***** The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis – Narnia Is as Fantastic as Jesus

I love how C.S. Lewis posits the trilemma of Mere Christianity, perhaps C.S. Lewis’s most famous apologetic work, to also support the idea that Narnia exists.

Lucy must either be a liar, mad, or telling the truth that Narnia is real in the same way that in Mere Christianity Lewis posits that Jesus must be Lord, liar or lunatic.  Clearly, there are more possibilities than these with regard to Jesus, lest we believe every fantasy our children tell us.

This writing is very much secretly evangelistic, but probably not in a way most people would expect.  I feel when an evangelist presents me with the Jesus story, and declares something like that Jesus must be Lord, liar or lunatic, it is not Jesus whom I am passing judgment upon, but the witness of a fairytale presented to me.  It is thus not Jesus that must be Lord, liar or lunatic, but the person or author that presents Jesus to me that is probably liar, lunatic or telling the truth.  But, as I believe happens in the case of the Jesus story, most people that believe in fairy tales are just honestly mistaken about their tale.  That is, they are neither telling the truth, lying, or insane, but that they are just plain honestly mistaken.  When someone tells me that if I don’t believe in a fairytale, such that my soul depends on it in order to escape eternal punishment, I won’t sell my soul to believe in Jesus anymore than I would subscribe to the idea that Narnia is a real place.  Strangely, C.S. Lewis seems to support that idea as upright, such that entering the fantastic world of Jesus and Christianity, even if it be lies, is still ideal to the alternative of denying Christian religious fantasies.

Of course, Jesus was a real person, but anything beyond that is anyone’s guess, and as mysterious as Narnia itself.  Three major religions have three stories about Jesus that are very much in conflict.  Christianity says that Jesus is Lord.  Judaism says that Jesus was the antichrist.  And, Islam says that Jesus was the humblest prophet, but not as great as Mohammed.  Therefore, what is to be made of this man’s story is anybody’s guess.  Absurdly, most Christians say that this decision is central going to either heaven or hell in the afterlife.  That much I am unable to accept.