When did we first hear about magic? Santa, fairy tales, etc.What is magic about Santa? He has a flying sleigh with flying reindeer. What is magical in Fairy Tales? Cinderella’s godmother. What is a godmother? It is a Christian term. Who is Santa? He is SAINT Nick. What is a saint? A Christian. So there you have it! The start of Christian themes in magical stories!
What is Magic?
There are three categories it can fall into and Rowling deals with all three of these in her books.
1. Make believe – Not related to facts in anyway, just for fun and story telling.
2. Wisdom and knowledge – In ancient times, studying to gain wisdom and knowledge was considered supernatural.
3. Occult religion – Associated with dark powers, Satan worship, and the like.
C. S. Lewis didn’t choose to do philosophical work, because his “day job” was medieval literature. He didn’t start with Christian apologetics, but rather, was asked by his book publisher. The publisher asked him to write on how there can be suffering if there is a loving God in heaven. The book did well, and a programmer at BBC radio wanted Lewis to talk on the radio. These talks became the book Mere Christianity. His last apologetics book was called Miracles and he was asked to do this book by Dorothy L Sayers.
Sayers started as a mystery writer but then became interested in Christian apologetics. Sayers loved drama and so started writing Christian apologetic drama. Sayers said that someone must write a book on miracles, because there is no place for God in a cause and effect universe. And we live in a world that only knows cause and effect.
In his book, Lewis broke the world into two parts: People that believe in “something else out there” and those that don’t. Thus there are “Naturalists” and “Supernaturalist”. Rowling is doing the same thing that Sayers did with drama and what Lewis did in his fiction only she used the word Muggle to describe Naturalists. Harry is a true innocent. He doesn’t know anything at the very beginning and then learns about the supernatural over time.
Lewis said that a logical argument in apologetics was to be used for the edification of those who already believe (Poe disagrees because Chuck Colson’s conversion due to reading Mere Christianity disproves that idea). Lewis said that the best type of apologetics was a book of any subject with Christianity underneath it all.
Dr. Poe has written many Christian works, but wrote a book on Edger Allen Poe for the recent bicentennial. Hal Poe followed Edger Allen Poe’s human struggle and eventual conversion and used it to place Christianity underneath the overall story. The book won the Edger Award and was very popular.
Muggles
Richard Dawkins is a good example of a “Muggle”. He would say that the Bible is a book of “magic” and make believe. Marxism is a purely “Muggle” philosophy.
Worldview - The core values and beliefs of a culture.
What is Rowling’s attitude toward the history of magic?
Ron and Harry find it boring. Hermione finds it very useful. Their teacher is a ghost. He was so boring he didn’t even notice he died and has just continued to teach.
So what is Rowling’s view of history?
Personal history is important. Personal background is very important. But… how do you solve the Chamber of Secrets if you don’t know the history?
We have to know how we got here, what we are doing, and where we are going.
How would Harry’s relationship with Snape changed if he had known their relational history
What are her thoughts on history teachers?
She has strong views on what is a good teacher and a bad teacher. She loves education. She loves history but hate the way it is taught.
Timelines
The Bible has a timeline from the beginning to the end of time. Hebrews saw history as cyclical rather than linier. Solomon said that there is nothing new under the sun. Seasons are a cycle. There is no physical evidence that history is linier in their eyes.
The Bible adds direction. It shows that the world had a beginning and is going somewhere.
Until the 1970s it was believed that the universe had just always existed. But then science caught up with the Bible and found that there was a sudden beginning to the universe from nothing.
Where does a linier view of history come from all of the sudden? Revelation from God. Cyclical views of history always have a unconscious god or no god at all. The Bible (and the religions that came after it) has a personal God that is sending messengers that can be tested. If a prophet is from God, what he says will come true.
The prediction of future is a TEST. NOT the message. “Prophecies” are just to prove that the messengers are indeed from God. Isaiah had proven that he was a prophet said that Babylon was coming, that was his message. This was his message because it didn’t happen until much, much later. And lo and behold! When the time came Nebuchadnezzar took over!
The Bible has changed the way Western people thinks. You don’t even have to be a Christian to acknowledge that.
Abraham came from Ur of the Chaldeans and went to the land of the Canaanites. They were VERY different cultures. They had the same worldview, but very different cultures.
Dr. Poe and Richard Dawkins have the same worldview.
In fact, Dawkins and I have the same worldview.
If you stop to think about it, YOU and Dawkins have the same worldview. We just all have very different “cultures” or whys of thinking, and different points of view. (Yes that was a shocking statement in class and Dr. Poe promises more to come.)
The Babylonians have influenced us today. We have 24 hours in a day, because of them. We would have done it in base 10 because it’s easy to count on our fingers. But the Babylonians counted the JOINTS in their fingers (not including their thumb, because they counted with their thumb). 360 degrees in a circle was laid down by them as well.
After the Babylonians, came the Persians, then the Greeks. By the time of Christ, Jews couldn’t even read Hebrew because they only knew Greek. Then Rome came. Rome conquered the Greeks, but Greek culture conquered Rome. Rome included almost EVERY culture that they had conquered. They didn’t have a unified worldview, there was nothing to hold it together except the army.
In 411 Alaric sacked Rome and this started Augustine writing City of God.
And then Dr. Poe ran out of time and we have to wait until next week.
V. B.
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