Life and Art

 

Donald T. Williams in Mere Humanity: Chesterton, Lewis & Tolkien  reaffirms the role of art (including two of my favorites: photography and story) by exploring the writings of G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien. A key theme is expressed in a letter from Tolkien:

“… Though all the crannies of the world are filled

with Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build

Gods and their houses out of dark and light,

and sowed the seed of dragons—’twas our right

(used or misused). That right has not decayed:

we make still by the law in which we’re made.” [p. 42]

Williams elaborates:

“Man, in other words, is inexplicable by materialistic reductionism because of the imago Dei; we love to tell and hear stories because we are made in the image of the Creator whose creation is in fact the story we call ‘History and Redemption.’ Or in terms more in keeping with Tolkien’s defense of fairie, the human race is incapable of being fully explained or portrayed by either philosophical or literary naturalism. We are such irrepressible inventors and expressers of ourselves because we are made in the image of the Creator. Hence our outlandish notions like riding horses, our many styles of nest adorned with unnecessary arts, and our addiction to ideals like rights, goodness, truth, and beauty, which refuse to be treated as mere subjective constructs no matter how hard our secular philosophies push us to do so.” p. 44 

Oct 26, 7:27A, Moon setting

After a wonderful tour through many of the works of the three maestros of wonder, Williams concludes with an appendix on “The Church and the Postmodern Challenge” which includes this passage focusing his concern for truth when betrayed by certain postmodernists:

“truth is not merely denied as illusory, as in late relativist modernism; it is now redefined as evil. Truth for the postmodernist is and can be nothing more than a disguise for the exercise of raw power. Only an ironic infinite, regress of questions, never leading to answers, is allowed. On therefore questions everything and affirms nothing except that all affirmations are illegitimate. This is really the ultimate form of intellectual rebellion against authority, especially the authority of God.” pp. 157-8

  While this assertion might suggest a preference for rule by hard cold facts, the case of this book affirms the vital role found in the created powers of imagination, of loving the natural world, and reaching further…