Emeth is a character in The Last Battle the seventh and final volume in C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia. He is a Calormene. That is, he belongs to the human southern desert nation opposed to the heroic Narnian talking beasts of Lewis’s stories and to their human allies in Archenland. Allegory in C.S. Lewis is a lot more prominent than in Tolkien. Tolkien only really employs allegory in Leaf by Niggle and officially disapproved of the form. Certainly, a lot of the Chronicles of Narnia is non-allegorical but it is hard to deny that some elements, and they are key elements, cannot be classified any other way. This is especially true of The Magician’s Nephew, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and The Last Battle which provide the creation narrative, the salvation narrative and the eschatological climax to the series. (Incidentally, I can never quite escape the suspicion that Prince Caspian is intended as a pro-Anglican parable about the Reformation). The Last Battle describes the Narnian end of the world in ways that clearly imitate classical Christian eschatology. There is a false prophet (a monkey called Shift) and an (oddly invincibly ignorant) Antichrist (a donkey called Puzzle). Key to the narrative is the infiltration and conquest of Narnia by the Calormenes. The Calormenes are pretty transparently based on the Muslims. This is one reason why I doubt very much that either The Horse and His Boy or The Last Battle will ever be adapted for film. The central role of Islamic conquest in Lewis’s view of the end times is very interesting, especially as it must have been far less obvious that this was at all likely when he wrote in the nineteen fifties. The Calormenes worship a god called Tash who is quite obviously Satan. They sneak into Narnia disguised as merchants and seize control of the country under the auspices of the monkey Shift who persuades his dim-witted friend Puzzle to dress up in a lion skin and pose as Aslan (the Lion who in the Chronicles of Narnia symbolises Christ). It seems from this that Lewis believes that the deception of the Antichrist will be a treason from within Western culture by non-believers posing as believers and manipulating the credulity of the mass of the people but that it will be accomplished in alliance with and ultimately to the profit of Islam. This is very interesting especially when one reflects upon the alliance between Liberalism and Mohammedanism in contemporary Western culture.
Emeth is among the Calormene soldiers who enter Narnia in disguise to assist Shift in his overthrow of the legitimate king Tirian and establishment of an indifferentist pseudo-theocracy centred on the government and worship of Tashlan. Emeth is naturally virtuous sincere believer in Tash and is sickened by the duplicity of the methods by which the conquest of Narnia is to be accomplished and sickened by the suggestion that Aslan and Tash are one and the same. In the event, the conspiracy issues in the destruction of the the entire Narnian world, the defintive expulsion of Tash, and the second coming of Aslan. Emeth, however, is saved and finds himself in heaven. Emeth encounters Aslan, is ravished by his beauty, confesses his lifelong worship of Tash and awaits death at the hands of the true God. He is told instead that every sincere and naturally virtuous act he performed for the sake of Tash (who Aslan describes as his ‘opposite’) was in fact done in honour of Aslan and all evil acts done in Aslan’s name are really done for Tash. For this reason Emeth, as an anonymous worshiper of Aslan, is saved.
“Then I fell at his feet and thought, Surely this is the hour of death, for the Lion (who is worthy of all honour) will know that I have served Tash all my days and not him. Nevertheless, it is better to see the Lion and die than to be Tisroc of the world and live and not to have seen him. But the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, Son, thou art welcome. But I said, Alas Lord, I am no son of thine but the servant of Tash. He answered, Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me. Then by reasons of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one? The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. Dost thou understand, Child? I said, Lord, thou knowest how much I understand. But I said also (for the truth constrained me), Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days. Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.”
This seems like pretty pure Pelagianism. In fact, it helpfully illustrates how utterly Pelagian the Implicitist heresy is. A determination to worship God in whatever manner God has appointed is a requirement of natural reason. If natural moral virtue combined with a determination to worship God in whatever manner He has established, combined with error of fact as to what this religion is, can save us then nature and reason alone suffice for the forgiveness of sins and participation in the divine nature. This is not just heresy it is the central claim of Satan in his rebelion against God. Is Lewis then, ironically, preaching the greatest of all deceptions in a work supposed to warn us about the Antichrist?
I think it may be possible to save Lewis from this most serious charge. I do not deny that Lewis’s theology is often sloppy. Without the solemn defintions of Councils and Popes to guard him against rash speculations and unable, as a Protestant, to submit to the consensus of the Fathers, he often strays too far and entangles himself in positions he probably would repudiate if baldly stated. He also has an odd tendency to fall into dualism (displayed here in the reference to Tash as Aslan’s ‘opposite’) and an unhealthy fascination with platonic angelology probably derived from Charles Williams. Nevertheless, it is not clear that there has been any kind of fall in Narnia or that the Calormenes are descended from Adam. It may be that the non-earth descended inhabitants of the Narnian world have a purely natural end and that if they do receive supernatural beatitude it is by a purely gratuitous elevation at the end of time, not because they possessed supernatural grace (or original sin) during their lives. Furthermore, it is not altogether clear that Emeth is even dead when he meets Aslan.
Of course the entire premise of the story is impossible. It is not possible for there to be non-human rational animals. There are no rational animals who are not descended from Adam. There have not been and will not be multiple incarnations. Furthermore, it is hard not to conclude that Lewis did have a rationalist Pelagian understanding of salvation as the story is almost certain to be taken this way by any ordinary reader. The Last Battle was published in 1956 and Lewis is generally seen as a champion of classical conservative western Christianity against liberalism. The problem of Emeth shows how much the Implicitist error already went by default on the eve of the Neo-Modernism revolution.
“People shouldn’t call for demons unless they really mean what they say.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle
Laodicea 
October 19, 2016 at 3:07 am
I don’t think you can quite accuse C.S. Lewis of being Pelagian in this instance without also accusing Bl. Pius IX of definitively teaching Pelagianism in the encyclical Quanto Conficiamur, wherein he writes;
“There are, of course, those who are struggling with invincible ignorance about our most holy religion. Sincerely observing the natural law and its precepts inscribed by God on all hearts and ready to obey God, they live honest lives and are able to attain eternal life by the efficacious virtue of Divine light and grace.”
Or again in the Apostolic Letter Singulari Quadem,
“On the other hand it is necessary to hold for certain that ignorance of the true religion, if that ignorance be invincible, is not a fault in the eyes of God. But who will presume to arrogate to himself the right to mark the limits of such an ignorance, holding in account the various conditions of peoples, of countries, of minds, and of the infinite multiplicity of human things? When delivered from the bonds of the body, we shall see God as He is, we will comprehend perfectly by what admirable and indissoluble bond the divine mercy and the divine justice are united…”
I think it’s pretty clear from Lewis’ work that Emeth does not save himself, but is saved by Aslan. Also to answer your question, Calormens are descended from Adam via a couple already possessing sanctifying grace from baptism in the beginning of the world of Narnia (it’s inferred in The Magician’s Nephew). Not that that changes my point.
October 19, 2016 at 4:18 am
I don’t see how Pius IX’s statements are relevant. In the first one he says persons who cooperate with actual grace under the natural law “are able to attain eternal life by the efficacious virtue of Divine light and grace.” Emeth has not previously received divine light i.e. true positive revelation. In the second one Pius IX just says that such persons’ incredulity is not a fault in the eyes of God. All their other sins would be faults in the sight of God and without faith in Christ could not be forgiven (besides, in context he seems to be referring to incorporation into the Church not assent to supernatural revelation per se). Any claim that one could perform an act of supernatural faith based on truths merely of natural reason is inherently Pelagian (and Modernist) because it implies a proportion between our natural abilities and the divine nature. It would be odd don’t you think if some remarks in nineteenth century encyclicals not even addressed to the universal church could somehow cancel the solemn teaching of an ecumenical council? “Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith. Which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled; without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. And the Catholic faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity” Council of Florence 22nd November 1439.
October 19, 2016 at 4:36 am
The claim is not that one could perform a supernatural act of Faith based merely on Natural Reason, but that God takes into account the implicit desire that one might have if one had received positive Revelation. And further all good actions on the part of this person would have had to proceed from the acceptance of actual Grace. This does not contradict the Council, because the Catholic Church is not only the Church Militant on Earth, nor is the Catholic Faith only held on Earth. Thus we read in the catechism “Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it. This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:
Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience – those too may achieve eternal salvation.”
October 19, 2016 at 5:04 am
Reason alone tells you to accept anything that God may reveal so to say that “God takes into account” by which I assume you mean justifies by means of “the implicit desire that one might have if one had received positive Revelation” is the same thing as to say that one could perform a supernatural act of Faith based merely on Natural Reason therefore it is Modernist and Pelagian. I see you omtted to quote the following paragraph of the Catechism which reads “848 Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men.” Earlier, in §161, under the heading “The Necessity of Faith” the Catechism specifies what “that faith without which it is impossible to please God” is “161 Believing in Jesus Christ and in the One who sent him for our salvation is necessary for obtaining that salvation. Since without faith it is impossible to please God and to attain to the fellowship of his sons, therefore without faith no one has ever attained justification, nor will anyone obtain eternal life but he who endures to the end.” You make the common confusion of eliding justification and salvation and of confusing the necessity of membership of the Church (one of precept absolutely speaking) with the necessity of faith in the Trinity and the Incarnation (a necessity of means).
October 19, 2016 at 1:42 pm
You are confusing the rational knowledge of God which can be reached by Reason alone, and the desire of God (explicit or implicit) which is a product of the acceptance of God’s actual grace, which is by no means the same as saying that one could achieve supernatural Faith by Reason alone. In the teaching of the Church’s Council this is quite clear;
“All this holds true not only for Christians, but for all men of good will in whose hearts grace works in an unseen way. For, since Christ died for all men, and since the ultimate vocation of man is in fact one, and divine, we ought to believe that the Holy Spirit in a manner known only to God offers to every man the possibility of being associated with this paschal mystery.”
This does not in any way preclude the urgency of evangelization, as Pope Pius XII declares in Mystici Corpus Christi,
“For even though by an unconscious desire and longing they have a certain relationship with the Mystical Body of the Redeemer, they still remain deprived of those many heavenly gifts and helps which can only be enjoyed in the Catholic Church.”
Further, you use the word Pelagian gar too broadly. It refers solely to the heresy that men might earn grace by meritorious actions, whereas in truth it is only acceptance of grace that makes good actions possible. Thus you can in no way claim that the teaching of the Holy Office in 1949 falls into the Pelagian error,
“Therefore, that one may obtain eternal salvation, it is not always required that he be incorporated into the Church actually as a member, but it is necessary that at least he be united to her by desire and longing.However, this desire need not always be explicit, as it is in catechumens; but when a person is involved in invincible ignorance God accepts also an implicit desire, so called because it is included in that good disposition of soul whereby a person wishes his will to be conformed to the will of God.”
October 19, 2016 at 6:37 pm
You persist in employing quotations which relate to membership of the Church which is not under consideration. One may be joined to the Church by implicit desire so long as one has supernatural faith but in order to have supernatural faith one must believe in God as the object of supernatural beatitude. This belief is not possible by reason for “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him”. This possibility must therefore be revealed. However, if it is not revealed directly in a prophetic manner so that the recipient knows God has spoken to him it will therefore have to be preached and in order to for the recipient of the preaching to believe he hears on the authority of God as an offer of supernatural beatitude from God to him specifically the preacher has to possess a divine mandate. As St Paul says “How then shall they call on him, in whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe him, of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear, without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they be sent [apostalosin]?” In itself therefore the act of faith requires as matter an explicit revelation with a divine mandate to which the convert explicitly assents. It is also necessary for salvation that the convert recognising his sins adheres to Christ as his redeemer because we are not considering the elevation to the supernatural order here of beings in a state of pure nature but of fallen sinful men who are “by nature children of wrath” and cannot without presumption adhere to God as the object of supernatural beatitude without repentance and satisfaction (which, due to man’s incapacity to make it, must be vicarious). Before Christ came a belief in the revelation of a redeemer who was to come but had not yet come sufficed for this and was expressed by the sacraments of the Old Law. Since His death on the Cross faith of this nature has no longer justified and explicit faith in Him has been necessary for adherence to Christ. This is defined by Florence when it teaches the extinction of the rites of the Old Law. But, as St Thomas says, “It is impossible to believe explicitly in the mystery of Christ, without faith in the Trinity” therefore Florence also defines that one cannot be saved without faith in the Trinity. You are quite wrong to suppose (most extravagantly) that one can acquire justifying faith after death. The blessed do not have faith but vision. The patriarchs who were delivered from limbo already had faith under the old dispensation. There is no question of acquiring faith in purgatory (or indeed hell) for “it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment”. The faith which, as Florence defines, “except every one do keep whole and undefiled; without doubt he shall perish everlastingly” is faith in the Trinity preached by apostolic mandate in this life. To ascribe justifying power to anything less is to ascribe to man the power by his own resources to elevate himself (or to belong by nature) to the supernatural order and this is Pelagianism and Modernism for, as Pius X teaches “faith is not a blind sentiment of religion welling up from the depths of the subconscious under the impulse of the heart and the motion of a will trained to morality; but faith is a genuine assent of the intellect to truth received by hearing from an external source.”
October 19, 2016 at 6:57 pm
You persist in misreading the authentic magisterium of Church. The quotes specifically refer to those who by no fault of their own are ignorant of the Truth. Has the Church ever condemned St. Justin the Martyr for stating, “We have been taught that Christ is the first-born of God, and we have declared above that He is the Word of whom every race of men were partakers; and those who lived reasonably are Christians, even though they have been thought atheists; as, among the Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus, and men like them;” or St. Irenaeus for claiming that “Christ came not only for those who believed from the time of Tiberius Caesar, nor did the Father provide only for those who are now, but for absolutely all men from the beginning, who, according to their ability, feared and loved God and lived justly. . . and desired to see Christ and to hear His voice…” ? Were they Pelagians? They ascribed not to the efforts of men but to the Grace of God the just lives, which these men lived. Or would you attempt in defiance of the words of Pope Pius IX, “seek to lay claim to put limits to the Divine mercy, which is infinite..”; which even the Supreme Pontiff himself would not do?
October 19, 2016 at 7:19 pm
Yes the texts you cite to refer to those who by no fault of their own are ignorant of the truth but the ignorance to which they refer is of our obligations to the Church such as sacramental incorporation and canonical obedience not to ignorance of “that faith without which it is impossible to please him” which ignorance precludes justification. Salvation is made concretely available to all who reach the age of reason because all receive at least sufficient grace and to those who will receive efficacious grace God sends a preacher. Your quotations from Ss Justin and Irenaeus relate to the time before the passion when (as I explained above) adherence to Christ required only faith in a future redeemer. The extinction of this possibility at the passion was defined by Florence (as I mentioned). You are ascribing salvific power to “a blind sentiment of religion welling up from the depths of the subconscious under the impulse of the heart and the motion of a will trained to morality”. Apart from the Pelagianism of this position you are thereby endorsing what Pius X calls in Pascendi ‘moderate Modernism’:
“We cannot but deplore once more, and grievously, that there are Catholics who, while rejecting immanence as a doctrine, employ it as a method of apologetics, and who do this so imprudently that they seem to admit that there is in human nature a true and rigorous necessity with regard to the supernatural order – and not merely a capacity and a suitability for the supernatural, order such as has at all times been emphasized by Catholic apologists. Truth to tell it is only the moderate Modernists who make this appeal to an exigency for the Catholic religion. As for the others, who might be called intergralists, they would show to the non-believer, hidden away in the very depths of his being, the very germ which Christ Himself bore in His conscience, and which He bequeathed to the world.” Pascendi §37
October 19, 2016 at 7:41 pm
I am (nor is the Church) ascribing Salvific power to anyone other than God Himself. Certainly not a blind sentiment, but to a Divinely given grace by which the doctrine of sufficient Grace is fulfilled in full accord with the teaching of Pascendi Dominici. The Greeks which St. Justin referred to had no knowledge of Divine Revelation, how then can you claim that were under the Old Dispensation, that is, the Mosaic Law?
To quote from the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia (non-magisterial but a great repository of the Church’s wisdom):
“certainly does not mean that none can be saved except those who are in visible communion with the Church. The Catholic Church has ever taught that nothing else is needed to obtain justification than an act of perfect charity and of contrition. Whoever, under the impulse of actual grace, elicits these acts receives immediately the gift of sanctifying grace, and is numbered among the children of God. Should he die in these dispositions, he will assuredly attain heaven. It is true such acts could not possibly be elicited by one who was aware that God has commanded all to join the Church, and who nevertheless should willfully remain outside her fold…
It should be observed that those who are thus saved are not entirely outside the pale of the Church. The will to fulfill all God’s commandments is, and must be, present in all of them. Such a wish implicitly includes the desire for incorporation with the visible Church: for this, though they know it not, has been commanded by God. They thus belong to the Church by desire (voto). Moreover, there is a true sense in which they may be said to be saved through the Church. In the order of Divine Providence, salvation is given to man in the Church: membership in the Church Triumphant is given through membership in the Church Militant. Sanctifying grace, the title to salvation, is peculiarly the grace of those who are united to Christ in the Church: it is the birthright of the children of God. The primary purpose of those actual graces which God bestows upon those outside the Church is to draw them within the fold. Thus, even in the case in which God saves men apart from the Church, He does so through the Church’s graces. They are joined to the Church in spiritual communion, though not in visible and external communion. In the expression of theologians, they belong to the soul of the Church, though not to its body. Yet the possibility of salvation apart from visible communion with the Church must not blind us to the loss suffered by those who are thus situated.”
October 19, 2016 at 8:02 pm
I can’t understand why you persist in citing entirely irrelevant texts about membership of the Church. It is not the necessity of membership of Church (which is one of precept and so excused by invincible ignorance) which is under consideration but the necessity of supernatural faith. Such faith was available to man from the beginning not because of reason but because of revelation as Vatican II (Dei Verbum) teaches “God, who through the Word creates all things (see John 1:3) and keeps them in existence, gives men an enduring witness to Himself in created realities (see Rom. 1:19-20). Planning to make known the way of heavenly salvation, He went further and from the start manifested Himself to our first parents.” So the possibility of assent to positive revelation was present to man from creation to the passion but after the passion all men, as St Thomas says, “are bound to explicit faith in the mysteries of Christ”. This why, as Florence defined, the efficacy of the sacraments of the Old Law ceased the moment Christ died because the faith implied in them ceased to justify. I suppose in one sense you are not deliberately attributing salvific power to anyone other than God in that your position logically (as Pius X indicates) attributes divinity to human nature “hidden away in the very depths of his being, the very germ which Christ Himself bore in His conscience”.
Interestingly, I have noticed that persons strongly committed to the temporal restoration of Christendom can be very tempted to fall into this error because humanly speaking they see no way their hopes can be fulfilled without the cooperation of worldly unbelieving forces and, not willing to accept that this would ally them with the enemies of Christ, they try to imagine how those who manifestly do not believe might somehow be just in sight of God after all. This is the ‘political modernism’ Pius XI was attacking when he condemned Action Française. “Put not your trust in princes: in the children of men, in whom there is no salvation!”
October 19, 2016 at 8:08 pm
I fail to understand why do not read what I have actually presented instead of responding to some point imagined on your own part, viz ” attributes divinity to human nature” which I have not done. St. Thomas in his discourse on Law states that law is only morally binding on those who have explicit knowledge of it, and as we are discussing those who have no positive knowledge of Revelation, you seem to contradict this by implying that even to those to whom knowledge were rendered impossible by say the acts of wicked men, still they ought to be bound by that which they have no knowledge of, nor any way of gaining such knowledge.
October 19, 2016 at 8:18 pm
Here we reach the nub of the difficulty. The Gospel is not law it is grace! We have no right to it. Its proclamation is good news because it the hearing of it proffers to us the only means of salvation. If it were, as you conceive it, law then the preacher of the Gospel would be like the Pharisees to whom the Lord says “you go round about the sea and the land to make one proselyte; and when he is made, you make him the child of hell twofold more than yourselves”. But this is not so, the Gospel and the hearing of the Gospel is the only means of salvation. It cannot be earned and no one has a right to it “as it is written: How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, of them that bring glad tidings of good things!”
October 19, 2016 at 8:21 pm
I never send it was earned. Neither do I say that any of Grace that God gives to any one is earned. But Christ in His New Testament has established the New Law, which you cannot deny (not that anyone has a “right” to Law). I propose this debate requires an external moderator, one who will actually read and justly weigh the evidence present on both sides in order to come to a conclusive judgment. I suggest Pater Edmund Waldstein if he is willing?
October 19, 2016 at 8:19 pm
He (St Thomas) also thinks, though, that if children do what lies in them when they reach the age of reason, God will give them the grace of justification. In the time since the Passion, that would include (on St Thomas’s own principle) giving then knowledge of the Incarnation and Trinity.
October 19, 2016 at 8:20 pm
(that was a reply to HR)
October 19, 2016 at 7:53 pm
The Greeks were not under the Mosaic covenant, which can’t justify, but they were able to believe in the promise of redemption by virtue of the promise made to Adam and presumably repeated to other patriarchs such as Noah.
October 19, 2016 at 7:54 pm
Which they had no knowledge of?
October 19, 2016 at 8:02 pm
St Thomas thinks it’s enough if they believed that God’s providence would liberate man in some manner of His choosing, and that He had revealed to some people what He would do. The second point is important, in that it shows that their faith was not based simply on natural knowledge of God’s goodness, but on some actual revelation that He had made (even if they knew no details of it.)
‘If, however, some {sc. of the gentiles living before Christ} were saved without receiving any revelation, they were not saved without faith in a Mediator, for, though they did not believe in Him explicitly, they did, nevertheless, have implicit faith through believing in Divine providence, since they believed that God would deliver mankind in whatever way was pleasing to Him, and according to the revelation of the Spirit to those who knew the truth, as stated in Job 35:11: “Who teacheth us more than the beasts of the earth”.’
“Si qui tamen salvati fuerunt quibus revelatio non fuit facta, non fuerunt salvati absque fide mediatoris. Quia etsi non habuerunt fidem explicitam, habuerunt tamen fidem implicitam in divina providentia, credentes Deum esse liberatorem hominum secundum modos sibi placitos et secundum quod aliquibus veritatem cognoscentibus ipse revelasset, secundum illud Iob XXXV, qui docet nos super iumenta terrae.” 2a 2ae 2, 7 ad 3
October 19, 2016 at 8:24 pm
If a moderator can be agreed on, I will abide his judgment for the time being (unless it is explicitly against the Faith), and regardless of all with not further comment on this thread once the judgment is given.
October 19, 2016 at 8:35 pm
HR, Berenike is the Supreme Moderator on this blog and Aelianus is her plenipotentiary. However, I certainly think you would profit from the counsel of the sublime Fr Waldstein and I encourage you to seek it. Let me send you on your way with some words of the Angelic Doctor:
“‘Each thing appears to be that which preponderates in it,’ as the Philosopher states (Ethic. ix, 8). Now that which is preponderant in the law of the New Testament, and whereon all its efficacy is based, is the grace of the Holy Ghost, which is given through faith in Christ. Consequently the New Law is chiefly the grace itself of the Holy Ghost, which is given to those who believe in Christ. This is manifestly stated by the Apostle who says (Romans 3:27): ‘Where is . . . thy boasting? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith’: for he calls the grace itself of faith ‘a law.’ And still more clearly it is written (Romans 8:2): ‘The law of the spirit of life, in Christ Jesus, hath delivered me from the law of sin and of death.’ Hence Augustine says (De Spir. et Lit. xxiv) that ‘as the law of deeds was written on tables of stone, so is the law of faith inscribed on the hearts of the faithful’: and elsewhere, in the same book (xxi): ‘What else are the Divine laws written by God Himself on our hearts, but the very presence of His Holy Spirit?'”
October 19, 2016 at 8:37 pm
Then I take my leave. Thank you for allowing me to comment, pray for my soul, and I will remember you and this blog in my intentions.
October 19, 2016 at 11:51 pm
God speed! Thank you for your prayers and be assured of ours.
October 20, 2016 at 8:53 pm
Aeliane, where is it that CCC talks about societies becoming totalitarian without the gospel?
October 20, 2016 at 9:40 pm
2244 Every institution is inspired, at least implicitly, by a vision of man and his destiny, from which it derives the point of reference for its judgment, its hierarchy of values, its line of conduct. Most societies have formed their institutions in the recognition of a certain preeminence of man over things. Only the divinely revealed religion has clearly recognised man’s origin and destiny in God, the Creator and Redeemer. The Church invites political authorities to measure their judgments and decisions against this inspired truth about God and man:
Societies not recognising this vision or rejecting it in the name of their independence from God are brought to seek their criteria and goal in themselves or to borrow them from some ideology. Since they do not admit that one can defend an objective criterion of good and evil, they arrogate to themselves an explicit or implicit totalitarian power over man and his destiny, as history shows.
October 20, 2016 at 9:55 pm
Thank you.
October 21, 2016 at 9:23 pm
All of this discussion is not really to the point, as Lewis would have had to have stated that Emeth lived in a virtuous way through his natural powers rather than through divine grace in order to be Pelagian. He does not do this. The book does not pronounce clearly on the subject (reasonably enough since it is a children’s book). The discussion about Pius IX,implicit faith, etc., is not relevant to the issue, as the book is set in a fictional world different from our own where there is no Christian Church or divinely revealed religion.
October 21, 2016 at 11:27 pm
It is enough for the accusation to stick that Emeth assents to no genuine divine revelation. This establishes that Emeth is able to order himself to a supernatural end. The ‘other world’ issue might help Lewis but the fact that the Calormenes seem to be descended from Adam clouds this. As the purpose of the book is clearly pedagogical and (at least in tone) allegorical it would be misleading the readers in a Pelagian direction at the very least. The whole point of St Paul’s contrast of grace and faith with law is that the necessity of revealed knowledge for justification secures its gratuity and guards us from presumption. Charity is just as much the effect of grace in us as faith but we do not necessarily perceive this subjectively (and we cannot love what we do not know).
August 6, 2019 at 12:57 pm
Lewis rules!
Sorry about that; the temptation was too strong. First of all I’d like to say that I enjoy reading your journal and thank you for your work. But with all due respect to you and with all humility I can gather I will say that in this particular case, finding a Pelagian potential in the words of Lewis I must tell you you are not right. And what’s more important to me is that the wrong premises of this discussion, unvoiced though real, can be discerned. It’s about them I will speak.
I have heard, and am hearing now and again, that Lewis, unlike his brother-in-arms Tolkien, resorts to allegory. You make the same assertion, and again I can see how easy it is to fall for a simple description of things – and how inevitably do errors of this simplified perspective follow.
Lewis’ method, superficially and beguilingly simple, and certainly not so much elaborate as his friend Tolkien’s, nevertheless is much more subtle than a recital of the Gospel in the form of a cautionary fable. He partly reveals his own method in the conversation of Eustace and Ramandu the Retired Star: “In our world,” said Eustace, “a star is a huge ball of flaming gas.” – “Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is but only what it is made of.” That’s applicable to the world of Narnia: it looks like a Gospel allegory, and to a certain extent it is, but it’s not its entire intended purpose: its material is allegory, its sense lies somewhere else. The bold experiment – the picture of an unfallen world, where Paradise has never been Lost – and what drama might take place in there? What shape can a true religion and a false religion acquire in a place like that? Is there a place for suffering, for going astray, for apostasy or conversion? And, perhaps most importantly, is there a need for any of these, for religion as we know it, if God Himself appears among the Narnians as a Living Being? It’s very much Tolkienish; I’d make so bold as to say that he has made the concentrated essence of Tolkienness.
Lewis is not John Bunyan. No, wrong comparison: Bunyan, as much as Lewis, meant more than mere allegory. I should have said, Lewis is neither Swift nor Rabelais. What he means to achieve through the construction material of allegory is this spirit of chastity and joy the reader is supposed to smell. If we’re talking about Lewis, it’s this spirit our attention should be turned to; otherwise we’ll be lost among the multiplicity of meanings of words. I’ve heard some pieces of critique against Lewis from people with a strong anti-racist, individualist or liberalist stance (you may add any -ist to this list to your liking) and all those were (or will be) very much off the point. Spirit first, words afterwards.
Previously I said about errors… Here are some examples:
“There is a false prophet (a monkey called Shift) and an (oddly invincibly ignorant) Antichrist (a donkey called Puzzle)”.
Puzzle the Donkey is (an) Antichrist? Like, serious? In that event I wonder why you didn’t choose Puzzle for your discussion, since he poses a threat of a much deeper schism than the Emeth cause, seeing how easily Puzzle was granted absolution. Of course, he wasn’t an Antichrist; he was, if anything, an instrument (a dumb one, too) to facilitate Shift’s evil ends – out of his foolishness, and naivety, and simple-heartedness, but not out of being possessed by an evil spirit, or of representing this spirit in flesh! He never preached worshipping falsehood in the face of the Truth, nor did he ever fully agree with the scheming of the Monkey. He was humble, but his humility was directed the wrong way. This was his only, however serious, fault.
“The Calormenes worship a god called Tash who is quite obviously Satan”.
Nothing is “quite obvious” about that, sorry. I won’t go into the terminological subtleties of the “Satan vs. devil” opposition; there’s enough to be said without that. Aslan never speaks of His eternal adversary (I will speak about His words to Emeth later). What we can infer, though, is that the way of the Truth is one, and numerous are the ways of secession. There was White Witch, and there was the snake woman, and there were cannibal giants; there’s slave trade on Lone Islands and piracy in Terebinthia. There are islands of nightmares and sources of magic water turning everything into gold. There are dragons and sea serpents. And there’s no way we can ascribe all these evil emanations to a singular root. There’s nothing Manichean about the world of Narnia. One should not forget the other important work disclosing the Lewis theology, The Great Divorce, wherefrom it is quite clear that Evil, although “is”, does not have a substance of its own. It’s not because they serve a vile spirit Calormenes have become vile; it’s through their being vile they have empowered their false deity and actually brought it into being. Tash doesn’t represent all that is evil; it’s only a representation of one false god among other uncountable and unaccounted for possibilities. And, since Calormenes have their civilisation (with poetry, aesthetics and such things as commerce) with their own perception of right and wrong, appropriate and inappropriate, honest and dishonest, we can conclude that their “religion” was not in all its aspects “wrong”. Their wrongness was in setting up their private truth in front of the universal Truth (i.e. Aslan). But no-one can say that their public moral is summed up to “whenever you know something’s right do the opposite”, as we should rightly expect from a religion founded by the father of all evil himself.
But let us turn to our point, the Pelagianism.
What Pelagius was actually accused of was not the proclamation of importance of free will and integrity, but denial of necessity of grace. And what Lewis really speaks of through the words of Aslan I read as follows: “Thou hast felt My breath, and received My grace, and walked My path, but thou callest Me by a wrong name”. It’s not the denial of grace Lewis is talking of here. It’s a mere problem of names. Can one receive the gift of grace and have no experience to call it so? Does the dogma belong to exact words – or to exact sense of the words whatever they are? Is Language important for salvation?
In the first chapters of The Silver Chair Lewis leaves no place for doubt that the physicality of Narnia is a little bit more complicated than the cause-and-effect mechanicism:
” “I was wondering—I mean—could there be some mistake? Because nobody called me and Scrubb, you know. It was we who asked to come here. Scrubb said we were to call to—to Somebody—it was a name I wouldn’t know—and perhaps the Somebody would let us in. And we did, and then we found the door open.”
“You would not have called to me unless I had been calling to you,” said the Lion”.
That’s it. The will is important, but yet there’s another power greater than the will that makes things happen. It can’t be fitted in the mechanistic logic anyhow. The mistake that there’s a salvation possible without grace in the world of Narnia lies in another presumption you’re making in the comments:
“One may be joined to the Church by implicit desire so long as one has supernatural faith but in order to have supernatural faith one must believe in God as the object of supernatural beatitude”.
Oh no. I grant you all the benefit of the doubt I can, but it looks to me worse than the Pelagian heresy. To my ear this sounds like undisguised Paganism. First of all, God isn’t an object, and if one believes in God as in an “object” one does so certainly against the First Commandment. God isn’t a phenomenon and can’t be described through His qualities. If God isn’t a phenomenon, He isn’t substance either. He might be called “Supersubstance” if we only knew what this word should mean! And instead of “object” – well, it’s the central part of the Symbol of the Creed, isn’t it, that we should refer to Him rather as Subject? For the same reason, when you say “the Lion who in the Chronicles of Narnia symbolises Christ” I feel it my duty to give you a friendly warning. Nothing can “symbolise” Christ, for He is Symbolon (Logos) Himself. If He is “genitus non factus, consubstantialis Patri; per quem omnia facta sunt”, then we should think of Him as of the Power that pervades everything, and treat Him with the same awe under whatever name He appears. Therefore, it’s impossible to say that someone “must believe in God” to “be joined to the Church” as by these words you turn faith into a volitional act devoid of grace – and this lands you either in the same Pelagian heresy (if you speak of the “true” faith) or, as I said, in Paganism (if faith is nothing else but a conscious effort that can be directed at any “object” whatever). By this statement (“One may be joined to the Church by implicit desire so long as one has supernatural faith but in order to have supernatural faith one must believe in God as the object of supernatural beatitude”), you’re putting yourself only one step away from calling the conversion of Saul “sloppy theology”, to say nothing of Emeth. “In a mysterious way” – and only those who deny this mysterious way are true renegades, as exemplified in the world of Narnia by the Monkey, and the Cat, and the dwarfs who “refused to be taken in” – these latter are a closest example of the Pelagian heresy, if there should be one in that world.
And, when you say: “Emeth assents to no genuine divine revelation”, you violate the facts: “Then I fell at his feet and thought, Surely this is the hour of death, for the Lion (who is worthy of all honour) will know that I have served Tash all my days and not him. Nevertheless, it is better to see the Lion and die than to be Tisroc of the world and live and not to have seen him”.
Yes. He saw Aslan in person (if it’s not a revelation, I don’t know what is), and immediately recognised his worth (if it’s not a conversion, I’ve never known one). This situation is far better than that at the moment of “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?”. To deny Emeth salvation at this moment would be the heresy of Calvin.
I promised to tell you also what I think Aslan really said to Emeth. What he’s saying here is almost the same what he is saying to Jill: You would not have called to me unless I had been calling to you. And this subtle metaphysics the Lion now has to explain to Emeth – in a concise way so that he could understand. It’s not the whole “truth” as I see it, nor is it a lie – just an adaptation. That’s why Tash becomes for a moment the “eternal adversary” – but only because Tash stands in a row of many others. Aslan is trying to say that whatever right Emeth did, it wasn’t without Aslan’s help – but for this truth Emeth isn’t yet ready.
What’s more pertinent to this topic is the problem of Narnia itself. This is where the real moral problem lies, and Lewis is not afraid to formulate it. How come that inside this unfallen world with its – I’m tempted to use this word – Christmassy attitudes a terrible perversion and corruption are born? It’s the battle of good and evil spirits not so much out there as within the heart of each and every Narnian. Lewis would never bring himself down to primitive magicism of naive demonology making evil spirits responsible for everything and man for nothing. If there are evil spirits, they have no other power than that granted to them by the free will of man (see my remarks on the Calormene religion below). That’s why the distribution of power in the setting of the Last Battle is not a black-and-white picture – there are bad Narnians as there are good Calormenes. But why evil exists in Narnia? No definite answer, and this is the question we answer through our lives.
August 6, 2019 at 6:21 pm
The natural law requires that one worship God in the manner He has appointed. God in His justice would not deny an innocent rational animal the knowledge of the manner He has appointed nor the absolute certainly necessary to make this truth the basis of all moral action. Anyone who lacks absolute certainty concerning the manner God has appointed to worship Him can know with certainty that this doubt is a punishment for grave sin. The reliance on positive revelation in this regard is the necessary consequence of the gratuity of the end appointed to any rational animal in any order of providence and the denial of the necessity of such positive revelation or the reliance on uncertain claims (and so upon one’s own judgement rather than divine authority) is an implicit denial of the gratuity of the end appointed to any rational animal in any order of providence. Hence the Gospel must never be preached “with eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.”
That being said, I am assuming Emeth is dead in the scene in question. If he is alive the difficulties it raises are at least reduced. There are classically two eschatological figures in the great deception the Beast and the False Prophet and the latter seeks to seduce and compel the nations to worship the former. The former is more often called the Antichrist but sometimes both are.
August 6, 2019 at 8:02 pm
“The natural law requires that one worship God in the manner He has appointed”. – I won’t go into the detail discussing the problem of natural law; I will agree to your statement to save time. But you seem to be overlooking some points I’m making: what does the word “manner” suggest? Where the mandatory requirements of this “manner” lie, and which are those that can easily be omitted? The Mass is now in national languages wherever you go – so, the language is certainly not important. What is? The dogma? And when we say the dogma, we mean the rational part of the dogma or the intuitive one? These aren’t vain questions – they are important for the Emeth case. If he observed the worship by the intuitive part of his mind but failed to observe the rational part – if his spirit was right, but his language was wrong – was he a sinner and an idolater?
You’re assuming that Emeth is dead at the moment he sees Aslan. OK again, I won’t argue the point, and will agree. And I’d like to ask – if a miracle can happen while Emeth is alive, what can restrain the power of God to perform another miracle after Emeth died? We don’t put our rational constraints on wonders, do we? Let me remind you that Eustace and Jill are actually dead when they participate in the final act of the Narnian drama – does it diminish the value of their bravery and of their choices?
Your final passage is beyond my understanding. I hope I don’t sound like a person who is poorly versed in the Biblical eschatology. Yes, there are two figures – are we doomed to search for and find them in the Narnian world? Do we have to suppose that Lewis allegorised the Gospel word for word? And again – what does the word “figure” mean? Has an Antichrist got to be a physical representation of an evil spirit, or is it enough to be only an idea? I think there is an Antichrist in the Last Battle, and that is the strange spirit that directs the Monkey. The spirit of egocentric lustful scheming which is also behind the actions of the Calormenes. We don’t need to refer to it as “Tashlan” or “Tash” even, since the Monkey and his henchmen weren’t outward worshippers of this spirit – their corrupt religion was only useful red herring.
Finally, I’d like to ask you for a favour. Humbly. However much I like this conversation to continue, don’t be in a hurry to respond. I’m not interested in being right; I’m interested in the truth. I’ve made some points that, I think, deserve some attention on the part of the disputer. Let them have it. This conversation has gone beyond the theoretical aspects of the Catechism.
August 6, 2019 at 8:59 pm
There is no intuitive part of dogma. For, “faith is not a blind sentiment of religion welling up from the depths of the subconscious under the impulse of the heart and the motion of a will trained to morality; but faith is a genuine assent of the intellect to truth received by hearing from an external source. By this assent, because of the authority of the supremely truthful God, we believe to be true that which has been revealed and attested to by a personal God, our creator and lord.” There is no justification after death.
August 6, 2019 at 9:11 pm
I don’t think you understand the word “intuition” correctly if you say “there’s no intuitive part of dogma”. You seem to equal “intuition” to “blind sentiment”. Before you start reading or asking questions on the subject, I must tell you that intellection isn’t possible without intuition.
“There’s no justification after death”, – sorry, which authority are quoting this instant?
August 6, 2019 at 10:05 pm
Council of Florence, Laetentur Caeli: “the souls of those who depart this life in actual mortal sin, or in original sin alone, go down straightaway to hell to be punished, but with unequal pains.”
On ‘intuitive dogma’ see this:
http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-x/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-x_enc_19070908_pascendi-dominici-gregis.html
August 6, 2019 at 10:46 pm
Council of Florence says nothing of “there’s no justification after death”. That seems to be your own invention. You mean to say that Christ did not descend to hell to free the souls?
You’re not talking to the point concerning the intuitive part of cognition. You stick to the common understanding of the word “intuition”. There’s nothing I would like to disprove in Pascendi Dominici, but the document doesn’t discuss what I was actually talking about.
August 6, 2019 at 11:10 pm
and else:
“The Lord himself affirms that Baptism is necessary for salvation.60 He also commands his disciples to proclaim the Gospel to all nations and to baptize them.61 Baptism is necessary for salvation for those to whom the Gospel has been proclaimed and who have had the possibility of asking for this sacrament.62 The Church does not know of any means other than Baptism that assures entry into eternal beatitude; this is why she takes care not to neglect the mission she has received from the Lord to see that all who can be baptized are “reborn of water and the Spirit.” God has bound salvation to the sacrament of Baptism, but he himself is not bound by his sacraments.” (CCC 1257)
He Himself is not bound by His sacraments. There seems to be a misunderstanding on this point between you and me. See also CCC on Other Religions and Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus.
August 6, 2019 at 11:35 pm
The souls in the limbo of the fathers were already justified prior to death. Florence is clear those who die in actual mortal sin or original sin only go immediately to hell (de fide). Pius X is clear faith is the “assent of the intellect to truth received by hearing from an external source”.
August 6, 2019 at 9:18 pm
I meant “are you quoting”.
March 7, 2020 at 3:51 pm
How might Prince Caspian be read as pro-Anglican? I would have thought that the old Narnians were recusant Catholics, and the new Narnian establishment was the Whig settlement.
March 7, 2020 at 4:39 pm
I suspect the book implies a denial of true apostolic succession (the disappearance of the Pevensies) the oppression of the faithful by a false intruded hierarchy (the Telmarines ) and the return of the original authorities (the reappearance of the Pevensies) i.e. the establishment of sola scriptura who tame the intruded hierarchy (Caspian) thereby creating the Anglican hierarchy.
March 8, 2020 at 9:31 am
I don’t understand that.
January 15, 2022 at 11:31 am
Both the Calormenes and Telmarines (i.e. human Narnians in The Last Battle) are descended from Adam.
Lewis seems to be speculating about God’s motives for (speculatively) Him forgiving ignorant pagans who never had the chance to know Christ. He’s not a Pelagian, at least not as applies to any other scenario, nor a pagan.
January 15, 2022 at 7:32 pm
The ‘never had a chance to know’ scenario implies pelagianism because it implies someone who was innocent of incredulity might be innocent in general i.e. that they might have fulfilled the law.