Puddleglum versus the Atheists

John Dee submitted this extract from ‘The Silver Chair’, (one of the Narnia books, written for children but by no means beyond the abilities of adults) by C.S.Lewis, a passage which I mentioned as a good example of belief in contest with the infuriating atheist assumption that there is no evidence, and never has been any evidence, for the existence of God.

 

The context is a scene in which the principal characters, who have fallen into a sunless, subterranean world, are being told by a persuasive witch (aided by hypnotic fumes, so often the enemy of clear thought)  that their memories of the other world, in which the sun shone,  are foolish falsehoods. Puddleglum, an Eeyore-like figure of profound pessimism (he is a Marsh-wiggle, a kind of half-man, half-frog),   nonetheless has greater faith and courage than the other members of the party. With his naked foot, he tries to stamp out the fire from which the fumes are coming. Aslan, for those who have not read the Narnia books, is an allegorical representation of Christ, taking the form of a Lion.

 

‘… the sweet heavy smell grew very much less. For though the whole fire had not been put out, a good bit of it had, and what remained smelled very largely of burnt Marsh-wiggle, which is not at all an enchanting smell. This instantly made everyone's brain far clearer. The Prince and the children held up their heads again and opened their eyes. Secondly, the Witch, in a loud, terrible voice, utterly different from all the sweet tones she had been using up till now, called out, "What are you doing? Dare to touch my fire again, mud-filth, and I'll turn the blood to fire inside your veins." Thirdly, the pain itself made Puddleglum's head for a moment perfectly clear and he knew exactly what he really thought. There is nothing like a good shock of pain for dissolving certain kinds of magic. "One word, Ma'am," he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. "One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things - trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a playworld which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia.’  

 

Personally, I always rather enjoy the Witch’s unmasking of herself as what she (and those like her) really is. It reminds me quite a lot of the lopsidedly-smiling, apparently tolerant man-of-the-world atheists who, when it really comes down to it, are intolerant would-be totalitarians, who hate the thing to which they profess to be indifferent and whose possibility they so energetically deny. They often ask me quizzically ‘How can you say that we hate God, when we don’t believe in him?’. My reply is always the same. You refuse to believe in Him because you hate Him’ .

 

There’s no real dispute about the human capacity to believe what we want to believe  (and disbelieve what we reject).  History is full of examples, not least Stalin’s obdurate refusal to believe persuasive intelligence that Hitler was about to attack the USSR in June 1941. There’s even an expression ‘Confirmation Bias’ in common, current use, which often operates in areas where the facts are well –known.  Why this should not apply to religious belief, where the facts are and are likely to remain inconclusive,  I really can’t understand. And why this bias shouldn’t operate *before the formal opening of the argument* so as to exclude material which the biased person does not wish to consider, I also cannot see.