Aslan and the Divine

[rthstewart]

lady_songsmith and her reflections on divinity in TSG

Aslan and the Divine

I really like that you refer to the Divine fluidly -- Him, Her, Aslan, God, Allah -- rather than trying to cram all of this strictly into the Christian theology alone.

Impressed that you keep the mystic/divine on a level that is subtle and understated enough to be wholly believable. Your characters may be hearing the Voice of God, but it is done so delicately that we as readers are not bashed over the head by Great Revelations. One could, if one chose (and were perhaps of a mindset like the Col's), read all of the Aslan-moments as the voices of the characters' subconscious minds rather that any manifestation of the Divine.

I also love L's -- 'casual' is the wrong word, but I lack the vocabulary for what I do mean -- relationship with Aslan, and the way E accepts this a matter of course although it seems he doesn't hear A so clearly nor does he really seem to expect to, ever. Of course, later in QSiT he does have a conversation with A, so perhaps I misread that; my impression in Pt1 was that he sensed A much the way P did in the garden with RR, rather than the solidity of L's conversations.

I can't help thinking that if P makes Asim's inner eye squint, L will probably blind him.

Re: RR and AP's discussion of suicide/euthanasia: this very short interaction has a ton to be unpacked in it, but I’ve tried about a dozen times to take a stab at explaining why I find it both irritating and very fitting and gotten nowhere.

Comments

[lady_songsmith]

If you can articulate the suicide point a little better, I'd like to hear it for I've got Richard returning to that issue in the next chapter I'm working on.

I can try, but I'll probably ramble. Without going into my own religious background, I have some issues with the whole concept of suicide-as-sin. It's perfectly in character for Polly to object to Richard's proposal, since I can see her as very much a solid CoE Christian despite the world-traveling libertine lifestyle. But at the same time, suicide-as-sin sorts ill with a god who values free will, and in the case of fatal illness, sorts worse with a god who - as Aslan does - values sacrifice. Particularly when the fatal illness in question will cause a great deal of suffering not only to the person dying but to those around him. And in Richard's particular case, an illness that will steal his mind from him... it raises issues of whether one can even be in faith if one is not in one's right mind.