Introduction
I think it is safe to say that many Christians have extricated themselves from the materialistic account of the cosmos. This is great, so far as it goes, but we have now entered an era when we need to take measures to keep ourselves from overshooting . . . into various superstitions and old wives’ tales. We do live in a haunted cosmos, but we don’t live in a haunted one, if you know what I mean.
Okay, maybe you don’t know what I mean.
Transition Time
When I say “materialistic account,” I am referring to the idea that the cosmos is mostly nothing, a vacuum, punctuated here and there with dead rocks and flaming gases. This paradigm was so pervasive for so long that many ostensibly conservative Christians wound up living in the same basic cosmos as Christopher Hitchens thought he did, only with God and some angels at the top, and teeny tiny souls down here inside of us. Everything else in between was the same—empty space, dead rock, and flaming gases.
But the default assumptions of many Christians are very different now. This is largely the responsibility of C.S. Lewis (Screwtape, Discarded Image, Narnia, That Hideous Strength). His very clear intention throughout his writing was to insinuate the beginnings of a cosmological revolution in the minds of Christians. In this, he largely succeeded, and I applaud the success. We are greatly in his debt for many reasons, but this is one of them.
“In our world,” said Eustace, “a star is a huge ball of flaming gas.”
“Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is, but only what it is made of.”
C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
“A nightmare, long engendered in the modern mind by the mythology that follows in the wake of science, was falling off him. He had read of ‘Space’: at the back of his thinking for years had lurked the dismal fancy of the black, cold vacuity, the utter deadness, which was supposed to separate the worlds. He had not known how much it affected him till now—now that the very name ‘Space’ seemed a blasphemous libel for this empyrean ocean of radiance in which they swam.”
C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet, p. 32
When you couple all of this with hordes of writers following in Lewis’s train, churning out rivers of YA fantasy, and the fact that the older and more confident Science appears to have been eaten and digested by a conceited and ignorant Scientism, it is not surprising that a lot of people are now having fun making their pilgrim way through a re-enchanted cosmos. I myself have contributed to all of this—see here and here and some reflected glory here—and I have no interest in walking any of that back. And then there was this. After all, what would the 100 Cupboards be without the fairies?
But I am interested in also reminding everybody that every cosmological arrangement needs to budget for a world populated by fools, simpletons, and the wise. There is no cosmological framework in which it is impossible to be dumb. Hence some cautions are in order, I believe.
I mean, there are people running around in masks still. There are medical professionals who work in hospitals still running around in masks. They think they are following the Science when they are only chasing their fears around. Their scientific cosmology didn’t help them out at all. And so what this means is that this sort of person will not be helped out if only they start believing ghost stories. Probably make things worse, come to think of it.
And so when we shake loose of our modern materialism, there will be some people who will start leaving out a saucer of milk behind the stove as a treat for the kitchen fairies. The fact that Scientism was dumb doesn’t mean that we won’t be able to figure new and interesting ways of being dumb in a cosmos that has more to be said for it, biblically speaking.
Walk carefully, in other words.
Some Wisdom from a Mocker
FAIRY, n. A creature, variously fashioned and endowed, that formerly inhabited the meadows and forests. It was nocturnal in its habits, and somewhat addicted to dancing and the theft of children. The fairies are now believed by naturalists to be extinct, though a clergyman of the Church of England saw three near Colchester as lately as 1855, while passing through a park after dining with the lord of the manor. The sight greatly staggered him, and he was so affected that his account of it was incoherent. In the year 1807 a troop of fairies visited a wood near Aix and carried off the daughter of a peasant, who had been seen to enter it with a bundle of clothing. The son of a wealthy bourgeois disappeared about the same time, but afterward returned. He had seen the abduction and been in pursuit of the fairies. Justinian Gaux, a writer of the fourteenth century, avers that so great is the fairies’ power of transformation that he saw one change itself into two opposing armies and fight a battle with great slaughter, and that the next day, after it had resumed its original shape and gone away, there were seven hundred bodies of the slain which the villagers had to bury. He does not say if any of the wounded recovered. In the time of Henry III, of England, a law was made which prescribed the death penalty for “Kyllynge, wowndynge, or mamynge” a fairy, and it was universally respected.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
Biblical Background Assumptions
The point here is that if you cannot gain some prudence or wisdom from a mocker, then perhaps you deserve to be mocked.
As we look at the biblical data, certain aspects of it should be evident to us right away. The first point is that while the Bible teaches us the reality of the spiritual world, it also teaches us that that world, like the physical world around us, is filled with liars. When we enter the spiritual realm, the need to have every fact established with two or three witnesses, and confirmed as being in line with the Word, does not go away.
“Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.”
John 8:44 (KJV)
“Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils.”
1 Timothy 4:1 (KJV)
“For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.”
Matthew 24:24 (KJV)
I could cite more, but you get the drift. The fact that a marvelous work and a wonder was done does not make it reliable. The work of an apostle does need to demonstrate such power in order to be considered authentic (2 Cor. 12:12), but the mere fact of such power does not authenticate anything. A true prophet had to prophesy truly (Dt. 18:20-22), but he also could not be one who led you off to other gods (Dt. 13:1-3)—whether or not what he had said had come to pass.
A True Jaundiced Eye
So when someone tells you a tale that is off the beaten path, it is right to be skeptical. But it is equally important that the skepticism have a solid foundation, and not be the result of imbibing all the modern materialistic bigotries. There are two ways to have a jaundiced eye about such things. One is to be locked up in a world that has been disenchanted by the modernists, which is only to be foolish and gullible in a different way. The other way is to accept the biblical cosmology, the way the Bible presents it, but also to accept the biblical account of the heart of man, which is ever inclined to go in for all kinds of phantasms.
So, for example, when the disciples saw Jesus walking on the water, they thought they saw a ghost (Matt. 14:26). This tells us that they were a group of men who believed in ghosts. At the same time, we need to recognize that the text reassures us that what they saw was Christ, and not a ghost. They were wrong about what it was, but not wrong about what it could have been. And making a similar point from the opposite direction, what they did see was a man walking on water. Voltaire wouldn’t have gone for that any more than he would have gone in for the ghost.
When Peter was released from prison, the people at John Mark’s house thought that he was a doppelganger/angel kind of thing (Acts 12:15). This was a mistake—it was just Peter. But an angel had been involved just shortly before—it was an angel that disobeyed Romans 13 by busting Peter out of jail.
So we do live in a supernatural world, and there are many mysteries to be uncovered yet. And so when you hear a remarkable story, it might be true. I personally know of some striking instances of second sight. But if I truly want to live in a biblical world, the first step lies in becoming a bit more cynical about human nature. The frightened teens on that camping trip might have heard Bigfoot keening over a lost love, sure. But it might have been a screech owl. Right?
The Bottom Line
When you get that famous email from the Nigerian prince who is stranded in the airport in Manila, and needs to do something with all of his gold, it is possible to be dubious about this particular story. In fact, I would encourage all such doubts. Otherwise, you are just another chapter in Gullible’s Travels. But as you doubt the story, as you have a biblical responsibility to do, it is possible to do this without doubting the existence of the Manila airport, Nigeria, princes, or gold. All of those things really do exist in the world. But the story that appeals to all these things? That’s just a story.
In the same way, all Christians must have a rock solid commitment to the reality and presence of the spiritual world. The girl in Acts 16 really did have the spirit of a python, making her a devotee of Apollo (Acts 16:16). The star of Bethlehem really did identify the house where Jesus was (Matt. 2:9). The shepherds really did hear the announcement of the heavenly host (Luke 2:14). Babylon will be left desolate, a dancing floor for satyrs (Is. 13:21). Pharaoh’s magicians knew how to turn their staffs into snakes (Ex. 7:12). Edible snakes, but still snakes.
But beware. Not every story told is biblical just because it has biblical nouns in it. And if you insist that I believe in it just because of biblical cosmology, I will tell you about the time that a satyr chased me down in the Manila airport. And sold me the Brooklyn Bridge.
“But refuse profane and old wives’ fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness.”
1 Timothy 4:7 (KJV)