Mere Christianity & the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Catherine Porter
In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the children ask Mr. Beaver if Aslan is safe. He responds by saying that he is far from safe, but all the while, “he is good”. Lewis elicits the same point in his book Mere Christianity. On page 31, he writes “God is the only comfort; He is also the supreme terror: the thing we most need and the thing we most want to hide from”. The same is true for God as it is for Aslan. In the Chronicles of Narnia, Aslan asks the children to do some pretty brave tasks. He does not live an easy life nor give instructions in an easy fashion; yet he does promise to be there every step of the way. He is not safe, but he is innately good. The same is true for God, he can certainly be scary, as we need him desperately; not only for salvation but for our “daily bread”. At the same time, we often want to hide from him, knowing his power and holiness far surpasses are own understanding. Throughout the course of this semester, it has been interesting to see the ties between Lewis’ more blatantly philosophical and religious works with his fairy stories. He expresses similar ideas in all of his works, yet does so using an entirely different approach.