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The Context of George MacDonaldâs Work
Like many Victorians, George MacDonaldâs (1824â1905) journey was one of emancipation from âchildhoodâ ways. His was a journey away from Calvinism in favor of a more benign vision of Christianity at the center of which is the image of âthe child,â an axiomatic image symbolizing both the nature of God and the disposition of the faithful. One Presbyterian critic, George McCrie, lamented that âthe childlikeâ was something that he âconstantly harps aboutâ resulting in âreligious opinions, which are most unsound and dangerous.â The central question we explore here is: What are the theological implications of MacDonaldâs understanding and use of this motif?
In answering this question, it becomes apparent that âthe childâ (MacDonaldâs shorthand for all of a childlike disposition, henceforth not in quotes), far from being a submissive, acquiescent juvenile content to submit to the whims of eldersânotably worldly religious eldersâis, rather, a force that challenges the latterâs rule and wisdom. The child represents a theology that is âunsound and dangerousâ to those such as McCrie, for in MacDonaldâs mind he and those like him represented a church that had turned its back on childhood, that is, had forsaken worship of the Christ child and instead allowed a vampire to take up residence at its heartâone that drank the blood of the saints rather than offering Eucharistic life. This is the essential message of one of MacDonaldâs last and most enigmatic fantasy novels, Lilith. Before reading this narrative, however, we lay thoughts of vampires to one side as we meet various incarnations of MacDonaldâs child and, through these encounters, build up a picture of his theology and the world in which it was forged.
Theology and Literature
Before we begin this task, however, some comments are necessary regarding the validity of reading MacDonaldâs workâespecially his novelsâas theology. What is the relationship between theology and literature?
George McCrieâs decisive rejection of MacDonaldâs theology highlights a deeper issueâa profound suspicion, among conservative Evangelicals in particular, of narrative writing as a medium to express or explore theology. McCrie articulates the prevailing view: being imaginative, rather than concerned with the âtrue factsâ of Evangelical religion, it results in âour poets and novelists . . . teaching an erroneous theology with all the earnestness of missionariesâ; those with aesthetic gifts have sold their souls to the devil and become âpatrons of heresy.â Such should stick to their role of providing entertainment, not âtheologizing.â âTheir peculiar office is to delight and entertain the world rather than to preach or to prophecy.â The implication is that the imprecision of literature is unsuitable to express the âfactsâ of theology; that literature is merely the frothy surface hiding a substrate of true (or false)âthat is, logically verifiable (or discountable)âbedrock beliefs.
This highlights a fundamental polarity that will surface regularly in this volume: the antagonism between those such as MacDonald who view imagination as Godâs primary gift to humans in the service of cognition and epistemology, and those such as McCrie who is of the opinion that:
Put differently: imagination is a useful, if capricious, force that may provoke change but offers a poor theological foundation. In response to this charge, I briefly outline some considerations that will help us to approach MacDonaldâs literary opus as theologians with less cynicism.
To engage in theology is, in a fundamental sense, to become a worshipper. God cannot be the object of human investigation for this would require an impossible perspective âoutsideâ of being; rather, investigation into the nature of God can only be the result of personal interaction with God, should God so permitâa permission, it would appear, granted only to those who are humble; to those who recognize their dependency on, and subordinacy to, Godâthe âbabesâ of Matthew 11:25 to whom, uniquely, are revealed the secrets of the kingdom of heaven. In MacDonaldâs language, true theology is understood, practiced, and expressed only by the child, one who embodies this submissive, worshipful attitude. Three further considerations are evident: first, that since theologyâs âobjectâ is not only infinite but personal, it can never be fully known; second, that such knowledge is essentially âstoriedâ in that the truth regarding a person cannot be established by factual statements, however verifiable or logically correct; third, that truth is imprecise since subjectively perceived.
One might counter this by suggesting that theology is essentially a second-order, objective reflection on such personal stories, notably the gospel narrativesâ articulation of Christ, but, in light of the âpersonalityâ or person-based nature of truth, literature may be viewed as not only a source of personal or imaginative fuel for subsequent reflection, but as itself a means of theological reflection and articulation. One thinks, for example, of Augustineâs Confessions, Dostoevskyâs novels, or the works of Dante. Speaking of Danteâs Commedia, for example (a poem that has significantly shaped European theology), Vittorio Montemaggi proposes that truth is always the fruit of âhuman encounterâ (truth, in other words, is always in some sense embodied) and thatâin recognition of thisâliterature such as Danteâs draws the reader into a personal encounter with the author, others, and ultimately God. In Montemaggiâs words: âDanteâs text requires us to read it not only objectively but also by consciously situating our interpretation of it in the context of our subjective, first-person experience.â MacDonald is similarly driven by a conviction that theology involves more than the objective, academic analysis of presenting facts; rather, subjective engagement is required with the source of those factsâGod. To this end, he writes imaginatively, dema...