Love!

Aslan’s next command to the newly created creatures of Narnia is “Love!” Given the importance of Love in Lewis’ theology we should not be surprised by its prominent place in the creation story. However, as a command, it seems quite out of place at this point in time.

Lewis wrote an entire book, “The Four Loves,” in which he warns against love becoming a god, “Love, having become a god, becomes a demon.” Only when one loves the true God can the natural loves take their rightful place and reflect His glory. Yet, throughout the entire book in which Lewis describes multiple loving relationships, what they consist of, and how they occur, he quite fails to define what love means. Nonetheless, he provides a working definition in “Mere Christianity”:

        [Love] is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit…

Though the quote is in the context of a married couple, I think Lewis would apply it equally to other loving relationships.

This brings us to quite a quandary. No one in the new country of Narnia has met anyone yet. They do not yet think or speak. In fact, Strawberry (the horse) says it quite clearly, “"But please, we don't know very much yet." So how can they love?

One might suggest that the creatures have already experienced the presence of Aslan and the command is to love him. After all, loving God is the prerequisite for all lasting loving relationships. I have to say, I don’t really like this suggestion. I am not convinced that a short experience, even a very powerful one, brings about the deep, heartfelt, unity Lewis surely wants out of those who love God. The Jewish people themselves seem to have failed quite spectacularly in this situation when worshiping the Golden Calf shortly after the Revelation at Sinai.

I would rather say that Lewis commands love at the dawn of creation as the ideal or purpose; the state that all must strive for. It is Aslan's goal for the world and not only its means. The next two commands, “Think” and “Speak” are clearly not goals, they have no value in and of themselves. They are instead the tools that are used to accomplish Aslan’s purpose in creating Narnia. He expands upon those goals later, but in a word, the goal is “Love!”

It is worth noting that the biblical account of creation makes no mention of love whatsoever. In Genesis 1, God creates man to subdue the world, to tame it. To transform God’s world into the utopian visions of Isaiah and Micah. In Genesis 2, man is further commanded to work the land and guard it. The bible emphasizes action above character traits for it is through action that character traits are developed.

This latter point is attested to in a myriad of Jewish sources and is also recommended by Lewis himself as in the quote above. But that’s a topic for another post.

Awake!

I will for now, simply ignore the problems I am having dwarfs and continue discussing the creation of Narnia. 

Narnia, Narnia, Narnia, awake. Love. Think. Speak.

Aslan’s first words are a three-time repetition of the name of land (or maybe the name of the world), followed by four commands: awake, love, think, and speak.

In the biblical creation story (Genesis 1) God creates via speech. In this way he names and defines all things. Aslan, however, has not to this point spoken. Thus, Aslan first calls out “Narnia” (three times). Doing so unifies creation under a single name and presumably not just the Talking Beasts but also to the land and water of Narnia.

Aslan’s first command is “Awake!” This seems rather unnecessary as Aslan has already spent quite a bit of time fashioning and then providing sentience to the beasts. Nonetheless, it serves to awaken to Nature that surrounds them. And indeed, at Aslan’s command, Nature produces its own sentient manifestations: dwarfs, fauns, dryads, and river-gods. These creatures can work and live together (like Trufflehunter and Trumpkin) as long as the Narnian’s are one with their woodland environment. Cutting down trees will (and does) lead to the death of Narnia.

I haven’t read this book on Lewis’ approach to environmentalism, but this seems like pretty good support to me.