C. S. Lewis wrote about the “deeper magic” in The Chronicles of Narnia. The idea first appears in the first book of the series, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. There, immediately after Aslan’s resurrection, the Great Lion explains that the Witch’s apparent triumph was destined to fail because, although she knew and could use some magic, “there is a magic deeper still which she did not know” since “her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of Time.” Lewis is contrasting the demonic powers of this age with the eternal power that belongs to God alone. Evil may seem to gain the upper hand, and it certainly appeared so to the disciples immediately after Jesus’ death on the cross, but there is a “deeper magic” which stretches back beyond time, before the foundation of the world, when God chose a people to save by the sacrifice of his Son.
I suppose I am at risk of alienating some of you since I have been informed by more than one Reformed brother that discussions of “magic,” in general, and Lewis’s horrid allegory, in particular, are incompatible with a biblical, orthodox, and Reformed understanding of the faith. I do not wish to offend or quarrel with any of my brethren, I would only point out that their antipathy is not the result of a pre-modern, biblical worldview but actually is the influence of “very up-to-date and advanced people” who wear “a special kind of underclothes.” Modernists, like Eustace Clarence Scrubb, can be saved, but their salvation will involve not only the forgiveness of their priggishness but also the restoration of their imagination. But I digress.
(more…)
