his mind up into some madness where only what he has told himself is believable and again he's being a bit coy here he's being you know humorous but what he says is he says if you go to a madman who thinks that everyone out there in the world is out to get him they have some sort of psychological problem leaving aside chemical problems or or mental defects physical problems that someone has sort of mentally logically gotten themselves crazy what Chesterton says is if someone says let's say I believe everyone in this room is out to get me what Chesterton says is the problem with that lunatic is he believes himself to such an extent that even if the entire room says oh we're not well I being the lunatic will say well that's just what you would say if you're a lot to get me that there is there's absolutely no other words there's every bit of data you give me I just pushed through my grid because I have convinced myself of what is true and I have built up my own individualism and he just crushes this and the way he plays again it's it's funny but if he says its belief that you were superior simply because you're individualistic means that you're essentially in this lunatic asylum and he says he says the the great deal about Christianity is it doesn't ask you to be all on your own in fact it says that to be all on your own is what we traditionally used to call heresy the heretic wants to be on his own the Christian wants to understand what the faith of the Saints and the Apostles that was handed down was in Chesterton talks about for example how the Christians have voted with their gravestones the things they died for the things we care about that they have they had that because we were part of one church not just temporally now but throughout time and space that we actually care what our forefathers and foremothers did and died it did and believed and died for what their what the world was what the church was and so Chesterton is going to if you haven't ready yet you know if it again if you get a little sour on the fiction you want you if that's if that's not ringing your bell go to Chesterton it will then go back to the fiction later but Chesterton will give you again the philosophy behind the fiction because he so in other words the diagnosis Chesterton gives is the is that the enlightenment world is not expanding its diminishing Louis I think takes that full stop from from Chesterton so that's that's the diagnosis what's the cure well there's one chapter in the book or ethics orthodoxy called the ethics of Elfland and again if you if you're if you're a little if you're a little curious why elves and dwarves matter in the in these fiction works or why these magical worlds are somehow important it's that chapter I think that will that'll sort of click it together for you because what he says is that the imagination is not the thing that kills knowledge or truth rather it's the thing that floats it and carries it sometimes and what he's exploring is the idea that we are fully created beings that God gave us imaginative minds as well as rational minds and so in other words imagination is not a flight of fancy it's not taking us away from the real world what Chesterton says is what our imaginations do is it shows us how much our pure rationalism is is bogus because find someone who thinks they're purely rational and you will also find the same person having imaginative flights of fancy that they actually still have an imaginative sort of colorful world around them and a later apologists in the 20th century a theologian used to say that the Atheist is the child sitting on their father's lap slapping him in the face and what's ironic about that is that he says is that you couldn't even reach your father's face if you weren't already sitting in his lap that in other words it he says you you couldn't attempt to be rational if you weren't already part of the image of God you couldn't try to cut God out of that out of the picture of everything if he hadn't already created you and giving you the rational mind to begin with so in other words Christianity is not anti mind anti rational we're just believed Chesterton says that the mind ain't the only thing but there's something else that that we're built for and so therefore the imagination is one of the things that that Chesterton will defend now he goes on to say that we don't simply as Christians believe that the biblical stories are myths now this is an important bit and I'm going to lecture a little bit more on this as we go through but if you're reading through Lewis and Tolkien and if you actually look up I mean in some ways that say don't do this but if you go in Google Lewis heretic or Lewis non-christian or Tolkien pagan all this kind of stuff you'll find innumerable blogs where they call where they sort of say that these guys are non-christians that they hate the Bible that they're Trojan horse the Trojan horses that are trying to make us leave the faith there's a lot of fear based on these guys I'm not really sure where it comes from I've recently on social media I said something about preparing for this class I was commenting on I was studying for it I just got bombarded by somebody I didn't respond to much but he said that Louis he was tell my literally said Louis doesn't believe in the cross he hates Jesus he doesn't believe in the Bible and he thinks everything's a myth that was the response I got and I said it's interesting I just said okay you know what I can't argue 144 characters so I didn't do it but that being said what you end up seeing is you see this concept of myth being talked about I'm going to I'm going to delve into this a little bit more about he to bring it up now what happens to this word is a good example of how Lewis and Tolkien's world is not our own if I were to say that the Bible is a myth you would probably write the president of gordon-conwell and say can you please fire this guy he was called the Bible of myth and that is because the word myth has on two-gun undergone a change over the 20th century and now into the 21st century what used to be said about the word myth is that there was a type of literature that functioned as a myth in other words that their myth is a genre of literature now in other words what that means again that's this element it's clear this is the old concept the old view of the word myth is that it is that there was things that function is a myth what do I mean well a myth in this concept and the older concept is something that has an understanding of especially a worldview you might say in a story form a myth that something that functions as a myth I should say has a worldview it has an understanding of how all things were created it has an understanding of what holds everything together and it has an understanding of right and wrong and the in times what how the world will end so in other words a myth gets something can function as a myth you know you look at pagan resources so if you go and look up some of the Viking Scandinavian myths and read through the elder ADA and the pros Ada and these kinds of things I saw the poetic ADA what you end up finding is that they are myths but they function as a myth they are the Viking attempt to sort of describe their world and their worldview as a whole why is there lighting well Thor is up there you know striking the lightning how does the road created what was created through the the tree egg reversal and all these kinds of levels of planets and all of the the by fast the the big the big bridge that goes from Valhalla down into our world and all this stuff it funks in other words these books function is myth and in Lewis of Tolkien's day there was a lot of discussion about the function of myth right a lot of discussion about how certain texts give us our worldview you might say and so what ends up happening and this is true in particular of Lewis but Lewis started after he converted he started to refer to the Bible the biblical story myth of course this is where people usually lose their mind because they they here in that something else and I'll get to that in just a second but what Louis is saying here is that is he's using the old phraseology this old idea that the Bible is something that that gives us meaning entirely the biblical story it tells us how the world was created it tells us what holds everything together it tells us how to find truth and it tells us how to find Redemption and how all things will be can wrap tup in the end and in the kingdom of Christ but what the interesting thing to Louis adds though is the word true he's saying this biblical story functions as a myth for us it gives us all of the the worldview we need but it's true but notice how it in three or four generations later you read this if people go out with a heretic it's kind of a thing the reason why is because as we've moved into the modern world going the other way myth has been sort of wrapped up with the idea of sociology so mythological studies or the study of different myth traditions ever in this all kinds of stuff on this and we'll go into but it becomes a way of sort of diagnosing sociologically all the different cultures and there was one that's one main guy that does that does this and there's but there's a couple of others and they start Chronicle in all of the ancient pagan world and I start chronicling the modern mythological world and all the different gods and goddesses and different mythological views out there in the world by the end of the 20th century the word myth met fake made-up a completely fictional in all the words that if I said that's just a myth you know we mean we almost mean urban legends almost sort of entirely made up so be careful with this right off the bat because if if you see stuff in Lewis particular or in Chesterton where he talks about the Bible being a myth they are going to this old early 20th century function this idea there in other words they're actually saying something far more profound the biblical story is true myth means it is everything that we wrap our lives around it gives us the perspective on all of this but it's true it's not just a story now the main reason why I will say this the main reason why particularly lewis is going after this is because people forget simple like bolt mom bolt mom was a New Testament scholar and and he gave this word to us in New Testament studies and when she talked about demonizing the bible d mythologizing it and bolt mom very famously one whose book says i cannot walk into a room and flip on a light switch and believe in the world that has angels and demons and heaven and hell a so therefore the goal is to as you read the bible you're supposed to say well okay this is some mythological world way back then what we need to do is d mythologize it which is just another way of saying update it and make it modern and so this d mythologizing movement is exactly what is in bolton wasn't really what lewis is necessarily thinking about but when Lewis is going after this concept of myth what he's doing is he's hammering on the modernism the rationalism he says you guys think you have understood the world because you have this rationalistic system but you have your own mythology there guys you have your own perspective that that gives you meaning in the world and lo so said Christianity is the only true myth it is it functions like a myth but it's true it happened Christ came he died all these things etc well a lot of this comes in tested and when you read orthodoxy you're going to see this the same kind of argument being played out this idea that the biblical worldview is more coherent and more full it has a thicker understanding of theology and philosophy and meaning that any of the rationalism that's out there I but one of my favorite bits is the opening story the opening analogy that the Chesterton uses its gestured to himself for a while was rationalistic and very much done a Christian and what talks about he says he always wishes he'd written he wants to write a story he never does about a man who gets in a boat on English shores and goes off to discover a new world and through a series of storms and winds he ends up landing back in a different part of England but he's unaware that he's landed back on England and so he gets out and he puts a flag down he says alast I've found it but yet he has arrived back home at the very end and for Chesterton that is sort of both the story of his life as well as a story of where he thinks the world ought to go that that that the rational model said I'm going to go discover a whole new planet and then they eventually come back and there they land in as the book title says orthodoxy and Jensen says that's that's him he landed he thought he was planting a flag on an entirely new civilization but in fact he was in Durham or somewhere health something was sure and he just and he realizes then and there that the attempt by some to explain away the Bible is myth or to say that only function is myth ended up leaving people with this sense that actually they had nothing left and so what Chesterton's up saying is that we need to not fight rationalism with rationalism only I think that's a big that's a it's a key thing tickly I think in our world you cannot fight rationalism with rationalism you can be rational with people you know to be irrational but you can't say if someone comes up to you and they say well you know what I've just used my mind in science and I come up with these these conclusions how can you believe in a world with Heaven and Hell and angels and demons you can't say well good let's let's go to the to the science lab and I'll I'll show you the angel did the angel particle or the demon particle you can't actually observe these things so in other words if you try to bring rationalism against rationalism very often you'll find it very frustrating but what toking and Lewis and Chesterton before them say is what you need to do is model true biblical faithfulness and true biblical holistic psychology what do I mean if we are God's image then we have been created with minds with hearts with passions and with imaginations and therefore if you get them to experience that full breadth of what it means to be a human that you'll actually entice them out of their their befuddled rationalism before you'll convince them to come out of it ya know because the good question did they ever handle the transmittal argument or so or some of the other apologetically Riis no those were not yet on the scene I do think that they're anticipating some of them in meaning that some of the yeah some of these arguments about worldview collision this kind of stuff very very much I think is in in their their front view but it's not in their back view yet they have it hasn't yet taken on the the full seriousness that it has now in apologetics but what what lewis are talking and again chester did in particular will say is if you entice them out of their rationalism if you entice them out of their atheism if you show a life that is thicker that is more full that you can actually do sometimes better than if you just sit there and argue with them only notice in the fiction works of lewis and in toking how much they focus on things like eating and drinking laughter sleeping joy life those aren't just prop pieces of a story that they're telling their little shafts of light of joy of God's creation that we all experience a couple weeks ago I actually had an apologetic 'el dinner with a guy who's you know becoming an acquaintance it's a it lasted five hours it was a dinner that but beyond and the guy it was interesting for me because obviously I had been doing a lot of work for this class and a lot of this chesterton stuff was rolling run in my head and the guy kept wanting to do the old classic rationalism with me he kept saying oh look what about science what about this what about that and he just kept expecting me to say well actually I have a formula here that will show you that God is is true X X plus y to the square it equals God or something in this kind of idea and I just said I just said you have a very interesting faith I mean he said I don't have faith is it you absolutely have faith and we started walking through this whole thing and I said you ad accredited Chesterton type stuff with him I said you have locked yourself into this concept that you can figure everything out I said an early part of the dinner he talked to me about how much he loved his wife and how she was a Renaissance woman and all these kinds of things and I said can you rationally explain how you love your wife I said you love your kids I said when you go home and you hug them are you going to tell me that you don't somehow experience something that is beyond this rationalistic system that you have if we started to go through there and I wouldn't I wouldn't fence with him on on the logic side of it but I said I said everything you experience day to day out that gives you joy you know you can't explain on the system that you're telling me is the only answer and what you end up having then is a locked up mental rationalism a sort of holding out all these things until it's personal for you and from there I went into some stuff about you know the Bible just talk about that God loves us in that way that when you hug your wife at night kiss her that that that is actually a biblical concept of love and that was you that when you want actually told him a story I said I'll tell you it now I went on vacation a couple weeks ago and I my daughter is five and a half bless her heart sometimes because she is so passionate inch but she doesn't understand other kids at times you know she's about to start kindergarten she'll get a rude awakening when she meets the the politics of the playground but what is that what happened is is we were we're at this this this pool place that down at the beach we're out in the pool and there was a kid he was a year older than her and he was mean to her I was inside my wife was out with them and it you know it's actually strange because as I may even tell them so right now I feel this the same emotion sort of welling up within me but she comes in to the to the condo just broke him just weeping just cannot believe that this other kid was mad at her and I was telling this this this this atheist the story I said I said I want to tell you right now I literally wanted to go outside and beat up a six-year-old I said I was so like to see your daughter weeping because some of the I said I overkill it's like you know this kids like this doll yeah I said I said obviously I did I didn't say that to my daughter of it I said I said but let's be honest every parent feels that their I will kill that kid and of course I would be the same abuse worse abuse but I said what is that instinct what is it that makes me want to love and defend my precious daughter because someone has done this to her as it is not rationalism there is something else that is going on there there is a defensive fathering instinct in me that is their only because my father has put it in there because I'm the image of God I have these same instincts as part of the created order it's so Chesterton what I mean that's my my story but Chesterton would I would hope find that what I'm saying here is that kind of thing when you dealing with someone who's locked themselves up you don't go in with them and lock yourself in there and say hey let's get out come on wait I'm in here now with you oh rather you stand outside and say don't you want to come out don't you feel locked up in there and when in other words you try to entice them out and it is for that reason again when you read orthodoxy I think this is going to come home to roost for you because what he's saying is is you entice people out you show them a fuller understanding of creation you don't live down to their assumptions of what they have what they think life ought to be like and this is true in culture Wars as well I am NOT opposed to the to the ongoing fights that people have with the sexual revolution and other kinds of things the redefinition of marriage I understand the people want to fight those fights but let's also have good marriages and good love lives and good let the world see us enjoying life as well not for its own sake but for the pleasure of the God who created it for the for the worship in the in the glory of them one of the things that I sometimes pull out of students actually like this is that in Jewish tradition it became very common over the centuries I'm not I'm not sure if it still still this way to pray after the meal it's still the case yeah pray after the meal not before the meal in the idea there is give thanks when you're full not when you're hungry give thanks when you've enjoyed all these things when we even even tasted it don't give thanks when you're hungry anything who eat now I'm getting a little hungry you know this kind of this kind of concept give thanks afterwards other words give thanks for the pleasure of the joy of the food that you've had and the fellowship that you've had it is it is a I think that is a fully biblical concept of creation in the way that we ought to entice the world out of out of their sort of stifling rationalism and that is where Chesterton will go with it

Channel: Ryan Reeves

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Keywords: Imagination (Quotation Subject), G. K. Chesterton (Author), C. S. Lewis (Author), J. R. R. Tolkien (Author), The Chronicles Of Narnia (Literary Series), Narnia (Fictional Setting), The Lord Of The Rings (Book), Hobbit (Character Species), The Hobbit (Book), Inklings (Membership Organization), Literature (Media Genre), Mythology (Film Genre), Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (College/University), Ryan M. Reeves, Seminary (Literature Subject), Theology (Field Of Study)

Id: McnaNqj_vA4

Length: 26min 12sec (1572 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 01 2014