Is There Good Magic and Edifying Sorcery?

Audio Transcript

Welcome to witchcraft and wizardry week on the Ask Pastor John podcast, pushed by our Bible studying. We start the week by asking if there’s good magic and edifying sorcery. The query is a well-liked one about Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter and fantasy literature on the whole. And the query involves us at the moment from an nameless lady.

“Pastor John, whats up, and thanks for this podcast. I’ve a query for you about an ongoing debate amongst my Christian buddies over whether or not there’s such a factor pretty much as good or righteous indicators and wonders completed on the command of a miracle employee. Plenty of godly Christians suppose novels like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings are forbidden as a result of they characteristic even a good use of spells and sorcery. The mere existence of sorcery in a novel makes it dangerous. However on the opposite aspect of the argument, we learn within the Outdated Testomony itself that God’s holy males appear to answer sorcerers with a matching supernatural energy, making a black-and-white distinction.

“We examine all of the unimaginable issues God did by the hands of Moses and Aaron within the plague accounts” — which we simply started studying at the moment in our Bible-reading plan, by the best way. “Aaron throws down his workers, and it turns into a devouring snake, the identical workers that may trigger the Nile to turn into blood, all in Exodus 7. Aaron holds his workers, and frogs emerge from the Nile. Then he faucets the bottom, and gnats cowl all the pieces, all in Exodus 8. Moses holds his workers, and hail rains down on Egypt in Exodus 9. He makes use of his workers to evoke the wind to ship devouring locusts in Exodus 10. Most famously, Moses lifts his workers and splits the Purple Sea in Exodus 14. The identical workers he makes use of to hit a desert stone to attract out water in Exodus 17.

“Even just lately, within the New Testomony, we examine Paul’s supernatural response in Acts 13:6–11. He met a magician with a type of magic of his personal, inflicting the magician to go blind. Aaron, Moses, and Paul accomplish supernatural feats in response to their opponents. Ought to this argument issue into our fiction, too, for appreciating a righteous use of supernatural energy?”

The talk between the helpfulness or hurtfulness of other unbelievable fictional worlds that an creator creates — say, Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings or the Harry Potter sequence — I don’t suppose that debate between the helpfulness and hurtfulness of making worlds like that’s resolved by displaying that there are each demonic and godly makes use of of indicators and wonders on this actual world of ours.

“I’ve tasted fiction that makes me love purity, the Aristocracy, braveness, sacrifice, love, hope, pleasure.”

It’s definitely true that there have been and all the time will likely be misleading indicators and wonders (completed by the ability of Devil) on this actual world and godly indicators and wonders within the title of Jesus on this actual world, supposed for the affirmation of God’s impressed phrase within the Bible. However to argue from the usage of indicators and wonders on this actual world of ours to the goodness of, say, righteous sorcery or white magic in a fictional world the place Devil and God are solely symbolized however not current in an specific method — that doesn’t appear to me to settle something.

Asking the Proper Query

The reason being that the query will nonetheless be there. Does the fictional, unbelievable, different, epic world, with its completely different sort of nature and completely different sort of supernature, are inclined to distract readers from the true world of actual nature and actual supernature (as God and Devil) by changing this world with a fictional world? That’s the query. Does it assist or does it harm — whether or not or not these parts of sorcery and magic are there? Does the fictional, unbelievable, different, epic world have the literary energy to awaken materialistic, small-minded, sinful, worldly, unbelieving readers to the opportunity of an actual world of actual nature and actual supernature, the true world of God and Christ? That’s the query.

Does a fictional world of unbelievable happenings have a tendency to guide folks away from or towards an actual world the place water turns into wine, and an actual man walks on water, and lame folks actually stroll, and blind folks see, and 5 loaves feed 5 thousand folks, and there’s an actual resurrection of the useless and an actual ascending of the King into heaven, an actual God-man? Does fiction ship folks there or distract folks from there? That’s the important thing query, I believe. Does fiction assist or harm in searching for to awaken folks to actuality — to the truth of God in Christ with all of the unusual and great otherworldly realities that actually exist: creation out of nothing, pervasive windfall, nice our bodies of water dividing in half, the solar stopping within the sky, axe heads floating, the incarnation of God into humanity by a virgin beginning, crucifixion, resurrection, second coming of a sovereign King?

Does the usage of language to create another world to inform a narrative assist awaken folks to the supernatural realities that actually exist? Or do they distract and substitute that actuality? Do they assist or do they harm? Or one other strategy to ask the query is whether or not the creation of another world in fiction can successfully talk reality about the true world and draw folks into it. Can made-up actuality make clear actuality? Does fiction have the capability to awaken folks to the reality of the true world? I believe the reply to that query is, “A few of it.”

Reality Stronger Than Fiction

Now, why do I say that? I imply, why am I optimistic about a few of it and pessimistic about others? The primary motive is that I’ve tasted each. I’ve been uncovered to fiction that’s merely corrupting — not simply corrupting instantly to my morals however corrupting to my complete worldview by being shot via with a litany of non-Christian assumptions that don’t open me to the probabilities of magnificence and reality on this actual world however in actual fact inoculate me towards them. I’ve tasted that sort of fiction. I believe we should keep away from it.

“The Bible, God’s phrase, makes use of unbelievable fictional visions and pictures to serve actuality.”

And I’ve tasted fiction — whether or not in poetry or quick tales or novels — that makes me love purity, the Aristocracy, braveness, sacrifice, love, hope, pleasure with the end result that, once I learn my Bible, I’m freshly hungry for Actuality and touchable by Actuality with a capital R — Jesus Actuality, God Actuality, Bible Actuality. This fiction hasn’t drawn me away from actuality. It by no means tempted me to consider the fictional world was actual. I don’t consider that. Most kids don’t consider that. It was all the time pointing past itself. It was by no means tempting me to idolize another world, nevertheless it was making me dissatisfied with something lower than the true God. So, that’s my first motive for saying that the fictional creation of other worlds could or could not serve the reality.

The opposite motive is that the Bible, God’s phrase, makes use of unbelievable fictional visions and pictures to serve actuality. For instance, in Zechariah 5:1–11, God makes the prophet see a flying scroll twenty cubits lengthy and ten cubits vast. “That is the curse that goes out over the face of the entire land” (verse 3). Then he causes him to see a transferring basket.

“What’s it?” . . . “That is their iniquity in all of the land.” And behold, the leaden cowl was lifted, and there was a lady sitting within the basket! And he mentioned, “That is Wickedness.” And he thrust her again into the basket, and thrust down the leaden weight on its opening. Then I lifted my eyes and noticed, and behold, two ladies coming ahead! The wind was of their wings. That they had wings just like the wings of a stork, they usually lifted up the basket between earth and heaven. (verses 6–9)

Speak about different realities: a flying scroll, a basket with a lady in it named Wickedness, two ladies with wings like wings of a stork. What on the planet is all this? That is God’s unbelievable, different, visionary world. Zechariah doesn’t inhabit that world. He doesn’t inhabit a world with flying scrolls and girls with wings. That is God’s method of speaking reality about actuality by creating photographs exterior extraordinary actuality. And, amazingly, God has enabled human beings, created in his picture, to be sub-creators, creators of other realities — fiction, poetry, metaphor, epic story — which have the capability of awakening readers to Actuality with a capital R.

Is It True?

My very own sense is that the reality of fiction doesn’t rely on the absence of fictional supernature — say, the absence of white magic — nevertheless it relies on how that’s used and the way it all suits collectively. C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien wrote about tales, about fairy tales, which meant extra to them than it does to us — fictional tales and reality. And I believe one of the best factor I can do is quote each of them in flip as to how Reality with a capital T is communicated via fiction or tales made up. Right here’s Lewis: “The story does what no theorem can fairly do. It is probably not ‘like actual life’ within the superficial sense, nevertheless it units earlier than us a picture of what actuality might be like at some extra central area.” That quote from Lewis is in an essay referred to as “On Tales” (21).

And Tolkien’s quote right here is from his essay referred to as “On Fairy-stories” (155):

In all probability each author making a secondary world, a fantasy, each sub-creator, needs in some measure to be an actual maker, or hopes that he’s drawing on actuality: hopes that the peculiar high quality of his secondary world (if not in all particulars) are derived from Actuality [with a capital R], or are flowing into it. If he certainly achieves a top quality that may pretty be described by the dictionary definition: “interior consistency of actuality,” it’s troublesome to conceive how this may be, if the work doesn’t ultimately partake of actuality. The peculiar high quality of the “pleasure” in profitable Fantasy can thus be defined as a sudden glimpse of underlying actuality or reality. It’s not solely a “comfort” for the sorrow of this world, however a satisfaction, and a solution to that query, “Is it true?”