Hail Citizens!
(I've been watching way too much of the series Rome, so please forgive my nerdy classicalisms.)
Per request, I'm going to share some of my thoughts on Philip Pulman's series "His Dark Materials."(HDM) I will start by saying that this series is one of the most well written fantasy series of the last century, inferior only to "The Lord of the Rings", and "The Chronicles of Narnia." HDM is the foil of these other two series, even being called the "anti-Narnia" by some.
Pulman is an incredible storyteller; and as such, he knows that the only truly compelling stories are those of the battle between good and evil. Pulman has a problem though, he's an atheist. His books are set in a universe with no true God, no creator; however, his theme is still that of good versus evil. This is my first problem with the series, Pulman has put good and evil into a universe which cannot account for their existence. In the HDM universe, there is no objective truth that can account for some actions being evil, and some being good. There is no objective line that divides them forces of evil from those or good. In this book, thousands die for something that is just a feeling, something naturally evolved into us. This is totally different than Lord of the Rings, were good and evil are objectively defined.
My second problem is logical, ex nihilo nihil fit. In the HDM universe, "God" was created when matter became conscious of itself, and sought out other matter. When enough matter had come together, the first "Angel" was created, and he called himself "God." This idea is even more preposterous than the theory that if you pile enough stones together, eventually the pile will start to think, and become man (Darwinist evolution.) With this, we get the idea that a stone will randomly start to think, and that if we pile enough "thinking stones" together, we will make a man.
Usually if you bring up "ex nihilo nihil fit," the first thing you will hear is some voice shouting "virtual particles." Virtual particles are sometimes called vacuum fluctuations, and are pairs of particles that form and then annihilate each other. I could go on for pages about the science behind virtual particles (it's really quite fascinating.), but instead I'll just say that we are arguing across terms. Virtual particles form out of vacuums in space-time, which is still something compared to NOTHING. NOTHING can not be fully comprehended, as we have no experience with it. NOTHING is what existed (or didn't exist as the case may be) before God created the Universe.
I do have other problems with HDM, but I think I will leave them for another day, as it is late, and I am tired.
Yours in Christ,
Thursday
2 comments:
sounds like an interesting series. i think the author has simply redefined some terms: the "conscious creating universe" is more like God, while the first angel being is sortof an unfallen Lucifer. in my experience, atheists often tend to identify the term 'god' with a powerful angel-type creature, which is what they reject, and then they turn around and attribute to nature consciousness, omniscience, omnipotence, creative will, or some other subset of divine attributes in such a way that it is too vague to feel like traditional Judeo Christian concepts of God. (ok, so that was a good example of a run-on sentence) and then they think they're being free-thinkers. :)
you know how Tolkien's writings embodied a Christian concept of life & the universe and all, without being explicitly Christian? maybe this author has something similar going on: enlightened by some ray of natural reason, he can't help but fundamentally write this truth into his stories. so we recognize that the good and evil struggling are actual good and actual evil, that there is some kind of divine providence behind things, etc. (i haven't read any of his stuff, so this is all speculation--but for what it's worth...)
I think you hit the nail on the head. Although, with Pulman, any idea of objective truth would have to be completely subconscious. It really is very interesting to do a compare and contrast between Narnia and HDM. HDM really is Narnia's foil.
Yours in Christ,
Thursday
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