C. S. Lewis and Potterverse Destiny

[Vivamus]

No: HPFGUIDX 121052

> "Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)" <catlady at w...> wrote:
> 
> > IIRC, C.S. Lewis made it very clear, both in Narnia and in The 
> > Screwtape Letters, that (in his religion), it is not at all morally 
> > important whether a person's belief is correct; the only moral 
> > importance is if the belief is sincere
> 
> Eggplant:
> I believe C.S Lewis is dead wrong; sincerity is a vastly 
> overrated virtue. If a person does the right thing for the 
> wrong reason it's still the right thing, and if they do an 
> evil thing for a sincere reason it's still an evil thing. 
> Usamah Bin Laden is not a fraud, I think he believes in every 
> word he says as do most of the worst monsters on this planet. 
> I'll take someone who is insincerely right of someone 
> sincerely wrong any day .

Vivamus:
I must have missed the post by Catlady in all the traffic lately (although I
did see her excellent long comment on a number of things a couple of days
back,) but I believe you are both reacting to something C. S. Lewis did not
actually write.  (Wait, list elves, hold that blowtorch, and we'll bend this
back to canon before we're done.)

While C. S. Lewis wrote strongly against what is called "cheap grace," he
also wrote that it is the nature of grace to be gracious, and forgiveness is
a larger blanket than most Christians are willing to accept.  He absolutely
stated that there is a right and a wrong side, and there is no crossing from
one side to the other except by the single doorway.  He also rejected in
strongest terms the heresy (which we get from Schleiermacher) that it does
not matter what one believes, as long as one is sincere.  (See The Great
Divorce for a couple of excellent illustrations of being sincerely wrong,
including a "Christian" theologians' study group in hell.)   (The Screwtape
Letters are also fairly well-filled with attempts to get the target to
sincerely follow the wrong course.)

What Lewis *did* do that is quite unusual for Christian theologians, and may
indeed have had an affect upon JKR's writing, is to show that there may be
circumstances in which those who are not in fact "in the right" are brought
in, to THEIR surpise, because their sincere relationship was with the Right
even though they did not realize it.  That flies in the face of most
conservative interpretaions of Scripture, but not, IMO, of Scripture itself.
It would definitely be OT to go into that very interesting discussion here,
so let's get back to canon (and I apologize to those of differing faiths who
wonder what the heck C. S. Lewis might have to do with JKR canon.)

JKR expresses a value system that I think does not reflect a strictly
Calvinist view of the universe, although she is, I have heard, a confessing
member of the Church of Scotland.  The strongest area in which I see a
difference is in the emphasis upon choice.  Harry has a destiny, but he
won't achieve it without the free exercise of his will -- and he could still
fail altogether (even though we know JKR won't let him.)  Predestination is
real, but is based on foreknowledge, not predetermination.

C. S. Lewis opened the doorway to a larger understanding of the whole free
will vs. predetermination debate with his illustrations of the Creator
speaking in heart whispers more than firey skywriting.  Those who hear the
heart whispers are NOT always those who we think should hear them, and
sometimes are those whom the rest of us think shouldn't hear them at all.
In the Narnia series, for example, the young man of the pagan kingdom to the
south was brought in to the stable -- not because he was sincere, but
because his relationship was with the Right, even though he thought it was
known by another name.   (That's overly simplistic, but it does make a great
deal of sense in context.)   It is this understanding that I see in JKR's
canon.

Applying the above to canon, IF predermination were the model JKR uses for
destiny, then time travel either would be impossible, or it would be
impossible to affect anything (such as killing your past or future self) in
a time loop.  DD would not have needed to give Harry and Hermione any
instructions about going back to rescue Buckbeak and Sirius.  All the
language throughout the books about the importance of choice would, simply,
be wrong in JKR's eyes, which would make her writing that strange indeed.

OTOH, IF the model were purely that of free will, there could not be such
things as prophecy or destiny.  One cannot know the future, because one
cannot know what choices still remain to be freely made that will change
destiny.

Neither of those views is consistent with Potterverse, but the modified view
of C. S. Lewis does fit:  There is destiny, but there is also free will.  It
is based BOTH on a sense of destiny AND on a strong emphasis on free will.
Harry and LV cannot both survive, because someone or something's essence is
divided, so it is Harry's destiny to destroy LV, but if he CHOOSES not to,
LV will destroy him instead.  Destiny and free will, both.

A small point that may be revealed in HBP that would support this is if
people do, in fact, switch houses.  If they do, then it means their choices
are overriding where the sorting hat originally put them.   Since I don't
think the SH makes mistakes, that would again imply both destiny and free
will.  

Further on this (and even closer to the original illustration) would be
"good" characters who join the dark side, and "bad" characters who join the
good side.  Perhaps this is the very reason why Snape's true choices and
DD's reasons for trusting him have been obscured for so long: JKR wants to
illustrate to us (through Harry's shock) that good side/bad side are not the
nice neat delineated groups that fairy tales would have us believe.  Someone
"good" (Seamus, Dean, Parvati, Cho?) will go to the Slytherins, and someone
"bad" (Draco, Theodore?) will come to Gryffindor.  Harry will have to decide
whether to judge people on the accurate placing of the SH (=predestination),
or on the affiliations which they have chosen (=free will).

It may be that Dean/Seamus/Parvati/??? will have been placed in Gryffindor
because they have courage and prized it above all, but have later decided
that they want to get ahead more than anything else, and changed (by their
own free will) from what they were into something else.  In the same way, it
may be that Ted Nott or someone else will take the very courageous free-will
step of standing up ALL alone to switch to Gryffindor because his inner
heart has spoken to him about the importance of courage and sound moral
choices over recognition, accomplishement, and power.

While I don't see any of the principal three (or Ginny or Neville) changing
houses, their reactions to those who change (in both directions) could say
as much as the decisions to change themselves.   That SH song at the
beginning of OOtP had to *mean* something, didn't it?   Work together or be
defeated.  

Vivamus, who agrees with Hub McCann that honor, virtue, and courage mean
everything; that money and power mean nothing; that good always triumphs
over evil, and that true love never dies.