In C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia there are friends and enemies, life and death, betrayals and reconciliations. Running through all seven books, but especially in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and The Magician’s Nephew, Lewis develops an account of reconciliation or atonement (literally: “at-onement”) whereby someone who has done wrong may be reconciled and restored into fellowship with those he or she has wronged, including being restored in his or her relationship with the divine Aslan. At first glance, this portrait of reconciliation may seem shocking, but in the end, we suggest, it is illuminating and promising.
Lewis’s treatment of the process of atonement bears a very close resemblance to what is known as the Ransom Theory (sometimes called the Christus Victor model) that was developed in early Christian theology. The theory (which we will describe in detail below) sees human history in terms of a dramatic case of enslavement, ransom, and liberation. We shall first explore the atonement in Narnia and then take note of its relation to the traditional Ransom Theory. The Ransom Theory has many critics, both Christian and non-Christian. While it was embraced by some important early Christian philosophers and theologians, most Christians today adopt other accounts of Christ’s atonement. We believe that there is merit to the Ransom Theory, and so we will defend it both in light of its own virtues as well as in its particular role in Lewis’s books. Our defense of both the Narnian Chronicles as well as the traditional Ransom Theory is needed, for at least one leading philosopher of religion today, John R. Lucas, expressly cites the Chronicles in connection with his objections to the Ransom Theory. We will begin with an exposition of Lewis’s view of atonement in Narnia, followed by a discussion of Lucas’s criticisms.
Can Evil Be Undone?
Throughout the Chronicles, the process of creation is treated as fundamentally good. In The Magician’s Nephew, Aslan creates Narnia through song.1 Beasts—those who can talk and those who can’t—along with plants, minerals, and so on, all emerge from the Lion’s voice in resplendent, creative, wild variety. This euphoric celebration of life highlights nature as vibrant, wondrous, and positive. Evil, on the other hand, is portrayed as fundamentally negative—a life-denying disfiguring of what is good. It is seen as a kind of distortion of the good, a parasite that feeds on what is healthy. This parasitic, predatory quality of evil can be seen in the character of the witch Jadis and, to a lesser extent, in Uncle Andrew.
Jadis pursues things she deems good (mainly power and domination), but these are all at enormous cost to others—she admits, for instance, to having vindictively destroyed an entire world. She has some understanding of Aslan as the source of creation, but she sees him as a force to be opposed and, if possible, killed. She promises Digory life, but ultimately this involves enslavement to her. By comparison, Uncle Andrew is almost comic, especially given his befuddled, blurry recollection of Jadis at the end of The Magician’s Nephew (MN, Chapter 15, p. 106). Despite the humorous overtones of his personality, Uncle Andrew is willing to sacrifice the lives of children for his own desires, he threatens harm to a child’s mother and, like Jadis, he wishes to kill Aslan (MN, Chapter 8, p. 63). All in all, Jadis and Uncle Andrew seem more like thieves than creators, and they both seek to oppress, control, or kill those who are good.
This conflict of good and evil between Aslan, Jadis, and Uncle Andrew sets the stage for the adventures of Digory and Polly. In The Magician’s Nephew, Lewis retells the Biblical story of the Fall as taking place in two worlds, Charn and Narnia, that the two children enter with the help of magic rings. It is in this account of wrongdoing and subsequent reconciliation that we get a glimpse of Lewis’s view of atonement.
Digory and Polly are in a great hall in the dead world of Charn when Digory violently wrenches Polly’s wrist and foolishly rings a bell that awakens evil in the form of the witch Jadis, who later enslaves Narnia as the White Witch. The way in which Digory eventually comes back to his senses and is reconciled with Polly and Aslan involves several steps. First, there is an admission of wrongdoing accompanied by sorrow and regret. In one scene, Aslan coaxes Digory into admitting his responsibility. Aslan asks:
“How came she [Jadis] to be in your world, Son of Adam?”
“By—by Magic.”
The Lion said nothing and Digory knew that he had not told enough.
“It was my Uncle, Aslan,” he said. “He sent us out of our own world by magic rings, at least I had to go because he sent Polly first, and then we met the Witch in a place called Charn and she just held on to us when—”
“You met the Witch?” said Aslan in a low voice which had the threat of a growl in it.
“She woke up,” said Digory wretchedly. And then, turning very white, “I mean, I woke her. Because I wanted to know what would happen if I struck a bell. Polly didn’t want to. It wasn’t her fault. I—I fought her. I know I shouldn’t have. I think I was a bit enchanted by the writing under the bell.”
“Do you?” asked Aslan; still speaking very low and deep.
“No,” said Digory. “I can see now I wasn’t. I was only pretending.” (MN, Chapter 11, p. 80)
In addition to admitting his guilt and expressing regret, Digory also needs to seek the forgiveness of those harmed.2 Aslan asks Digory about his relationship with Polly, and then invites him to “undo” the harm he has created. Aslan asks Polly:
“Have you forgiven the Boy for the violence he did you in the hall of images in the desolate palace of accursed Charn?”
“Yes, Aslan, we’ve made it up,” said Polly.
“That is well,” said Aslan. . . . “Are you [Digory] ready to undo the wrong that you have done to my sweet country of Narnia on the very day of its birth?”
“Well, I don’t see what I can do,” said Digory. “You see, the Queen ran away and—”
“I asked, are you ready,” said the Lion. (MN, Chapters 11 and 12, pp. 82–83)
There is a suggestion here that in addition to admitting one’s past wrongs, expressing sorrow, and seeking forgiveness, there must be repentance or moral reform as well as an “undoing” of the evil that one has committed. Can one make full restitution or, more radically still, somehow make it the case that the evil one has committed is done away with? This last task seems beyond our human powers. This is partly because, whatever restitution we make, we cannot change the past. Once you have done something evil, you cannot erase the fact that you did it. But Lewis suggests in The Magician’s Nephew that while humans cannot undo evil, they can cooperate with Aslan (or God) in undoing the evil results that come from wrongdoing.
Aslan gives Digory the task of getting a magic apple from a tree in the garden of the West. Digory succeeds with the assistance of Polly and a winged horse (first known as Strawberry but later re-named Fledge). The apple is planted and it grows into the Tree of Protection. The tree may or may not be a symbol of the cross, but its power to protect Narnia seems part of an even greater protection that Aslan will provide at a great cost to himself. In a passage that hints at the sacrifice and resurrection of Aslan in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (to be discussed below), Aslan tells all the Talking Beasts of Narnia: “Evil will come of that evil [Digory’s wrong doing], but it is still a long way off, and I will see to it that the worst falls upon myself” (MN, Chapter 11, p. 80). We are not told just how Aslan will deliver Narnia from evil, though there is a suggestion that the only true way of protecting oneself from evil must be through action that is caring and not selfish. Aslan points out that the Tree has the power to protect Narnia, but if it is used for selfish reasons the results will be disastrous.
At the end of The Magician’s Nephew, Digory is invited to take an apple from the Tree in order to cure his dying mother. In doing so, Aslan cautions Digory, “What I give you now will bring joy. It will not, in your world, give endless life, but it will heal. Go. Pluck her an apple from the Tree” (MN, Chapter 14, pp. 100–01).
We have here a hint that part of the way in which Aslan can “undo” evil involves healing and expansive life. Somehow, in a way that we don’t yet see, the evil of Jadis, Andrew, and Digory is to be overcome by the re-assertion and transformation of the good creation by Aslan. To see how Aslan accomplishes this, let’s turn to the treatment of evil and atonement in Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
Deep and Deeper Magic
Early Christian thinkers like Origen of Alexandria (around 185–254 A.D.) held that in sinning, human beings come under the bondage of Satan and the works of Satan: sin, evil, and death. To liberate those in bondage, Christ is offered as ransom. Christ switches places with the hostages; he is offered as an exchange or payment for the release of those held captive. By accepting this exchange, Satan is defeated, because Christ, as God incarnate, overcomes sin and death through his passion, crucifixion, and resurrection. This is the traditional Ransom Theory of Christ’s atonement.
Before delving into the problems of this theory of atonement, let’s see how the Narnian case of reconciliation runs parallel to the Ransom Theory.
In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, evil is represented by Jadis, now known as the White Witch, who captivates Edmund with enchanted food and the promise of more food and power. As Edmund falls prey to the Witch’s power, his personality deteriorates. He becomes mean, deceptive, and self-serving.
How is Edmund delivered from evil and reconciled with others, including Aslan? It becomes clear that Edmund cannot free himself. The Witch prepares Edmund to be sacrificed, but at the last minute he is rescued by the good Beasts of Narnia. Like Digory before him, Edmund undertakes the process of admitting past wrongs, expressing remorse, and repenting (LWW, Chapter 13, p. 174).
As in The Magician’s Nephew, however, the problem of restitution arises: How can Edmund “undo” the evil he has done? This is complicated by the Witch’s claim of ownership over Edmund. The Witch tells Aslan, “You at least know the Magic which the Emperor put into Narnia at the very beginning. You know that every traitor belongs to me as my lawful prey and that for every treachery I have a right to a kill” (LWW, Chapter 13, p. 175). Aslan then negotiates with the Witch and agrees to be sacrificed in Edmund’s place. Aslan offers himself as a ransom for Edmund’s release. When the moment comes for the Witch to kill Aslan, she gloats triumphantly:
“And now, who has won? Fool, did you think that by all this you would save the human traitor? Now I will kill you instead of him as our pact was and so the Deep Magic will be appeased. But when you are dead what will prevent me from killing him as well? And who will take him out of my hand then? Understand that you have given me Narnia for ever, you have lost your own life and you have not saved his. In that knowledge, despair and die.” (LWW, Chapter 14, p. 181)
As everyone knows who has read the book, Aslan dies and then returns to life. Later, he tells the children how he foiled the Witch’s plan:
“[T]hough the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. . . . [I]f she could have looked . . . into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the [Stone] Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards.” (LWW, Chapter 15, p. 185)
A great battle ensues after the resurrection, in which Edmund plays a key role, and the Witch and her minions are finally overthrown. In restoring Narnia to rights, Aslan returns to life all the good creatures the Witch had turned to stone.
Problems for the Ransom Theory
While the Ransom Theory was defended by Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, and other heavyweight early Christian thinkers, it was repudiated in the Middle Ages by Anselm, Abelard, and many influential theologians who followed. Christians looked elsewhere to understand how it is that Christ liberates people from sin, death, and Satan (if Satan in fact exists; none of the great Creeds of the Christian Church requires belief that he does). For example, it has been argued that Christ paid the penalty that was due to sin; that Christ’s life is a perfect offering that satisfies what all creatures owe to God; and that through Christ’s suffering love we are divinely called to give up our self-centered desires and to seek a right relationship with God. A popular, current view that traces its roots back to Greek theology sees the atoning work of Christ in terms of people becoming transformed through their identification with Christ, coming to see the world through Christ’s love.3 The reasons why many Christians abandoned the Ransom Theory are not hard to see.
Oxford philosopher John R. Lucas notes one major attraction of the Ransom Theory—the powerful way in which it captures the sense of liberation from the captivity of sin that many Christians have experienced. “Throughout its history,” he notes, “Christianity has shown remarkable power to speak to, and save, those who have ended up at the bottom of the pile as a result of their own addictions and fecklessness. . . . If I am . . . in thrall to sin, and if I am freed by Jesus’s death on the cross, it was the price he paid for my release.”4 Despite these attractions, however, Lucas believes the Ransom Theory is objectionable, both in the world of Christian theology as well as in Narnia.
Lucas offers four major criticisms of the Ransom Theory: (1) It requires a literal belief in Satan. (2) It further requires that Satan has a right to torment and sacrifice those in his power. (3) It is religiously and morally repugnant to picture God working out a deal with Satan. And (4) God seems to deceive Satan, just as Aslan seems to deceive Jadis by appealing to Deeper Magic. In some classic theological texts, God is even described as tricking Satan by setting a trap for him. For an extreme statement of this outlook, consider medieval theologian Peter Lombard’s line: “The cross was a mousetrap baited with the blood of Christ.”5 Isn’t such deception an offensive strategy for God to use against evil?
We shall reply to each of these objections, thus defending what we see as valuable lessons from Lewis’s Chronicles and from early Christian theology. This will involve modifying the Ransom Theory in places, but we believe that Lucas and others have thrown the baby out with the bathwater; the Ransom Theory, we shall argue, offers an illuminating, defensible portrait of atonement both in Narnia and in Christian theology.
Personifying Evil
Lucas’s first objection is that the Ransom Theory requires belief in Satan. And this belief, he claims, is superstitious and ultimately inconsistent with the sovereignty of God.
C.S. Lewis first achieved fame with the publication of a book, The Screwtape Letters (1942), in which demons engage in written correspondence about wily ways to entrap people in vice. This masterpiece and other works of popular apologetics catapulted Lewis to the cover of Time magazine in 1947. While defending the rationality of belief in a supernatural evil force is necessary in Origen’s version of the Ransom Theory, we believe that a form of the Ransom Theory still makes sense if “Satan” is treated as a metaphor for the binding power of evil. After all, as Lucas notes, it is a commonplace to think of evildoing on the model of addiction in which persons have lost their freedom (being a slave to booze, sex, or eBay), and the New Testament repeatedly refers to evil in terms of bondage (Hebrews 2:15; Galatians 5:1; Romans 8:15) and the slavery of sin (John 8:34; Romans 6:17). Arguably, this bondage may involve a person being held captive by forces that he can’t escape from without aid. Admittedly, it is a further step to picture such evil forces as a person (Satan), but we believe that Lewis has demonstrated, in The Screwtape Letters and elsewhere, the illuminating ways in which evil can be analyzed from a personal point of view. The personification of vices and virtues has generated a rich literature of allegory, including Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Orwell’s Animal Farm, and Lewis’s own The Pilgrim’s Regress. Even if there are no demons, Lewis has shown with great skill how the device of imaginary evil beings can bring to light how vices such as jealousy, anger, and pride can ensnare and dismantle a person’s moral character. Compare Lewis’s outlook with that of his friend, J.R.R. Tolkien. Tolkien employs a rich panoply of embodied supernatural beings (Morgoth, Sauron, Saruman) to explore and shed light on the nature of evil and the human lust for power. Invoking the supernatural (if only as metaphors) can bring to light important truths about the nature and power of evil.
In replying to the remaining three objections, we will adopt a nuanced picture of the Ransom Theory according to which evildoing has caught us in a trap that, for us, is inescapable. That trap is Digory’s predicament: nothing he can do by himself can “undo” the evil he has unleashed. We humans simply lack the power to make full restitution for past harms. To offer a simplistic example, imagine two people (Pat and Kris) who quarrel and injure one another. They can ask forgiveness, express sorrow, repent, and maybe even laugh about things afterwards, but nothing can change the fact that harm was done. So, on our account, evildoing may place one in a bind beyond one’s control, just as if one were enslaved by Jadis or Satan.
Satan’s Lawful Prey?
Lucas’s second objection is that the Ransom Theory requires that Satan (assuming he exists) has a moral right to enslave and torment those in his power, and that the recognition of such a right is inconsistent with Satan’s totally corrupt character and God’s goodness.
Because in our version of the theory, we are not imagining that Satan is a person who functions as an actual slave owner, our theory does not face Lucas’s objection. But we will defend the following sense in which Lewis rightly portrays evil as meeting a fitting end in bondage. In one of his novels, The Great Divorce, Lewis describes Hell as something that people gradually choose for themselves by giving themselves over, bit-by-bit, to cruelty, selfishness, and other vices. His point is that once a person gives way to sin, they entrap themselves in a cycle of self-destruction. Consider the logical consequence of vanity. In mild forms, the vain person loves admiration and praise, but if the vanity becomes extreme, he finds he has no interest in others at all except as means to his own pleasure. After all, if he is so much more important, why should he care about others? In a haunting passage, Lewis writes that he believes that “the damned are, in one sense, successful rebels to the end; that the doors of hell are locked on the inside.”6
The kind of impropriety that Lucas worries about in which the Devil is the rightful owner of sinners is bypassed in our account. What is preserved from the traditional Ransom Theory is the important insight that we can place ourselves in dire straits by our own wrongdoing. Indeed, the harm we bring on ourselves when we do this is the natural or logical consequence of wrongdoing. Obviously, some harms may be disproportionate, as when some relatively minor wrongdoing (like slightly exceeding the speed limit) results in some great harm (a bus full of children plunges over a cliff). And in this life, some wrongdoing may go completely unnoticed or appear to result in great benefits. But in much Christian theology, as in The Magician’s Nephew, evil is mainly seen as a distortion of good things, a twisting, parasitic force. For example, when the vice of rage (not to be confused with a moral, passionate anger at injustice) goes to an extreme, it becomes a tyrannical, debilitating evil. When someone’s violent rage brings on such evil (imagine that a person’s violent, unprovoked rage causes him to burst a blood vessel), one may easily see the result as fitting (“He got what he deserved”). As Lewis sees it, the fitting ill result of wrongdoing (the captivity or bondage of evil) is something that is ultimately brought on by the person doing the wrong. “It’s not a question of God ‘sending’ us to Hell. In each of us there is something growing up which will of itself be Hell unless it is nipped in the bud.”7
Before moving to the third objection, let’s consider further the Witch’s appeal to Deep Magic in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Aslan apparently recognizes the Witch’s understanding of Deep Magic, for he tells the children after his resurrection that she did indeed know about it. The Witch does talk in terms of “lawful prey” and the “right to kill.” In assessing this claim, notice first that there is no suggestion that the Witch has a duty to kill traitors. It must also be noted that Aslan himself clearly does not see any such duties; in fact, Aslan seems committed to liberating Edmund no matter what the cost.
Two further points need to be appreciated in reply to Lucas’s objection to the Witch’s role.
First, the fate of Edmund in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe vividly underscores the nature of allegiance and treachery. When you betray your siblings and place yourself under a vile, brutal power, that power may well bring about your own end. In a sense, by serving the Witch as Edmund did (placing his sisters, brother, and various Talking Beasts in peril), he winds up in her domain, which is a sphere of tyranny where she may “rightly” do as she pleases. After all, Edmund entered into the Witch’s service; his misadventures with the Witch did not begin by her kidnapping him. By appealing to a “Deeper Magic,” Aslan asserts that there is something deeper and more powerful than the tyranny we bring on ourselves.
Second, Lewis’s story rightly highlights the way in which mercy and forgiveness can be in tension with justice. Forgiveness and mercy can involve doing something undeserved or even something that, from the standpoint of justice alone, should not occur. For example, imagine a criminal, rightly condemned to life in prison, who later repents her wrongdoing, makes all the restitution for past harm she can, and then does heroic deeds, rescuing innocent persons from fires, inventing medicines that heal, and so forth. It may be that she deserves to remain in prison for what she did, yet out of mercy and forgiveness, a judge may let her go free. Arguably, this involves doing something that, from the standpoint of justice alone, one should not do. Perhaps something similar applies to Aslan’s treatment of Edmund, where mercy ultimately triumphs over cruel “justice.”
Let’s Make a Deal?
Lucas’s third objection to the Ransom Theory is that there is something religiously and morally repugnant in picturing God working out a deal with Satan. As Lucas asks rhetorically, why wouldn’t God simply break the bonds of Satan by force? Two things can be said in reply.
First, we think that the metaphor of good and evil in negotiation is, in fact, illuminating. After all, evil is often disguised as something good. Jadis and Uncle Andrew want power, and power, so long as it is not exercised for evil, can be good. Often, the conflict between good and evil is disguised as a conflict between different types of goods, or as a clash over how something good should be pursued. The evil of Uncle Andrew was not that he wanted to explore other worlds, but the way he went about doing this (by endangering children and so forth). In Aslan’s “negotiations” with the Witch, we don’t see a conflict between better and worse options, but a truly terrible exchange in which Aslan gives his life in order to liberate a hostage. The “negotiation” here dramatically brings to light the way evil often leads to greater evil.8 It also highlights how evil can call forth acts of courageous, sacrificial love.9
Second, Aslan does use force to overcome Jadis, just as Christ uses force to overcome Satan in the Ransom Theory. But here it is crucial to understand that the force involved must be such as to display the love of Aslan or God so that Edmund and others may truly put aside their bondage to evil and accept the liberation provided. Imagine a case where someone has been unjustly imprisoned. The bars of his prison are then broken and there is an easy opportunity for escape. What if the person refuses to escape and prefers instead to remain in his cell? Has he been truly liberated? Arguably not. In a sense, the willing prisoner has become his own jailer. In Narnia and the Ransom Theory there is a fitting, dramatic way in which Aslan and the God incarnate demonstrate their love by taking on the results of wrongdoing. If death is the ultimate outcome of relentless evil, then by suffering death they wind up bearing, and ultimately overthrowing or undoing, the work of evil. Aslan and the God incarnate achieve a profound, loving identification with Edmund and other wrongdoers by undergoing the fate that Edmund and others have brought upon themselves. And by overcoming that fate, they show Edmund and others the way out of evil.
Lucas charges that the Ransom Theory gives an account of the cost of atonement and its benefits but without explaining how the two connect. The connection may be seen in how God manifests abundant love by identifying with wrongdoers and then coaxing or cajoling them into a life of goodness, welcoming God’s restoration after past harms. It is because persons matter in Narnia and the Ransom Theory that the liberation has to be seen as a profoundly moving exercise of divine love. God’s merely overcoming evil by an omnipotent edict would likely lead us to think of God as more of a puppet master, a frightening impersonal force, as opposed to the picture we get in Narnia and the New Testament of a personal manifestation of divine love. The ultimate consummation of the atonement is achieved by our joining in God’s (or Aslan’s) superabundant power to bring new life out of horror and death.10
Lucas’s final objection is that the Ransom Theory portrays God as deceiving Satan, and that it is improper to attribute any such unworthy action to God.
Let’s consider Narnia first. In Lewis’s story, did Aslan lie? Aslan didn’t disclose the Deeper Magic during the negotiations. Of course, he may not have known of the Deeper Magic at the time, in which case there was no withholding. But assuming Aslan did know of the Deeper Magic, was it lying or somehow wrong not to disclose this? No. Except under highly unusual circumstances, wrongdoers are not entitled to full disclosure. Imagine someone has stolen your backpack and inside it there is a cell phone that regularly sends signals indicating its location. Have you deceived the person by not telling them that they should be careful to turn off the cell phone? In a hostage crisis, are you obligated to make full disclosure of all that might help the hostage takers? Surely not.
In responding to this last objection, it’s helpful to note the dramatic features of the Ransom Theory. It is a tale in which evil is overcome by its own devices. In Origen’s theology, Satan thought it would be great to take on the author of life itself. While we may not embrace this demonic supernaturalism, this portrait of evil fits many historical cases of evil. Think of the ways in which empires have been stretched by tyrants to the breaking point. In the modern era, Napoleon, Hitler, and Saddam Hussein (the list is not exhaustive) may all be seen as having lusted for power so intensely that they foolishly strove to dominate others far beyond their ability to control or destroy. This portrait of the self-destructive, ultimately foolish nature of evil is present throughout Hebrew and Christian scripture. “The fool has dug a hole and fallen into it” (Psalms 7:15). “Those who live by the sword, die by the sword” (Matthew 26:52). The teaching here seems to be that evil has within it its own seeds of destruction.
Some of the imagery used, cited earlier, about how God lured Satan into making a deal is indeed crude. Thinking of the cross as a mousetrap, as Peter Lombard does, seems primitive and ugly. But in its defense one needs to appreciate the ugliness of the world in Lombard’s Middle Ages. We believe there is a kind of humor to the image of a mousetrap. The image likens Satan and the powers of evil to a rodent! When you consider the brutal persecution of Christians in the first centuries, casting evil as a mouse takes guts and a sense of humor. Despite its comical aspect, however, the mousetrap image is not often used in the exposition of the Ransom Theory, for it only focuses on one aspect of the atonement—the defeat of evil—and does not address the broader issue of drawing people away from evil and toward God through the resurrection.
Worth a Deeper Look
We have not fully defended the truth of the Ransom Theory. Much more would need to be said to do that! In his other writings, Lewis doesn’t explicitly endorse the Ransom Theory, but he does insist that it is pivotal to Christianity to affirm that Christ provides people with the way of salvation and atonement, even if there are very different accounts of just how this is accomplished. We have argued that the Ransom Theory, so routinely dismissed historically and by modern critics, has much to commend it as a coherent, illuminating account of atonement, both in Christian theology and in The Chronicles of Narnia.
1 Lewis’s portrait of creation by singing is similar to that presented in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Simarillion (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977), pp. 15–22.
2 Many reasons may be given for the importance of sorrow in reconciliation. Here are four: (1) As Roderick Chisholm has argued, it is a basic good to take pleasure in good and feel sorrowful about evil. (2) Insofar as a person is responsible for some evil, guilt feelings (in proportion) are fitting, and presumably feeling guilty involves remorse and sorrow as opposed to mere regret. (3) Sorrow may be a sign of genuine reform or repentance. (4) Insofar as any pleasure was gained in the wrongdoing, sorrow in a sense secures (or is evidence) that there is no ongoing pleasure but a remorse that any wrongful pleasure was taken at all.
3 See, for example, John Hick’s “Is the Doctrine of the Atonement a Mistake?” in Reason and the Christian Religion, edited by Alan Padgett (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994). For an extensive treatment of the atonement, see Richard Swinburne’s Responsibility and Atonement (Oxford: Clarendon, 1989).
4 J.R. Lucas, “Reflections on the Atonement,” in Reason and the Christian Religion, pp. 266–67.
5 Cited by H.D. McDonald in The Atonement of the Death of Christ (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985), p. 144.
6 C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (New York: Macmillan, 1962), p. 127.
7 God in the Dock, edited by Walter Hooper (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), p. 155.
8 For a recent work on the corrosive impact of evil and the human tendency to use negotiations and other devices to inflict harm, see Humanity by John Glover (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999).
9 The classic Biblical story of good and evil, negotiation and slavery and, finally, deliverance involves Joseph and his brothers (Genesis 37–50). An innocent man, Joseph, is sold into slavery by his brothers. The brothers report to their father that Joseph has died. As it turns out, while the brother’s chief goal was to rid themselves of Joseph and to make money by selling him as a slave, Joseph became a powerful steward in Egypt who rescues his father, brothers and their families from famine. In this narrative, a seemingly hopeless enslavement is turned upside down as it becomes one step in a process that ultimately achieves reconciliation for all.
10 The Ransom Theory can take seriously the need to rescue a person from him or herself. Consider Shakespeare’s Macbeth. In the play, the murderer Macbeth sinks further and further into a crisis of moral identity. At one time he is afraid for himself, fearing discovery, but later on he becomes afraid of himself. If he was to be rescued from his evil, he would have to be delivered from his past choices and character. This need for self-deliverance is one of the reasons why the Ransom Theory and the Narnian account of atonement must involve a dramatic process that truly liberates a person by the person himself truly renouncing his past evil and then coming to seek the good.