The Hobbit, Tolkien & Fantasy

The recently released blockbuster film 'The Hobbit' has once again brought into focus the extraordinary writing of J.R.R. Tolkien. The work of Tolkien has been a regular topic of interest at CASE. On 10th March 2004 Lord of the Rings devotees gathered at New College to explore a theological perspective on Tolkien’s trilogy and the contemporary film treatments. The conference had the theme 'Creation, redemption and Lord of the Rings'. Three papers were presented. The papers by Dr Greg Clarke and Dr Diane Speed were published in Case #4. The third paper, by Dr Kirsten Birkett, can be downloaded from the CASE (HERE).

The paper by Dr Greg Clarke titled 'Tolkien and Theology: Believing in Fairy-Stories' explores Tolkien's particular view of fantasy and its purposes and possibilities. In it Dr Clarke writes:

In 1947, Tolkien published a very significant and revealing essay, ‘On fairy-stories’. In the essay, he explores the meaning of a way of thinking called ‘faerie’, commonly expressed in fairy tales. Tolkien is at pains to point out that most people have a very narrow and mistaken view of what such a tale is—that it is a simple made-up story containing small unreal creatures. Tolkien’s own definition is more metaphysical: a fairy-story contains events, words and ideas that are magical or fantastical, but in a serious way such that it seems real. Such a tale is marked especially by the attempt to recover from a loss. Fairy-stories could achieve at least three things: recovery, escape and consolation.

Greg Clarke's full paper and his expansion of Tolkien's three things fairy stories can achieve was reprinted in Case magazine #4 (2004). You can download it free HERE.
You can also read an excellent post from the newspaper 'Eternity' on 'The Hobbit' HERE.

Telling Stories: Desire, community, formation & 'life'

In the latest edition of Case magazine our writers explore the theme 'Living Stories'. Our intent is to explore the place of story in life, faith and the imagination. In the opening essay I consider the role of stories in Christian formation and begin with a personal reflection. I have no recollection of ever being read to as a child. But by middle age I had concluded that I was raised in a home rich in stories and that these had helped to shape me. My parents had filled my world with their own stories and the texts and stories that had ‘spoken’ to them.

My father was a consummate oral storyteller, and my mother—an entertainer and singer—filled my life with opera, ballads and popular music. As a child my father’s stories of life in Scotland, his battles as a trade union leader, sporting conquests and life's disappointments, had washed over me and engaged me. So too did the stories of my maternal grandfather with whom I stayed during most school holidays—a godly, creative and intelligent man. He was a brilliant inventor and businessman who constantly quoted the Scriptures (especially the Psalms and Proverbs) and recited Australian and Scottish poetry whenever we did things together.

I saw no place for God in my life until I was 31, but I can see with hindsight that my own emerging view of the good life was based as much on my rejection of many of my father’s ideas as my embracing of the alternative narratives of my grandparents and a growing group of Christian friends who had different hopes and desires. This is the way narrative works in our lives. It touches us, teaches us and in time shapes us.

The place of story in our formation

When I use the word ‘story’, I mean more than just an account of imaginary or real people and events told for entertainment’. Rather, I am using it as a variant of ‘narrative’, that is, ‘a spoken or written account of connected events’. I deliberately use ‘story’ because it carries with it the implication of something with an imagined, constructed, purposeful and communicative nature. It includes ‘factual’ recounts and passionately held views expressed in narrative form by way of illustration, anecdote, poem, song and so on. Stories are deeply personal things, and have purposes that go well beyond entertainment or information. Our stories reflect our history, our values, our beliefs, our priorities and our intent when we share them.

'The StoryTeller' Ludwig Knaus (1829-1910) 

Stories are also more than disconnected and isolated accounts. They typically have a relationship to other larger metanarratives. Christian Smith suggests that narratives ‘seek to convey the significance and meaning of events by situating their interaction with or influence on other events and actions in a single, interrelated account’. They include a set of characters or players, both subjects and objects of the action. They have a plot which gives shape to the action (a beginning, middle and end) and they seek to communicate significant points or messages. Smith suggests that in this age dominated by the power of reason and evidence, and the rational over the creative, we are nonetheless still creatures who are ‘the makers, tellers, and believers of narrative construals of existence, history, and purpose’. We make stories and in turn are made by them.

This ‘making’ of us is shaped at least in part by the stories we absorb, give expression to and help create. James K.A. Smith - who will deliver the New College Lectures in 2012 - suggests in his book 'Desiring the Kingdom' that this is not simply a cognitive process. Rather, we are embodied creatures who absorb the stories of life and engage in rituals and cultural practices that shape our desires and our vision of the good life. This argument draws on Charles Taylor’s concept of the ‘social imaginary’ mentioned earlier. Taylor argues that societies are given direction by an imagined and hoped for view of the world. This is not expressed simply in ‘theoretical terms, but is carried in images, stories and legends’. Humans are not given their major focus and direction simply by reasoning, but by the imagination.

Taylor’s use of the term ‘social imaginary’ is quite deliberate. Much broader than an intellectual understanding of reality, his focus is on how people ‘imagine their social surroundings’. While his category is a little slippery and doesn’t address all that we know about memory, thinking and knowledge, the point is worth making. Our imaginations are primed by the narratives we experience in daily life. Thus primed, we develop desires and views of the ‘good life’, accept shared group understandings and make sense of our experiences. The use of the term ‘social imaginary’ emphasises the rich social context in which we make sense of the world, a context influenced as much (or more) by story as by deliberate reasoning. This is not to suggest that our stories are not subjected at times to analysis and critique, but they are often born in life moments where our imaginations are captured, even if only momentarily, by narrative whether heard, read, seen or experienced.

Augustine (Botticelli) courtesy Wiki Commons

The stories that are part of our experience thus shape our vision of the good life; give focus to our desires, and direction to our lives. As well, they contribute to building community. As Oliver O’Donovan reminds us in his book 'Common Objects of Love', a community is ‘a gathered multitude of rational beings united by agreeing to share the things they love’. In essence, people come to see a common ‘view of the good’ and are hence capable of common action, cultural practices and identity

James K.A. Smith agrees with Taylor that our hopes, goals, desires and views are influenced by our imaginative experience of the world, including its stories. Echoing Augustine, he argues that we inhabit the world, not primarily as thinkers or believers, but as ‘more affective, embodied creatures who make our way in the world more by feeling our way around it’. We are above all things ‘agents of love, which takes the structure of desire or longing’. Smith reminds us that our desires are aimed at our hoped for ends (or goals) and set the trajectory for our lives:

…a vision of the good life captures our hearts and imaginations…by painting a picture of what it looks like for us to flourish and live well. This is why such pictures are communicated most powerfully in stories, legends, myths, plays, novels, and films rather than dissertations, messages and monographs.

To be human is to understand our God-given desire to know our purpose in life and, to seek fulfilment in the ‘hoped for’, the ultimate quest of each life. There is an intertextual cacophony of stories that shape us and influence the things we desire, and from these stories we ‘read’ various representations of the future, and alternative visions of human flourishing. In a sense, we are taught, perhaps even lured by these ‘pictures’, these visions of the future.

Other articles in this issue

In the same issue of Case magazine that my own essay appears there are four other essays that explore the theme of 'Living Stories'. These include an essay based on a lecture Bruce Smith gave in 1997, 'Hope and Tragedy in Life and Literature'. Chris Swann explores how the gospel can equip us to engage with stories and literature, Michael Ward writes about C.S. Lewis and imagination and the apologetics of story and William Tate offers an interesting insight into Karl Barth's 'Secular parables'.  You can order the magazine HERE or become a CASE Associate for $AUS 55  which entitles you to 4 issues of Case magazine each year.

Theology & the future of humanity

The New College Lectures were concluded on Thursday evening with Dr Michael Jensen's talk 'Theology & the future of humanity: Smith's 'White Teeth' and Paul's Galatians'. My last post provides a short overview of the first two lectures by Prof John McDowell ('Theology & the future of education') and Dr David Starling ('Theology & the future of the Church').

Dr Jensen chose to contrast the views of humanity embedded in two sources, Zadie Smith’s 2001 novel 'White Teeth' and Paul's letter to the Galatian church. He unpacked the competing meta-narratives used in the novel to describe the future of humanity that is embedded in the work. He discussed three meta-narratives exemplified in the story's main characters: the epic, the tragic, and Smith’s own ‘comic-romantic’ vision. In doing this he highlighted how as Smith develops her story, she humorously critiques several competing futurisms – the religious, political and scientific all shown in differing forms of fundamentalism. We end up through Smith's eyes with two descriptions of the future, the materialist or the religious. For Zadie Smith the best humans are those who "..don't succumb to some fanatical programme for change, but just love." But as he pointed out, Smith’s alternative visions of the human future are hard to take seriously when she presents such twisted examples - scientists linked to a Nazi eugenicist and, Christian eschatology represented by Jehovah's Witnesses. He suggested that none of Smith’s meta-narratives offer satisfying accounts for ‘actual human experience…’.

Instead, Dr Jensen used Paul’s letter to the Galatians to offer a better vision, one that harnesses an apocalyptic eschatology to address the corrupting influence of a potentially destructive group within the Galatian church - the ‘circumcision group’.

Paul’s word to the Galatians offered them real hope, because it suggested that the future of humanity was in their reach. The alternative gospel of the circumcision group was to situate the gospel in themselves and a new form of tribalism. The circumcision group suggested an alternative gospel in which God commands repentance, signified by the circumcision and zeal for the law (Gal 4:17). Instead, Paul suggested to the Galatians that the gospel is not controlled by them as individuals and revealed by their efforts. Rather, God reveals it to us.  And this revelation Paul suggests finds its answer in and through Christ. The cross of Christ is where God makes things right with humanity and offers the potential to become the people he wants us to be. This is a gospel that frees them from the law by the crucifixion of the flesh.

The future of humanity has already entered the present. At the cross, God founds a new humanity—a community bound in faith and formed because of the sacrificial love of God. While Zadie Smith also proposes a priority be given to love, she proposes a randomness to reality, filled with the "faint hope that human beings can summon up enough tenderness for each to break the shackles of history that so weigh us down."

"For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love." (Galatians 5:5,6)

"For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another." (Galatians 5:13)

Further information

The three lectures are already available in slightly shortened forms within Case magazine, a publication of the apologetics centre CASE within New College. Associates of CASE will receive this in the mail next week. Others can purchase them online HERE.

The lectures will also be made available in audio and some video formats in a few weeks.

Irresistible Grace: 'Brideshead Revisited' revisited

This post has been written by Greg Thiele, an Associate of CASE and a regular contributor to the CASE blog

In 1945, English comic novelist Evelyn Waugh completed what was to become his most successful and popular work: Brideshead Revisited. Waugh, a Catholic, indicated that the theme of the novel was “the operation of divine grace on a group of diverse but closely connected characters”. 

(It should be noted in passing that the Catholic understanding of grace differs – significantly, at points – from the evangelical one. There is not scope here to consider such differences; but in any case, the essential notion of grace – God’s free, unmerited favour and blessing – seems to be at work in the novel in a way that most evangelical Christians would recognise.) 

The novel describes the dealings of the main character, Charles Ryder, with the aristocratic Flyte family.  Ryder, a disillusioned WWII army captain, finds himself unexpectedly back at Brideshead, the Flyte family’s stately home, where, in flashback, much of the action of the novel takes place. He recounts his friendship, at Oxford, with the troubled younger son, Sebastian, and his relationship with other members of the family, including his eventual romance with Julia, the beautiful elder daughter.

The young Charles is an agnostic, dismissive of the “narrative” of the Christian faith, and finds the Catholicism of the Flytes incomprehensible. The Flytes themselves represent a wide range of levels of faith and piety. The paterfamilias, Lord Marchmain, had effectively been forced to convert to Catholicism in order to marry Teresa (Lady Marchmain). When we first meet Lord Marchmain, we find him estranged from his wife and living openly with a courtesan in Venice, with a deep hostility towards both his adopted faith and his spouse. Lady Marchmain, on the other hand, is “popularly believed to be a saint”. The elder son, also named Brideshead, and the younger daughter, Cordelia, reflect their mother’s faith. The other son and daughter, Sebastian and Julia, physically alike, are similar also in their problematic relationship with the family religion.

As Charles’s friendship with Sebastian develops, we find the latter sinking into alcoholism and depression: a result, it seems, of his inability to deal with the demands and expectations of his family – especially those of his mother – exacerbated by issues of personality and character. For Charles, the magical world of wealth and privilege which he had entered through his friendship with Sebastian evaporates when he is dismissed by Lady Marchmain, due to having given Sebastian money to support his drinking habit. “Henceforth”, decides the young Charles on leaving Brideshead for what he assumes will be the last time, “I live in a world of three dimensions - with the aid of my five senses”. The older Charles, the narrator, ironically affirms that he has subsequently learned that “there is no such world”.

Ten years pass. Charles is married, though estranged from his adulterous wife. It is thus that he meets, for the first time in many years, Julia, who by now thoroughly regrets her own foolish, early marriage to the absurd Rex Mottram – a self-made man and politician who is the butt of a good deal of the novel’s humour. Julia’s marrying Rex had entailed her officially rejecting her religion, due to his having already been married and divorced. Charles and Julia embark on an affair, and in due course find themselves living together at Brideshead.

The novel’s climactic episode involves the return of Lord Marchmain to Brideshead, and his eventual death (Lady Marchmain having died several years earlier). In scenes of heightening tension, watching her father die, Julia gradually comes to see that she cannot continue to live her life in rebellion against God: trying to “set up a rival good to God’s”, as she later puts it. Kneeling at the foot of her father’s bed, she prays that he will give a sign that he repents and accepts God’s forgiveness.

A priest is in attendance to administer the last rites – the same priest whom Lord Marchmain had some weeks earlier sent packing. Charles challenges the priest: “Father Mackay,” I said. “You know how Lord Marchmain greeted you last time you came; do you think it possible he can have changed now?” Father Mackay responds:”Thank God, by his grace it is possible.”

It is while witnessing Julia’s anguish that Charles begins to sense in himself the need to receive the same grace and forgiveness for which she is praying on her father’s behalf. Almost in spite of himself, he kneels behind the woman he loves, and prays the simple prayer:”O God, if there is a God, forgive him his sins, if there is such a thing as sin“. In a scene of extraordinary power and pathos, Julia’s prayer (and, we may assume, Charles’s) is answered.

Father Mackay’s parting words to Charles are illuminating: “I’ve known it happen that way again and again. The devil resists to the last moment and then the Grace of God is too much for him”.

Lord Marchmain dies, and Charles and Julia part forever.

Back in the present (“one grey morning of war-time”), his reverie past, Charles pays a visit to the small chapel on the Brideshead estate. There he prays (“an ancient, newly-learned form of words”), and begins to understand the purpose of the “fierce little human tragedy” in which he had played a part. The Holy Spirit is like the wind, blowing “wherever it pleases” (John 3:8) – and God’s grace will manifest itself in the most unexpected ways and situations.

At one point in the novel, Lady Marchmain reads from one of G.K. Chesterton’s “Father Brown” stories, which speaks of God’s kindness and mercy in holding on to those who wander away from him: “I caught him (the thief) with an unseen hook and an invisible line which is long enough to let him wander to the ends of the world and still to bring him back with a twitch upon the thread”. Such is God’s irresistible grace. For those of us whom God has called, but who at various times in our lives have wandered far from him, such a thought - the essential message of Brideshead Revisited - is immensely comforting.

Revealing the Truth or Hiding it From Children: Learning from Humpty Dumpty

The BBC created quite a stir two weeks ago when one of its children’s programs altered the words to the children’s rhyme ‘Humpty Dumpty’, in order to give it a more cheerful ending. In the revised edition, instead of all the kings horses and all the kings men not being able to 'put Humpty together again', all the King's horses and men 'made Humpty happy again'. The revision of fairy tales and nursery rhymes isn’t new. In recent years some have been modified to remove racism, sexism and in some cases culturally insensitive material. As well, some have been touched up in order to make them easier to understand for today’s children. But is this always a good idea?

It’s easier to build arguments for removing racism and culturally insensitive material, but the type of revision that Humpty Dumpty has suffered is less justifiable. Why do I say this? I think there are a number of reasons but I’ll comment on just two.

1. Narrative helps to explain and offer a rehearsal
for life

Children’s stories introduce ideas and concepts in narrative form as a type of rehearsal for life. Narrative whether told, heard, seen or written can provide a way to learn about, reflect on and explain life. In fact life always ends in death and there can be suffering, sickness, persecution, fear and sadness along the way. Stories may just as easily give a false impression of life if they distort the nature of human experience, or offer it in a limited way. Life doesn’t always have a happy ending. In fact for all of us it can involve pain and suffering and ultimately will end in death.

How children grow in their understanding of the realities of life varies and causes many parents anguish and sometimes pain. Every parent who has had a tearful child come home complaining about being bullied for the first time; having been teased because of their appearance, body shape etc, will know what I mean. Life requires us to cope and grow with our successes, failures, pain, ridicule, joy and sorrow. But how and when do we deal with such issues? Because children begin life in innocence with no awareness of the hard and sometimes dark side of life, parents are right to be cautious about what concepts they introduce to their children as well as how and when. Greg Thiele’s post on appropriate movies for children (here) dealt with this issue. Children need to grow emotionally and not be forced to deal with issues beyond their stage of emotional development.

Parents are the key to the child’s emotional growth and wellbeing and have the important task of knowing what to say and when to say it to their children. It’s terrifying for any parent to let a child go off to preschool or preschool where we can’t personally respond to every situation. Often the way we respond to our children when they get home is in terms of story or anecdote. The child tells their story about what happens, and the parent often responds in narrative form, “I had something happen to me….”, “It’s a bit like that time that your sister….”, or “Daddy had that happen to him….”.

Beyond real life anecdotes and stories children are introduced to many more serious aspects of the human condition through story. On my other blog ‘Literacy, Families & learning’ I have written about the role that literature plays many times (here). For example, in a post on ‘Conquering Fears’ I explored the role that children’s literature can play in helping children deal with unknown fears and known fears like death, danger and the threats of other children. I also explored the role of literature in understanding ‘Death’ and ‘Being Different’.

Christian parents will of course always want to bring back their discussions with their children to the central narrative of creation that explains all other things. And while the best place for parents to start is in reading the Bible to and with their children, all narrative can provide echoes of the central and foundational human narrative. As I wrote in a previous post on ‘Christian Writing for Children’ (here), the gospel of Christ is the central narrative to which virtually all other narratives have some relationship – certainly in the Western cultural tradition and literature. The central focus of the Bible is Salvation History; with its central narrative tracing both the history of Judaism and Christianity and God’s redemptive plan for his people. In the beginning God created…and it was good. But sin entered the world, man rebelled against him and so God placed a curse upon his creation that one day would end in judgement. But God always had a plan for such rebellion; a plan of redemption motivated by love. An amazing gift of grace; his own son sent to die and three days later to be raised from the dead to defeat sin and death. A plan that provided a way for creation to be restored and for humanity to be brought back into a relationship with him.

The biblical narrative of God’s redemptive plan and work is the central narrative that gives shape to all other narratives. In every story there is a sense in which there is an echo of the biblical narrative. J.R.R. Tolkien once said (to his friend C.S. Lewis) that “The Christian story is the greatest story of them all. Because it’s the real story. The historical event that fulfils the tales and shows us what they mean." Lewis and Tolkien both saw the gospel narrative as the central or foundational human narrative.

2. Back to ‘Humpty Dumpty’: Disconnecting stories from ultimate truth

So does it matter that they’ve messed up ‘Humpty Dumpty’? I think so, but probably for different reasons than Ricky Gervais who is also fired up about the matter (see below). There are two good reasons. First, in messing about with a simple rhyme or fairy tale we strip away the depth of meaning and possibilities that were originally intended by the writer. Most fairy tales, in fact most children’s stories have many layers of intended meaning. In fact, many well known nursery rhymes and playground chants have deep political meanings. I’m preparing a separate post on this for my other blog, but let me illustrate with poor old ‘Humpty’.

We're not certain what the original intent of Humpty Dumpty. Some suggest Humpty Dumpty was a colloquial term used in fifteenth century England to describe an overweight person. Others suggest that the ‘Humpty Dumpty’ of the nursery rhyme was a large cannon used in the English Civil War (1642 - 1649) as part of the siege of Colchester (1648) by the Parliamentarians (Roundheads). It is believed that the cannon was placed on the city wall near St Mary’s Church (opposite - Colchester Arts Centre today). It has been suggested in one account that a shot from the cannon of the Roundheads succeeded in damaging the wall beneath ‘Humpty Dumpty’ that caused it to fall to the ground. The Royalists tried to restore it but 'all the King's men' couldn’t raise the canon back onto another section of the wall due to its weight. The town of Colchester eventually fell after a siege of eleven weeks. Many now doubt this reading of Humpty. Some suggest that it alludes to English King Richard III and the Oxford Dictionary refers to 'Humpty Dumpty' as a brandy drink boiled with ale. I like the siege of Colchester version but it is difficult to know the truth of the rhyme.

So at one level, changing the ending simply relegates this rhyme to a playground chant with a happy ending. But at a more fundamental level, the change to the rhyme strips away a connection or echo of the divine narrative. Changing the ending as they did is to suggest a lie to our children (if repeated). Instead, children must learn (eventually) that life can take twists and turns that we don’t expect, and that for all of us it will end up in death. But they also need to learn over time that while there is pain and loss in life, there is also joy and hope, and that ultimately we will be ‘put back together again’ just like the cannon (or the egg!) in and through Christ. Our only hope is in him, and we need not despair or be fearful of death.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. (Romans 8:18-25)

3. Just for fun – Rick Gervais on Humpty

I don't want to trivialise a serious post, but I enjoyed the 'analysis' of Humpty Dumpty by Ricky Gervais. Gervais is one of my favourite comedians (star of the British TV series ‘The Office’) has a rant about what they did to Humpty. Apologies for some of his language.

Related Posts

Report in 'The Independent' on the BBC changes to 'Humpty Dumpty' (here)

Sydney Morning Hearld report on the story (here)

The debate about teaching Australian literature: What's it about?

Most newspapers have carried reports in recent days about the response of the NSW English Teaching Association (ETA) to the NSW Board of Studies review of the English Curriculum designed to strengthen Australian literature content.

The ETA response to the Board drew heavy criticism from Miranda Devine writing in the Sydney Morning Herald (20-21 September, 2008). Devine provocatively titled her piece "English teachers have lost the plot". She shared quotes from the submission including the following:

"The ETA opposes the selective nomination of some types of text as this implies hierarchies in generic form and medium rather than in the quality of the texts themselves."

The association is "most concerned at the use of the term 'literature' [and the] privileging of 'print medium'. "

Devine rightly questions why the ETA isn't taking the position of being the strongest defender of the book, whereas the ETA seems to be concerned to ensure that new technology and diverse new narrative forms are incorporated into the curriculum in the interests of cultural relevance and the interest and motivation of students. They are positioned as the defenders of all children.

Parents might wonder what this debate really is all about. The Board of Studies review appears to have been motivated by a perception that the balance between literature and other textual forms, including new media, may well have shifted in recent times to the detriment of Australian literature. This is certainly a perception mirrored by some parents, academics, public intellectuals etc. Might it be possible that in teachers' quest to recognise that students encounter many new textual forms in this increasingly digital age that they have given insufficient emphasis to traditional forms such as the novel, the play and the poem? It seems a fair question. But of course it's a loaded one, for this isn't simply about the balance of textual forms in the curriculum, this is a debate framed by epistemology and even ideology.


What are the key issues?

There are a number of questions being implicitly and explicitly explored:

• What should be the balance of textual forms in the curriculum? How do we balance the need to teach children about written language through traditional forms such as the novel, the play and the poem, with new media and textual forms such as the graphic novel (see my previous post on an example of this literary form), animated poetry, hypertext, and interactive digital narratives (see for example the work of digital authors like Chris Joseph)?
• How broadly should we define literature? Should it be limited to the print medium or broad enough to embrace new technological forms?
• How much of this literature should be Australian?
• How should the literature be chosen? Is there a need to ensure that great texts are taught as part of educating children about history and cultural traditions? Should teachers have more say in such decisions, making choices based on the student population in the school and the desire to acknowledge cultural pluralism, or less?
• What is the right balance of pedagogical approach when encouraging students to read, view and engage with texts? How do we balance written responses such as the essay with other more creative options such as imaginative recreation, drama, art etc?

The extreme ends of the debate

While there is great variation in the positions being taken by teachers, academics, media commentators and education officials, there are two extreme ends to the continuum of views. In one corner we have some who would want to reinstate a cannon of set texts that all students would study, and who would remove any pedagogical ‘dodgy’ stuff like reader response, imaginative re-creation and the like. No new media here, and leave all that video gaming, blogging, twitting, zinging, web surfing and the like at home. Just interpret the texts, work out what the author meant to communicate and reproduce it on demand. In the other corner we have a new generation of technological zealots who view with suspicion any classic novel or poem more than 20 years old, most of the great plays, all Australian colonial poetry and so on. Converts to French philosophers like Derrida and Foucault, relativists who see no meaning in the text, open-mouthed worshippers of new technology; a technology that they see as providing endless possibilities for creating hypertextual and multimodal meanings that will create a more pluralistic and fairer world, and that will put an end to the white/male/European canon of literature seen as a tool of oppression.

I'm being deliberately provocative above to make a point. There are few people at the extreme ends of this continuum (but I know some in each), however unfortunately, when legitimate questions are asked about education, there is a tendency for the discussion to be polarised to such an extent that no healthy debate can occur. I sit at neither end of this continuum but I do have some questions and concerns about the English curriculum. I question Devine's disparaging comments about teachers who I know are professional and have the interests of children at heart, and who deliver a quality of education that is the envy of much of the world. But at the same time, I'm tired of teachers not being prepared to listen to community concerns when they arise, or to necessarily seek evidence-based support for their defence of what they see as attacks. Schools serve the community; they are created for the education of children and must be responsive to community concerns.

At the base of the argument - Epistemology

While we know that the Internet offers us amazing new possibilities for communication and the sharing of information and knowledge (see the article in Case #15 by Hadley and Horne), we still don’t know a lot about the impact it has on children’s ability to learn and communicate, let alone, whether it helps or hinders reading and writing of traditional written language forms such as the book. We know even less about the impact of some of the more creative multimodal forms such as the electronic literature, multimedia and interactive art, on students as learners. We do know a bit about the impact of gaming and there is cause for concern (here). We also need to ask what impact might new technological forms of communication and 'literature' have on culture, community, relationships and so on? My view is that we must embrace new technologies but only with caution and not at the expense of traditional written language forms.

The public debate in the media, at its heart, is an epistemological argument. Underpinning the response from the English Teaching Association is a foundational and central commitment to pluralism and Deconstruction, and a failure to accept that not everyone shares this position. Many people still believe that there is such a thing as knowable truth; I'm one of them. It is not that the ETA has lost respect for the book and literature (as Devine seems to suggest) but that they are supporting a different balance of traditional texts and new media. And this is at the heart of much of the public criticism of English teaching.

Pluralism, Deconstruction & Postmodernism

Part of the attractiveness of the Internet and new media for some, is that it not only demonstrates Empirical Pluralism (i.e. there is obvious diversity in our world in race, value systems, language, culture and religion) which cannot be denied, but it is also home to ‘cherished pluralism’ (i.e. many who don’t just accept the diversity but celebrate and praise it; at times blindly). Hermeneutical pluralism assumes that objective truth is not achievable, and that meaning resides in the interpreter (the reader, the viewer, the web surfer), not in the text. And of the course the Internet offers potential for new narrative forms that merge text, image, video, hyper text, interaction and so on, all of which reinforces the place of the reader over the author.

Advocates of Deconstruction such as Jacques Derrida and others, argue that words are self-limiting, because words simply refer to other words. Derrida claimed that meaning is locked within the knower, not the text. Hence, language cannot convey objective truth about objective reality. It is a small step from such claims to what we would broadly call postmodernism which asserts that truth reflects who you are; it is in the mind of the beholder - ‘that might be true for you, but not for me’. You should be able to hear in this the echo of debates about the place of reader response and creative re-creation over the essay and other more traditional forms of response to literature.

What deconstructive postmodernism does is to shift the focus from the author and the text to the reader and his or her context. Deconstructionists argue that we do not go to a text to gain meaning (let alone truth that does not exist), but rather to make meaning, which of course can only be relative. Such a view of reading that locates meaning in the knower reflects a view of epistemology that sees truth as relative and the written word as a tool of oppression for some and empowerment for others (and of course there is truth in the argument concerning the word and power relationships).

The dangers and, a way forward?

While Barthes wrote of the ‘death of the author’ over forty years ago, and one could hardly claim that the Internet is responsible for the removal of the author from textual considerations, the Internet continues to add weight to this shift from authorial and textual power to the reader and their interpretive community. In particular, the Internet has done much to negate individual authorship in favour of shared authorship. Phenomena such as Wikipedia make it increasingly difficult to identify a single author. An Internet Encyclopaedia that can be changed instantly as the world changes has a number of advantages. But an encyclopaedia written by authors who are self-selected, unknown and faceless must raise questions about the potential accuracy of the information it shares. Wikipedia is the perfect pallet for postmodernism.

Hopefully even the extreme ends of this debate about English can see the potential benefits of the Internet; and I have no doubt that the embracing of it by teachers is motivated by what they see as in the interests of children. But can we also see the dangers? What might be lost if we get the balance wrong between new interactive media and written language? What place does content, indeed (dare I say it!) even truth have in the school curriculum? How vital is it that our children have the chance to read at least some of the great literature of the past as well as the very best of contemporary literature? How do we balance this against a desire to embrace new digital possibilities? How do we ensure that English teachers continue to be teachers and champions of written language (including literature), something that was probably underpinning Devine’s provocative criticisms?

Other resources and posts

1. I have covered the issue of Truth and the Internet here and here

2. My Case article offers more detailed philosophical and theological arguments concerning this topic and reference to it can be found here.

3. I have written previously about "Writing, communication, technology and relationships" here.

God and the artist - Part 3

New College (the home of CASE) has an annual public lecture series, which I convene each year with two fellow Trustees Bishop Rob Forsyth and Professor Christine Alexander. The Lectures are in their 22nd year and this year occurred on the 2-5 September 2008. Their purpose is to bring together the college residents, University, Church and wider community to discuss significant issues of common concern. This year the theme is God and the Artist: Human creativity in theological perspective and our lecture is Professor Trevor Hart from the University of St Andrews, Scotland.


The third lecture delivered last night was:

“Givenness, grace and gratitude: creation, artistry and eucharist”

This post is my summary of what Professor had to say. While I have tried to faithfully report the summary of the lecture, and present his views (not necessarily mine), and I have used many direct quotes, any inaccuracies are my responsibility not those of Professor Hart. The asides in brackets are some of my reflections and questions.

Introduction

Professor Hart’s third lecture focussed again on the work of a few key scholars but asked broader and more complex questions than on any night, and for me (at least) it raised more questions than on previous nights. He started by suggesting that what is lacking in the Christian church’s ability to make sense of the arts and to see it as an important and relevant part of the human condition, “Is any positive theological evaluation of the arts and human artistry as something good and important in their own right.” He returned to Sayers in taking the discussion further and acknowledged some common ground in her lament that for centuries the church had not developed a proper Christian aesthetic that “…took seriously and engaged directly with core creedal claims of Christian faith in the world.” Of course while valiant, her attempt Professor Hart suggested failed in finding a way towards seeing the arts as something essential rather than peripheral to what it means to be human (Lecture 1 provided a critique of her attempt).

The rest of the lecture was devoted to Professor Hart taking us further in this direction. He used two writers to help him, C.S. Lewis and Rowan Williams.

C.S. Lewis - Not a ringing endorsement

C.S. Lewis he suggested offers at best “a fairly modest” defence of the place of the arts. He recounted how Lewis who after bringing a fairly ‘high culture’ view of the arts to his conversion to Christianity later in life, had to reconcile where he’d been in seeking almost to worship creative works, to knowing from the Scriptures that his chief end was to glorify God and enjoy him forever, not Mozart, indeed, not anything else. Lewis sought to find reasons from the Scriptures to support the active participation of Christians in the arts, and concluded that he could find little to support his view from the New Testament, and only a modest list of more general reasons to affirm the arts; reasons of pecuniary worth; their place as part of our engagement in the world as ‘salt and light’; their role in enjoyment; culture as a pre-evangelistic device; and one more way to glorify God (no more worthy than the way the charwoman did it, but no less). He suggested that it was a positive account of the place of art in the church, but not a ringing endorsement and not far on the path to a theology of the arts or a Christian aesthetic.

Rowan Williams -"Artistry as value added"

Next Professor Hart turned to Rowan William’s book “Grace and necessity: Reflections on Art and Love”. Williams he suggests offers a more positive account. Williams suggests that God created the world out of his goodness and gave to us a world pregnant with potential, brimming, teeming with as yet undisclosed possibilities and meanings….crying out for us not to stand back and appreciate its existing aesthetic charms like a viewer….but to roll up our sleeves, wade-in, and get our hands dirty in taking what God has given and bringing more to birth from its potential. This Professor Hart suggested is an “open givenness” one with boundaries, constraints and trajectories of possibility, but “leaving plenty for us to do in and with the world”.

Williams notion is of an ‘unfinished’ world but surely Scripture teaches that it is a world subject to decay that will be replaced with a new earth (as well as anew heaven) when Christ returns in his glory. [An Aside: For me this raised lots of questions, I need to read Williams to see how he derives his view from Scripture; his notion that there is a ‘finishing’ to do now with us as participants? How does he get from man’s place in Genesis as stewards of this world subject to God’s curse to one of adding to creation? How does he justify the notion of us taking the world as we find it and through working it “…hand it back enhanced, ‘improved upon’, adding value to it rather than devaluing it, granting it something more and something better than was there in the first place.” How do Rowan William's ideas sit with Tolkien’s notion of man as “sub-creators”? And how do we avoid the path that Sayers and others slide down towards a view of man as co-creators, where too much is assumed of mere humanity, mere specks of dust?]

Professor Hart then visited the work of Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, who writes of mankind as “partners in the work of creation”. [An Aside: Is this a bridge too far?] Professor Hart helpfully pointed out that such arguments (for him at least) must not go too far – “the enhancements or developments that we contribute can only ever be ones lying within the purview of God’s sovereign vision.” He continues “It’s not that God somehow needs us to do this, but that he chooses to make creative creatures whom he then calls to do it, fulfilling their own creaturely nature by their active engagement with a world the possibilities and richness of which are still unfolding and being fashioned, by human hands as well as by the movement of God’s Creative Spirit in the world.”

Artistry as obedience

Hart then moved to artistry as a form of obedience. He suggested that as a response to the divine call to human beings to work creatively with the world and to offer it back with value added, artistry is a form of obedience. In citing Williams he suggested that in obedience we are to respectfully and responsibly work with the creation God has given us, which respects the materials God has given us, and which “pursues an artistic vision in accordance with the shape and tenor of God’s own vision for the world, and those possibilities intrinsic within it which are for its blessing rather than distortions or abuses of it.”

[An aside: The notion of artistry as a form of obedience was helpful. For me this at least positions the intent of the artist as ideally aligned with God’s purposes. But this raised a question for me: how do we ensure that purposes and intent of man relate to the sovereign intent of God; and how easily are they misaligned, and what is the consequence? Surely, sin. This in itself helps me with my ongoing debate concerning Bill Henson’s photographic work – brilliant in technique but surely inappropriate in content and perhaps even in purpose. A struggle at this point – how far, in the light of Scripture, can we push this point? Are we not close to making Sayer’s mistake of suggesting that God needs us to be creative? Surely, no act of human creativity can impede or advance God’s sovereign Kingdom purposes. Scripture does guide us towards areas where God expects obedience from us, for example, in making his Son known, “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (1 Peter 3:15). But for me a question still to be answered is where in Scripture are we commended in obedience towards creative artistry? Lewis clearly struggled with this, hence his seemingly ‘soft’ justifications (e.g. art as work; art for evangelism etc). Can our creative efforts point others towards our Creator God; can they bring glory and honour to his name? I think so. I am sure that the musician and the artist can argue this case and I have argued myself for the role that literature can play here. But are they just helpful and good, or are they required? I support the former but am struggling to see the Scriptural evidence to support the latter.]

"Arts, grace and gratuity"

Professor Hart then suggested “arts’ enhancement of the world belongs decisively within the logic of economy of ‘grace’. We take and transform things and offer them back, not because it serves some human need to do so….but because, as an act of sheer gratuity, it seems right, good, fitting to do so.” Art in this sense is inherently eucharistic, a gift freely offered in thanksgiving, “a gift freely offered in thanksgiving, because the one who gives it has him or herself first freely received.” [An aside: Once again, I suspect that our musicians could identify this purpose as central to what they do when they make and perform music.] Professor Hart then considered the possibility that even those outside the Kingdom of God might be used of God through their creative activities and suggested that they could.


A Trinitarian account

He then turned from William’s attempts, which he suggested do not go far enough, to Sayer’s once again to revisit a Trinitarian account of Human artistry. Can human creativity and the arts be grounded in the Christian doctrine of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit?

Of particular interest to me in his analysis here was his discussion of the distinction between God’s ‘creative’ action in calling the world into existence and his “sustaining or preserving of that same world, holding it in being from moment to moment.” But he suggested that God’s ongoing work should not be seen just as sustaining what he had created, but of “drawing out” establishing a set of possibilities for flourishing and enrichment, the revealing of things hidden in the depths of creation as potential futures….”. This he suggested does not exclude our participation but includes our responsible participation.

Professor Hart then moved to Jurgen Moltmann’s doctrine of the Holy Spirit whose concern he suggested is not just “….the generation of faith and the inner lives of believers, but with the sanctification of the creation, establishing the forces of life and resisting death, and drawing ‘all things’ into conformity with the character of their maker.” He suggested that again human creativity is an enhancement and enrichment of the given world.

He then moved back to look at the work of Spirit with the Son. Jesus taking on flesh, assuming “our fallen nature in order to refashion it, putting to death in it all that is unworthy of God’s holiness, and establishing in it, all that reflects that same holiness.”

[An aside: While this notion correctly accommodates the sense of ongoing sanctification in the lives of believers, there is obviously a need to keep in balance Christ's work in our redemption and justification at the point of acceptance of Christ. While Hart didn't suggest otherwise, any Trinitarian theology of the arts needs to start with the redeeming grace of God in sending his own Son in human form to become an atoning sacrifice; it must consider the fullness of Christ's work]

Professor Hart then posed the question, is not the whole life of Jesus (conception, birth, baptism, ministry, death, ascension and return) “one long creative and artistic engagement”? Hart asked the question “is what…the Church celebrates week by week in its liturgies and proclaim in its missionary activities” artistry?

The end times

Finally, Professor Hart looked at the end times. He started in Lecture 1 with Genesis and ended with Revelation. He reminded us that “the world as we find it is in an ambiguous state – created, and reflecting the goodness of its origination with God, yet fallen, and reflecting the distorting presence within it of sin and evil and death, a condition from which it requires finally to be rescued. No amount of ‘enhancement’ or ‘enrichment’ or ‘added value’ will do. Something much more radical is called for and, by faith, hoped for.” There will be a new heaven and a new earth (Is 65; Rev 21:1, 5). And the one seated on the throne says “See, I am making all things new” (Rev 21:5). Here Professor Hart suggests there is radical newness which only God can establish, there is a balance of “discontinuity with one of continuity”. It is finished Jesus cried at the Cross, Sin and death are defeated, the kingdom is at hand, and yet it is still to finally come. In the meantime he suggests there “is a history of transformation and redeeming renewal of the world to be lived out” and artistic and imagination endeavour has a place in this.

This has been an excellent series of talks which we may publish at some future date. As well, Professor Hart is working on a larger book that addresses the them of the lectures. I appreciated his generosity in sharing his ideas, his work in progress so to speak. It has been a stimulating week.

You can find all three summaries of the Lectures via this one link here.

Please note that the full text of the lectures plus MP3 files should be posted by the end of next week.

God and the Artist - Part 2

New College (which established CASE) has an annual public lecture series each year, which I convene. The Lectures are in their 22nd year and are on each evening (2-5 September 2008). Their purpose is to bring together the college residents, University, Church and wider community to discuss significant issues of common concern. This year the theme is God and the Artist: Human creativity in theological perspective and our lecture is Professor Trevor Hart from the University of St Andrews, Scotland.


The second lecture delivered last night was titled"

The ‘heart of man’ and the ‘mind of the maker’: Tolkien and Sayers on imagination and human artistry

This post is my summary of what Professor had to say. While I have tried to faithfully report the summary of the lecture, and present his views (not necessarily mine), and I have used many direct quotes, any inaccuracies are my responsibility not those of Professor Hart.

Sayers work

Last night he focussed our attention on the work of two writers Tolkien and Sayers in his attempt to advance his theology of artistic creativity and imagination. He started his analysis on Sayers with her play “The Zeal of Thy House” that she wrote for the Canterbury Festival in 1937 – a work that was to be a celebration of artists and craftsmen. In her writing of this play centred on the rebuilding of the church’s choir in the late 12th century - and using the French architect William of Sens (chosen to undertake the work) as the protagonist - she “paints a picture of human artistry and craftsmanship as at the very least a spiritual vocation equivalent to others, and at best something much more significant than that.” Much of his discussion centred on a final speech to the audience by the Archangel Michael in “The Zeal of Thy House” and Sayers popular wartime classic “The Mind of the Maker” (1941).


Sayers like others before her used the doctrine of the Trinity as a metaphor to create a conception of the place of the artist relative to their creator. She described the book as ‘three books’ – the ‘idea’ of the book, the ‘energy’ or birth of the idea, and the ‘Power’ or the impact of the work as it is read. This is a work of skilled apologetics that goes much further. Hart suggested that what her work offers is a “distinctive theology of the creation of human beings in the image and likeness of God. To be human, to correspond to God humanly, is above all else to be creative and thereby to ‘image’ God’s won Trinitarian being.” “Creativeness… was for Sayers the secret to the Cosmos, the fundamental pattern of personal existence…to be human according to Sayers was not only to be homo sapiens, but homo faber – man the maker”.

Professor Hart offered a brief and partial critique of the problems with Sayers theology and aesthetics. First, as C.S. Lewis reminder her, “there is an unbridgeable gulf of sorts between God and the world he has made, between the ‘created’ and the ‘uncreated’. He reminded Sayers that any analogies we use to think and speak of God must therefore tremble at the temerity of their own approach to what is finally a holy mystery and must remain so. Second, Sayers picture of God’s eternal Trinitarian being is of a specific sort, (which Hart suggests is probably influenced by St Augustine and Karl Barth); one that does not view the Trinity as three divine ‘persons’ in relation to one another, but aspects or modes of existence of one divine person. Third, Sayers’ premise that the creative act can occur wholly within the mind of the maker is problematic (even for literature), but moreso for music and art. Fourth, Sayers offers, “a highly individualist account overlooking the importance of social and communal factors vital to the facilitation of creativity” - as Nicholas Wolterstorff has reminded us. Finally, it needs to be noted that Sayers’ own rendering of Trinitarian notion of “Idea, Energy and Power’ is developed (as Hart points out) with virtually no reference to Christian Scripture.

Sayers view on Creativity

Before moving to Tolkien Hart finished with an analysis of how Sayers defined the hallmarks of creativity. What does creativity look like? He offered three insights from her work. First, “being creative involves bringing something new into the world God has made, something which was not there before. At the level of the materials used she accepts that there is a finite amount, we don’t add to God’s creation. But at the level of imagination, “she insists that there is no such finite constraint – pattern, form and meaning do not belong to the inventory of the flesh.” For Sayers the artist comes closest to the creation ‘out of nothing’ that the Bible teaches is the prerogative of God himself.

Second, “to be creative is to exercise God-given freedom, refusing to be constrained by the apparent limits of givenness….pushing beyond the thresholds of the familiar….”. It is a freedom within rather from the divinely ordained potentialities and constraints of the world.

Third, “creativity adds value to the world. It enhances and enriches, taking the world as it finds it, and handing it back transformed for the better through a supererogatory surplus of care and attention.”

Tolkien

Professor Hart then turned to Tolkien. Using Tolkien’s literature and writing about literature as backdrop he unpacked Tolkien’s concept of artistry as ‘sub-creation’. Tolkien’s first foray into myth was his work “The Music of the Ainur” in which a recount is given of how God created first a race of angelic beings (the Ainur or Valar) as participants in fashioning of Middle-earth. Unlike the biblical creation myth, “The music of the Ainur” is not just about God’s creativity, but equally ours’. The Ainur are “….‘sub-creators’ not co-creators. There is a subordinate modality of creative action, yet one that is nonetheless, thoroughly creative.” Tolkien suggests that “the ‘many hues’ which adorn the world and render it beautiful….must be refracted through our sub-creative act” for his myth is concerned with human artistry.

Professor Hart suggested, “…human art is in some sense a matter of assisting in our turn, in making our world.” Drawing on Tolkien he suggests that the desire that drives creativity (and which can be corrupted as we see in William of See) is a “sort of insatiability”, but one which has the good and the free flourishing of its object (Tolkien calls this ‘Primary Reality’) as its chief concern. “The artist is no slave to reality, but her lover.” If art is born out of unsatisfied desire it is kindled and sustained by a God-given imagination. For Tolkien, “..to be human is to be (and called to be) creative with respect to God’s world.”

Building on Tolkien’s thesis Professor Hart unpacked the concept of a “secondary” or alternative world (or Sidney’s “Another nature” as discussed in Lecture 1). When authors like me use titles like “Other Worlds: The endless possibilities of literature” what is implied and how does a theology of the arts offer explanatory help. Hart points out that Tolkien does not mean an entirely alternative cosmos (though Middle-earth seems to go close to this), he means instead the particular object or ‘work’ which the artist fashions. Tolkien does not seek to blur the boundaries between reality and unreality. He draws a clear distinction between the “Primary World” and the world of the story, “….something the artist expects us to take for granted.” While being expected to be citizens of the Primary World “…we are expected to permit ourselves to be drawn imaginatively across the threshold between fact and fiction, and to become temporary indwellers of another world….”

Secondary belief is appropriate and expected with respect to a Secondary World “…of which we become, temporarily, citizens by virtue of some sub-creator’s art. The capacity to engender it, indeed, is, for Tolkien, what differentiates art from mere ‘imagination’ at all.”

Hart’s last interesting twist to his explanation of Tolkien’s work comes with his discussion of ownership of the these secondary worlds and secondary belief within them, a point at which there is clear diversion from Sayers. Tolkien had a particular view of the status of an artistic world, he knew that “…he wasn’t the creator of Middle-earth in any absolute sense.” There are many things “…about this literary world and about any work and world of art, about which the artist was and would and would never be in any position to declaim with absolute authority…..the work…always comes to the artist as something given and received, and in one sense, therefore, not ‘created’ by him or her at all.” Readers and observers of art will find all sorts of things in the work that the artist was not aware they had placed within it.


“For the sub-creator, the making of other worlds is no act of defiance or contradiction of the prima divine ‘Let there be…’. On the contrary, the artist’s Secondary Reality enjoys a positive relationship to the Primary Reality which, ordinarily, we indwell, and is always glad to acknowledge its subordinate state.”

Tolkien insists that artistic vision does not seek to supersede our world, but instead seeks to glimpse the richest possibilities latent within the creative vision of God. And he presents an underlying concept. Our art is not so much about things are, but of what they are capable of becoming, and “how things may be and will be when God is finally all in all (this) …is the source of that joy which aesthetic experience grants us. Beauty – genuine beauty – is finally an eschatological phenomenon.” Art “…does not compete with the world but in a profound sense for Tolkien makes the world new.”

The third and final lecture will be presented tonight with the title “Givenness, grace, and gratitude: creation, artistry and eucharist”.

Please note that the full text of the lectures plus MP3 files will be posted by the end of next week.

God and the artist - Part 1

New College (which established CASE) has an annual public lecture series each year which I convene. The Lectures are in their 22nd year and are on each evening (2-5 September 2008). Their purpose is to bring together the college residents, University, Church and wider community to discuss significant issues of common concern. This year the theme is God and the Artist: Human creativity in theological perspective and our lecture is Professor Trevor Hart from the University of St Andrews, Scotland.

Last night 200 people gathered at the University of New South Wales (where New College and CASE live) to engage in the first lecture. The title was ‘The lunatic, the lover and the poet’: divine copyright and the dangers of ‘strong imagination’.

This post is my summary of what Professor had to say. While I have tried to faithfully report the summary of the lecture, and present his views (not necessarily mine), and I have used many direct quotes, any inaccuracies are my responsibility not those of Professor Hart.

Starting at the beginning

Professor Hart commenced the lecture series with the opening words of Genesis, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”. He reminded us that the Hebrew word translated “created” is “bara’ has an aura of holiness to it, being set aside exclusively for his divine use; “there is and can be no corresponding human analogy to this divine action, because it has to do with God’s unique relationship to the world as the one who, by virtue of his sovereign Lordship, brings a world forth into existence where previously there was not only nothing but no potential for anything.” While there are other words used in the Bible that describe man’s activity of doing and making, none should be confused with God’s creation as encapsulated in the Hebrew word “bara”.

But he suggested that there is a changeability of language that has led to a loss of appreciation of God’s place as creator as against mankind’s creativity. Hart suggested that words are “sticky” and “have the habit of picking up words and associations” – words are used and used again until the initial core connotation is lost.

Hart pointed out that the careless use of the word “creativity” – creative play, creative problem solving, creative accounting etc – is a long way from Genesis and “its sublime vision of ultimate origination”. Interestingly, he made the point that such complaints come primarily from artists, not worried about God’s dignity being lost, but their’s and that of their work. The canons of orthodoxy and heterodoxy are no longer theological but aesthetic.

He argued that to some extent the use of the word “created” was meant to imply that the artist had created “new worlds of meanings to be set alongside those of God”. However, while we can make sense of this even within a Christian framework it lends itself “to other impulses”.

What Hart sets out to do in these lectures is to examine the place of artistic creation. A theology of human artistry – an account “that takes seriously Christian Scripture and Creeds”. Can we hold together talk of human creativity and “God’s unique identity as the originator and gracious giver of being and life to the world”? This he suggests is not a question of if but of how? We need he suggested to disentangle from one another both ‘modalities of creativity’ both of which are to do with God’s relationship to the world, but only one of which incorporates human agency.

Cosmos and cosmetics

Citing Abrams (1954), in the monograph “The mirror and the lamp”, he argued that the most primitive and enduring aesthetic was that of “holding a mirror to the world”, art imitating life, an aesthetic consistent with Plato’s somewhat negative view of art and Aristotle’s more positive view. He used Leonardo da Vinci as an example, who almost 2 millennia later, expressed the view (and demonstrated it) that art should not try to improve on the things of nature. Art in effect was seen as allowing due emphasis to be given to the world God has given us to inhabit. But even in this earliest view of the place of art there was a distortion of the notion of the mirror as artists sought to paint out (so to speak) the “warts, the blemishes and the bulges”. The artist was not just seeking to render a true likeness, but was seeking to add beauty to what they see (e.g. Michelangelo and Rembrandt). Artists were seeking to catch “the best of the thing”. This view reflected the belief that in a sense the artist’s soul was seen as having access to Nature’s blueprint in the mind of God, and their role was to add some cosmetic enhancement, adding value to what they found in nature.

These ideas he suggested were reborn in the Renaissance offering an exalted place to human artistry. By the Renaissance “the artist sits in judgement rather than as a skilled apprentice in the workshop of a divine master”. The desire was not for what God has purposed “but something that improves upon and competes with it.”

Breach of Copyright

In citing Abrams again, Hart suggested that there was then a shift from mimetic notions of art to one that assumed that the illumination of the human mind was essential to the process of “murky reality”. Art was then seen not as a mirror reflecting the light but of shining a lamp on what was observed to illuminate it further. The artist moved from a view of a world naturally rich in beauty and goodness to a world needing to be enriched “by the projections of the human imagination”. This Hart suggested was the source of Kant’s claim that we can only ever experience phenomena as they appear to us rather than as they appear to other creatures or perhaps to God.

Hart suggested that we can see how easy it is to move from the position to “half create” the world to a position of seeing the world us unacceptable and in need of offering an alternative view of Nature. A position that George Steiner suggested reached its height in Modernism where the artist sought to call into being objects and creations as totally unlike nature as possible, “begetting their own creations”. Here the artist is offering a challenge to the givenness of God’s creation and his prerogatives as Creator. It is this Hart suggests that “lies behind an ancient Hebraic nervousness about the imagination”. “Creative imagination, then, paradoxically lies at the core of all that is worst and all that is best in our humanity”.


But modernism is not where we are in 2008. Postmodern aesthetics have been the dominant influence. Hart cites Richard Kearney who observes that artistic imagination is less like a mirror than a labyrinth of mirrors each in turn reflected in “seemingly endless refractive play of light and none standing apart as the apparent source of it all”. Art scavenges its materials from “the sites of prior acts of imaginative construction, pre-owned and part-used serviceable, and fraught with the semantic instability of the merely human.” “If Modernism threatened to supplant the source of aesthetic meaning by usurping the throne of the cosmos, post-modernity does so just as effectively by refusing to bend the knee to any authority whatever, be it human or divine.”

But Hart suggested that any “self-deluded attempts to supplant that Word by instigating new moments of origination cannot succeed”. Such attempts he suggested lead to despairing shadow chasing; a version of the cosmos as “turbulent chaos”. Both Modernism and Postmodernism deny transcendence. He cited George Steiner to point to the folly of such efforts, “art is and must properly be a dialogue with a meaningful presence which does not depend on us for its being”. Steiner goes further to suggest that where God’s presence is no longer tenable and where his absence is no longer a felt and overwhelming weight “that certain dimensions of thought and creativity are no longer attainable.”

Pathologies of the poetic eye

Hart then took the audience back to the 16th century to the work of Shakespeare, and specifically “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and Cervantes great novel “Don Quixote”. Both he suggested raise serious questions about the place of the imaginative in human life. Shakespeare in this work both directly (through the plot) and indirectly through its use of comedy and irony, looks at the chaos that is created when the boundaries between reality and artifice are blurred deliberately or accidentally. The play poses the question, are we as humans in danger of confusing the real and the imaginary. Similarly, Hart suggested that Cervantes in the imaginative premises of the novel there is a critical take on the possibility of over-indulgence in the imaginary. Quixote loses his grip on the distinction between reality fiction as he tries to reconfigure his life according to the books that he loves; he transforms the everyday to a knightly quest. The comedy comes from the collision between Quixote’s illusory and real worlds.


Hart suggested that both these works caution against the “vices and devices of the imagination”. Both do this by driving a wedge of irony between imagination and reason, with each leaving us with a sense that the final verdict on imagination is complex. Both texts Hart suggests remind us that the status of reality itself is the subject of dispute and negotiation, and that “every attempt to make sense of the world is finally poetic, a making as well as a finding of sense in the world.”

Hart concluded the lecture by drawing on the work of Sir Phillip Sidney’s “Apologie for Poetrie”. Sidney argued for the development of poetry in which he saw that with the “divine breath of God” the poet could bring forth new things through the work far beyond their capabilities. The artist, far from challenging God can be God’s instrument and faithful servant. Sidney’s understanding of the need to keep man in his rightful place is seen in his unwillingness to use the term ‘creator’ of the human artist at all. The artist is seen as gaining access to the essential character of things, “that which we are capable of coming and should become, the potentiality built into them by God”. Hart paraphrased Sidney to argue that in a sense what the artist sees and represents in his/her work is “not the way the world is now, but the world bathed in the light of eschatological perspective, as, in God’s purposes and the grace of God’s new creation, it can be and finally may be. And the ‘final end’ according to Sidney of such vision is not titillation, nor an Oedipal bid to ‘un-Nature nature’, but to lead and draw us to so high a perfection as our degenerate souls, made worse by their clayey lodgings, can be capable of.”

The lecture generated some good questions and some equally good answers: “Could not modernity also seek to celebrate God?” “What of music, do his ideas extend to music?” etc

Professor Trevor Hart will return to the eschatological theme in lecture three on Thursday, but tomorrow night (3rd September) he will look at the work of Sayers and Tolkien and the light their work shines on the place of the human artist in a theological perspective.

Please note that the full text of the lectures plus MP3 files will be posted by the end of next week.