Is There Good Magic and Edifying Sorcery?

Audio Transcript

Welcome to witchcraft and wizardry week at the Ask Pastor John podcast, pushed through our Bible studying. We start the week through asking if there’s excellent magic and edifying sorcery. The query is a well-liked one about Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter and myth literature basically. And the query involves us nowadays from an nameless lady.

“Pastor John, hi, and thanks for this podcast. I’ve a query for you about an ongoing debate amongst my Christian buddies over whether or not there’s this type of factor as excellent or righteous indicators and wonders executed on the command of a miracle employee. Numerous godly Christians suppose novels like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings are forbidden as a result of they characteristic even a excellent use of spells and sorcery. The mere lifestyles of sorcery in a unique makes it dangerous. However at the different aspect of the argument, we learn within the Previous Testomony itself that God’s holy males appear to answer sorcerers with an identical supernatural energy, making a black-and-white distinction.

“We examine the entire implausible issues God did by the hands of Moses and Aaron within the plague accounts” — which we simply started studying nowadays in our Bible-reading plan, through the way in which. “Aaron throws down his workforce, and it turns into a devouring snake, the similar workforce that may reason the Nile to develop into blood, all in Exodus 7. Aaron holds his workforce, and frogs emerge from the Nile. Then he faucets the bottom, and gnats duvet the entirety, all in Exodus 8. Moses holds his workforce, and hail rains down on Egypt in Exodus 9. He makes use of his workforce to evoke the wind to ship devouring locusts in Exodus 10. Maximum famously, Moses lifts his workforce and splits the Pink Sea in Exodus 14. The similar workforce he makes use of to hit a barren region stone to attract out water in Exodus 17.

“Even not too long ago, within the New Testomony, we examine Paul’s supernatural reaction in Acts 13:6–11. He met a magician with a type of magic of his personal, inflicting the magician to move blind. Aaron, Moses, and Paul accomplish supernatural feats according to their fighters. Will have to this argument issue into our fiction, too, for appreciating a righteous use of supernatural energy?”

The talk between the helpfulness or hurtfulness of different unbelievable fictional worlds that an creator creates — say, Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings or the Harry Potter collection — I don’t suppose that discuss between the helpfulness and hurtfulness of making worlds like this is resolved through appearing that there are each demonic and godly makes use of of indicators and wonders on this actual global of ours.

“I’ve tasted fiction that makes me love purity, the Aristocracy, braveness, sacrifice, love, hope, pleasure.”

It’s indisputably true that there were and at all times will probably be misleading indicators and wonders (executed through the ability of Devil) on this actual global and godly indicators and wonders within the identify of Jesus on this actual global, meant for the affirmation of God’s impressed phrase within the Bible. However to argue from using indicators and wonders on this actual global of ours to the goodness of, say, righteous sorcery or white magic in a fictional global the place Devil and God are handiest symbolized however now not found in an specific approach — that doesn’t appear to me to settle the rest.

Asking the Proper Query

The reason being that the query will nonetheless be there. Does the fictitious, unbelievable, choice, epic global, with its other more or less nature and other more or less supernature, generally tend to distract readers from the actual global of actual nature and actual supernature (as God and Devil) through changing this global with a fictional global? That’s the query. Does it assist or does it harm — whether or not or now not the ones parts of sorcery and magic are there? Does the fictitious, unbelievable, choice, epic global have the literary energy to evoke materialistic, small-minded, sinful, worldly, unbelieving readers to the potential of an actual global of actual nature and actual supernature, the actual global of God and Christ? That’s the query.

Does a fictional global of unbelievable happenings generally tend to steer other people clear of or towards an actual global the place water becomes wine, and an actual guy walks on water, and lame other people truly stroll, and blind other people see, and 5 loaves feed 5 thousand other people, and there’s an actual resurrection of the useless and an actual ascending of the King into heaven, an actual God-man? Does fiction ship other people there or distract other people from there? That’s the important thing query, I believe. Does fiction assist or harm in in quest of to evoke other people to fact — to the truth of God in Christ with the entire atypical and beautiful otherworldly realities that in point of fact exist: introduction out of not anything, pervasive windfall, nice our bodies of water dividing in part, the solar preventing within the sky, awl heads floating, the incarnation of God into humanity through a virgin beginning, crucifixion, resurrection, 2d coming of a sovereign King?

Does using language to create another global to inform a tale assist awaken other people to the supernatural realities that truly exist? Or do they distract and change that fact? Do they assist or do they harm? Or differently to invite the query is whether or not the introduction of another global in fiction can successfully keep in touch fact about the actual global and draw other people into it. Can made-up fact explain fact? Does fiction have the capability to evoke other people to the reality of the actual global? I believe the solution to that query is, “A few of it.”

Fact More potent Than Fiction

Now, why do I say that? I imply, why am I positive about a few of it and pessimistic about others? The primary reason why is that I’ve tasted each. I’ve been uncovered to fiction this is merely corrupting — now not simply corrupting straight away to my morals however corrupting to my entire worldview through being shot thru with a litany of non-Christian assumptions that don’t open me to the probabilities of attractiveness and fact on this actual global however actually inoculate me towards them. I’ve tasted that more or less fiction. I believe we should keep away from it.

“The Bible, God’s phrase, makes use of unbelievable fictional visions and pictures to serve fact.”

And I’ve tasted fiction — whether or not in poetry or quick studies or novels — that makes me love purity, the Aristocracy, braveness, sacrifice, love, hope, pleasure with the end result that, after I learn my Bible, I’m freshly hungry for Truth and touchable through Truth with a capital R — Jesus Truth, God Truth, Bible Truth. This fiction hasn’t drawn me clear of fact. It by no means tempted me to consider the fictitious global was once actual. I don’t consider that. Most kids don’t consider that. It was once at all times pointing past itself. It was once by no means tempting me to idolize another global, but it surely was once making me disenchanted with the rest lower than the real God. So, that’s my first reason why for announcing that the fictitious introduction of different worlds would possibly or would possibly not serve the reality.

The opposite reason why is that the Bible, God’s phrase, makes use of unbelievable fictional visions and pictures to serve fact. As an example, in Zechariah 5:1–11, God makes the prophet see a flying scroll twenty cubits lengthy and ten cubits vast. “That is the curse that is going out over the face of the entire land” (verse 3). Then he reasons him to peer a shifting basket.

“What’s it?” . . . “That is their iniquity in the entire land.” And behold, the leaden duvet was once lifted, and there was once a girl sitting within the basket! And he mentioned, “That is Wickedness.” And he thrust her again into the basket, and thrust down the leaden weight on its opening. Then I lifted my eyes and noticed, and behold, two ladies coming ahead! The wind was once of their wings. They’d wings just like the wings of a stork, they usually lifted up the basket between earth and heaven. (verses 6–9)

Discuss choice realities: a flying scroll, a basket with a girl in it named Wickedness, two ladies with wings like wings of a stork. What on the earth is all this? That is God’s unbelievable, choice, visionary global. Zechariah does now not inhabit that global. He doesn’t inhabit an international with flying scrolls and ladies with wings. That is God’s approach of speaking fact about fact through growing photographs outdoor bizarre fact. And, amazingly, God has enabled human beings, created in his symbol, to be sub-creators, creators of different realities — fiction, poetry, metaphor, epic tale — that have the capability of awakening readers to Truth with a capital R.

Is It True?

My very own sense is that the reality of fiction does now not rely at the absence of fictional supernature — say, the absence of white magic — but it surely is dependent upon how this is used and the way it all suits in combination. C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien wrote about studies, about fairy stories, which intended extra to them than it does to us — fictional studies and fact. And I believe the most productive factor I will do is quote either one of them in flip as to how Fact with a capital T is communicated thru fiction or studies made up. Right here’s Lewis: “The tale does what no theorem can relatively do. It is probably not ‘like actual existence’ within the superficial sense, but it surely units earlier than us a picture of what fact could be like at some extra central area.” That quote from Lewis is in an essay known as “On Tales” (21).

And Tolkien’s quote here’s from his essay known as “On Fairy-stories” (155):

Almost definitely each creator creating a secondary global, a myth, each sub-creator, needs in some measure to be an actual maker, or hopes that he’s drawing on fact: hopes that the bizarre high quality of his secondary global (if now not in all main points) are derived from Truth [with a capital R], or are flowing into it. If he certainly achieves a high quality that may moderately be described through the dictionary definition: “internal consistency of fact,” it’s tough to conceive how this will also be, if the paintings does now not by hook or by crook partake of fact. The bizarre high quality of the “pleasure” in a success Myth can thus be defined as a surprising glimpse of underlying fact or fact. It isn’t just a “comfort” for the sorrow of this global, however a pride, and a solution to that query, “Is it true?”