Jane will be leading our discussion on Thursday August 9th at Barnes and Noble in Harrisonburg on
The Chronicles
of Narnia and Philosophy, subtitled
The Lion, The
Witch, and The Worldview edited by Gregory Bassham and Jerry
L. Walls. Here are the discussion questions:
Narnia and
the Enchantment
of Philosophy
Part I. Farewell
to Shadow
Lands: Believing, Doubting and Knowing
Chapter 1. Aslan’s Voice: C.S. Lewis and the Magic
of Sound
On page 5, the last sentence under the
subtitle “Sound
Sense” states “Remarkably, Lewis gives sound, not sight, the
fundamental role
to play in the construction of knowledge.” Do you agree or
disagree with this
statement? Why?
Chapter 2. Virtue Epistemology: Why Uncle Andrew
Couldn’t Hear
the Animals Speak
The author posits four intellectual
virtues necessary to
being a responsible seeker of truth:
1.)Valuing truth for its own
sake
2.) Refusing to believe
something just because one
wants it to be true
3.) Not allowing one’s fears to
dictate what one
believes
4.) Recognizing one’s own
limitations as a seeker
of truth.
The author
argues that Uncle
Andrew is lacking in all 4 of these intellectual virtues. In
which virtue is
Uncle Andrew the most lacking? The least lacking?
Chapter 3. Trusting Lucy: Believing the incredible
When Lucy first tells her siblings about
her experiences in
Narnia in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Peter
and Susan conclude
that Lucy is either lying or she has lost her mind. The
professor suggests a
third option to Peter and Susan: that Lucy is telling the truth.
This turns out
to be the case. Given their experiences, are Peter and Susan
justified in not
believing Lucy when she is able to see Aslan in Prince
Caspian, but the
rest cannot?
Chapter 4. Breaking the Spell of Skepticism:
Puddleglum vs. the
Green Witch
What is it that we lose when we compare
things that are
similar? What do we gain?
Chapter 5. At Any Rate there’s No Humbug Here:
Truth and
Perspective
“We find in Lewis a clear rejection of
this search for
certitude and objectivity. Three themes supporting this claim
run through his
Narnian stories. First, knowledge is perspectival; second,
knowledge is
value-laden; and finally, knowledge is personal. We will consider each in
turn.” (p.55)
The author
states that the
dichotomy between value-free objectivity and value-laden
subjectivity is false.
(Page 61.) Do you agree or disagree? Why?
Part II: The Tao
in Narnia:
Morality and the Good life
Chapter 6. Worth Dying For: Narnian lessons on
Heroism and
Altruism
Garcia, the author, states, “ ‘Death
before dishonor’ no
longer sounds as compelling as it once did.” Do you agree or
disagree? Why or
why not?
Garcia (p. 75) states, “We define
ourselves to a great
extent by our actions and that we often act in order to maintain
our sense of
identity…would such a desire explain the actions of Eustace,
Shasta, Jill and
Digory?
Chapter 7. Work, Vocation and the Good Life in
Narnia
“By having Eustace grow and develop from
someone who at
first cares only about his own pleasure, Lewis suggest that this
pleasure
seeking state is an immature one.” (page 83) What else is Lewis
suggesting by
the development of Eustace’s character?
Chapter 8. The Tao of Narnia
How would you compare this chapter to the
first chapter of “Mere
Christianity?” On what points do they differ? How would you
compare this
chapter to “The Abolition of Man?” Is there on overall morality?
A tao?
Chapter 9. Extreme Makeover:
Moral Education and the Encounter with Aslan
“Narnia is the remedy for their (the
children’s) moral
shortcomings. And Lewis, drawing on a classical moral framework
rooted on both
ancient Greek philosophy and Christian principles, wants us to
see that our own
moral development needs what they found in Narnia.” (Page 106)
What did the
children find in Narnia that remedied their moral short comings?
Who do the
children meet who embodies a greater development of morality?
Chapter 10. Is it Good to be Bad?
Immoralism in Narnia
What critiques does Lewis make of
immoralism according to
this chapter? Does Lewis use other critiques in the Chronicles
not mentioned in
this chapter? If so,
what are they?
Chapter 11. Narnia and the Moral Imagination
Why are we fascinated with type 3
characters? The author
states that we want to understand what makes these characters so
bad. (Page
135) Is there more to it than that? What is it about Peter,
Caspian and
Reepicheep that make them so much more attractive than Rabadash,
Uncle Andrew
or Shift?
Chapter 12. Beasts, Heroes and Monsters:
Configuring the Moral
Imaginary
“The tales that we share with our
youngsters not only
reflect our deepest cultural and ethical traditions; they also
feed the mythic
imagination of the young, and help to shape their value systems
in ways that
remain doggedly faithful to the traditional beliefs of the
group.” (Page 143)
Agree or disagree?
Chapter 13. No Longer a Friend of Narnia: Gender in
Narnia
Fry argues that the development of
Susan’s character is a
subtle attack on femininity. Could one not just as effectively
argue that Lewis
was a product of his time in regards to his treatment of the
female
characters? What kind of
adventure story
could one get with the women all engaged in “feminine”
activities? Name a
classic adventure novel with a “feminine” protagonist.
Part III.
Further Up and
further In: Exploring the Deeper Nature of Reality
Chapter 14. Plato in Narnia
Is Digory meant to be a figure out of one
of Plato’s
dialogues?
Is the Professor in “The Lion, the Witch
and the Wardrobe”
meant to be a Socrates figure?
Chapter 15. Different Worlds, Different Bodies:
Personal Identity
in Narnia
What creates identity? Do you agree with
the author’s
postulation that identity involves a sense of “I”-ness? Does
identity require a
body?
Chapter 16. Why Eustace Almost Deserved His Name:
Lewis’ Critique
of Modern Secularism
Mengue: Lewis argues that the
secularization of education
leads to a built-in bias against the transcendent. How might
this bias have
been influenced by Lewis’ own experience at school? (p 196)
Mengue: By “liberating” human beings from
God, modern
secularism allows the strong to enslave the weak for amoral
purposes. How does
this fit in with ancient and more transcendent cultures using
slaves? (p199)
Chapter 17. Time Keeps on ticking, Or Does It? The Significance of Time in
The Chronicles
of Narnia
How can everlastingness (God is through
time in order to be
a personal agent) and timelessness (God is not in Time. God
experiences all
history at once) be reconciled? How can the timelessness theory
be reconciled
with God as a personal agent?
Part IV. The
Deepest Magic:
Religion and the Transcendent
Chapter 18. Aslan the Terrible: Painful Encounters
with Absolute
Goodness
Do goodness and terribleness lie at the
core of all genuine
religious experience?
Chapter 19.Worthy of a Better God: Religious
Diversity and
Salvation in the Chronicles of Narnia
Sennett argues
that Lewis is
an inclusivist which is defined as believing that there is only
one true
religion, but a person may be saved without explicitly
practicing or even
knowing about that religion.
Wouldn’t
believing this cut
down on what I view as the “marketing of Christianity”? The race
to see how
many people can get saved and pulled in the door of various
churches.
Worshiptainment would also come into play here. Maybe if so many
Christians
weren’t busy with marketing, they could actually experience
growth themselves
and disciple others.
Chapter 20. The Atonement in Narnia
Taliaferro & Traughber address Lucas’
4 major
criticisms of the Ransom Theory. Lucas first criticizes the
ransom theory as it
requires a literal belief in Satan. Taliaferro & Traughber
argue that “Satan”
can be treated as a metaphor for the binding power of evil. Is
this an effective
argument to make the Ransom theory plausible?
Lucas’ third objection is that there is
something
religiously and morally repugnant in picturing God working out a
deal with
Satan. (Page 256) Would the book of Job not refute this?
Chapter 21. The Green Witch and the Great Debate:
Freeing Narnia
from the Spell of the Lewis-Anscombe Legend
Are The Chronicles of Narnia a departure
from apologetics
for Lewis or another way of saying the same things?
Chapter 22. Some Dogs Go to Heaven: Lewis on Animal
Salvation
Lewis argues that animals are “sentient”
which he defines
as capable of sensing and feeling, but not “conscious” defined
as having a mind
or a soul that is capable of experiencing their sensations and
feelings as a
connected series. (p281) Do you agree or disagree with this?
Why?
