The Fate of Charn - Evolutionary Nightmare?

Readers of C. S. Lewis will recall that before Aslan* creates Narnia, a certain Jadis has left Charn before it disintegrates with two children from London who take her back and later to the newly created Narnia bring her and the uncle of the boy and a horse and his cabman.

The first morning of Narnia has a brighter sun than in our world. The last day in Charn had a black sky** with a red sun.

Herein C. S. Lewis reflects the stereotypes of Stellar Evolution as commonly believed by Astronomers excepting a Christian minority. He admired a book by Olaf Stapledon, First and last Men, which deals with the fate of the Earth - as I have gathered through his remarks - some 100.000 years from now, unless it is milions of them. In the same passage*** he says that the sun - as seen by Non-Christian Astronomers and some Christian ones too, and by himself unless he is referring to the content of the Evolutionary Myth - will not last forever. The red sun of Charn obviously deals with that calamity, a sun threatening to go out over people who cannot live without it (but here that world was cut off before the calamity, due to Jadis).

The society of Charn - as reflected in the last queen, Jadis, and in her sister (as she tells the story, though the sister seems to have had some concern, however misguided in detail, for the common good), and in the statues or frozen people who were their ancestors - has gone from good to bad and from bad to worse and all the way to worst.

When it comes to the question whether God could have created Narnia, it kind of involves whether he could have created Charn.° And it is not a question of whether He had the power, Omnipotence clearly means He had, but whether doing so was compatible with His goodness and wisdom.

And here C. S. Lewis may have gone awry, precisely about Charn, by the fact of being an Evolutionist, as he was before his Christian conversion.°°

"The Devil rages, because he knows his time is short."

Millennia of Charn is not what God permits the Devil to rejoice in. He did not permit Nod east of Eden to continue its corruption indefinitely, but the Deluge intervened. He did not allow it to Sodom and Gomorrha either, but fire and brimstone intervened. He did not allow it to child sacrificing Canaaneans in the Holy Land or in Carthage, but Joshua and Scipio intervened, nor to human sacrificers in Mexico, but Cortez intervened. Likewise, if human society goes racing its way towards a state like that of Charn, the Day of Judgement will intervene. All of these interventions worked by God, whether by miracle or by Providence or by ending the order of Creation of time, and this is since destruction is preferrable to a slow but relentless corruption.

I am offering no timetable for the Second Coming, I am just saying certain evils abound which indicate it may be coming soon.

Abortion, then brazenly open toleration of sodomy, intimidation of its critics are already being mentioned by lots of other Christians.

Eagerness to remodel families and people (grown people presumably already modelled once, whether well or ill, during childhood), whether "for the good of their children" or "for their own good" is one I would not like be forgotten while enumerating evils. My school time bullies, or one of them caught during class, when confronted by one teacher told him about me: "he is so ill-adjusted, we are just helping him to adapt."

The then young man who said that was the son of a teacher. The bullies also had another leader, more vulgar, and less eloquent on that occasion, since not caught.

This evil also comes from Evolutionism as one possible conclusion of it: since Evolutionism claims we became men in the first place by adapting to pressure and since it claims our so called evolution is not ended but continues, leaving room for improvement and for "guided evolutionary pressure."

If Earth is to be saved, it is not condoms we need, but stopping Evolutionary evils. Evolution Theory inspired illdeeds and their acceptation by society, as "necessary", as "responsible", as "mature" or "evolved", and so on.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Nanterre University Libr.
Ember Wednesday of Pentecost
22-V-2013

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*In the hypothesis that the author elaborates, God the Son is also incarnate in another world He has created. This is no doctrine of his, this is a setting for the stories about Narnia. He is very explicit about that. Aslan is as much "Christ as seen by C. S. Lewis" as Christ on the Crucifix speaking to Don Camillo is "Christ as seen by Guareschi" (I think the author's name was). Nothing else.

**Or a sky so dark blue it was almost black.

***I think it was the Essay Farewell to a Great Myth

°In case you have forgotten what I just wrote and have not read The Magician's Nephew the creation of Narnia involves the presence of a person, Jadis, who was born in Charn.

°°When CSL was wrong, Charles Gore was wrong before him, I think. Pt 1 (I have not yet written part 2) deals with an Anglican "Bishop" and Evolutionist who had some notable influence on C. S. Lewis.