This discussion is only loosely connected to the character of Tash itself, and has produced a number of tangents that have more to do with biblical theology and (even more removed from the original theme) systematic theology. This is practically inevitable given the nature of Lewis’ writings, but the observation itself should help to clarify things.
As with any discussion/debate, it is helpful to lay some terms of engagement down, or perhaps a better way to put it is to speak of academic protocol. Recognizing and observing these will keep us on task.
Wallis said:
As a college professor, I am no longer appalled and disappointed with the lack of ability in my students. They are a product of the school system, after all. People cannot read and comprehend; they cannot listen and understand; and, above all, they lack the ability to think for themselves.
I am disappointed that in this forum and others that posters refuse--repeat--refuse to do any research before writing their posts. So many people engage their fingers before they engage their brains.
Respectfully, the above represents an egregious breach of such protocol. First, its tone is chokingly condescending. Second, it is sweepingly general. Finally, and perhaps worst of all, it appeals to strength of pedigree rather than the merits of its own statements (which follow).
I will begin with the last. Granting you, Wallis, the full benefit of the doubt as to your credentials, they have absolutely nothing to do with the discussion. Nothing at all. For starters, great theologians with very impressive credentials have disagreed with each other for years. How have they debated (either in person or through their publications)? By quoting their diplomas and resumes to each other? No, by sustained critical discussion. That leads me to the second point: I have
never heard any professor I have ever had at
any level of higher education
ever counter anything anyone has ever said with the statement “I have been an academic in my field for (say) 35 years,” or “I am a college professor.” They defend their position on the basis of the merits of their argument, or they are not worth their salt. Just an observation.
Next issue: I have seen some pretty frustrated professors. But I have
never heard the demeaning description of students that you have laid down, even from the hardest unbelievers I have ever sat under. Wow. Nothing further need be said.
Lastly, I would like to address the implication that somehow you are the professor here, and we are all errant students, still chewing on our erasers or throwing spitballs while you tap your feet in frustration. I will say directly what I stated indirectly earlier: You cannot both an arbiter and a player be. You stand on the turf with the rest of us, and operating blind (i.e., without the benefit of hearing
our credentials), a bit of humility towards the supposed lack of research that you accuse your peers of in this forum would be a handy show wisdom as well as Christian virtue. I find no need to elaborate further on what Prince has already stated.
Now, for some things that cannot ignore comment:
Wallis said:
There is no black and white in the GOSPEL
I do wish you would qualify this, although I cannot know that even under the most elaborate qualification it could still stand as a statement. I am all for the discontinuity position in the Law and Gospel debate (which you seem to take), and I have no desire to put my neck under the yoke that Peter refers to in Acts 15. But to say there is "no black and white in the gospel"? Paul, the champion of grace for all, fought long and hard against the apparently antinomian position that your statement could at very least be construed as being.
Wallis said:
The fact that Lewis believed in a devil is just one point of view when discussing his works. He may, in fact, have had that central in his mind when he wrote of the existence of Tash. Yet, that does not negate any discussion that Tash exists in many forms within the human mind and existence.
The fact that Lewis believed in the devil is hardly “just one point of view when discussing his works.” Here is the slippery slope of the reader-response approach:
Everything is "open to interpretation." Yet think well: If one can even cast the slightest shadow of doubt (=
"may..have had that..in his mind") on the fact that Lewis believed in the devil (when in his introduction to the
Screwtape Letters he says point blank that he does, and expresses fear for those who don’t), then one can cast doubt upon interpreting anything at all. That is, I can read the
Declaration of Independence and interpret it as a recipe for minestrone.
If I might digress for a moment, I would like to observe that Lewis, graduating first in his class with a degree in philosophy from Oxford, and a professor for his entire life in the finest universities in the world, believed unabashedly in angels, demons, Satan, heaven, and hell—all quite literally. These realities are the essence of this discussion, and I believe we can all have a pretty good idea of where he would stand. Would he, Oxford don and scholar, also be accused of not doing any research before he "engaged his fingers"?
Beyond this, you do something that appears repeatedly in your recent posts: You allegorize Lewis’ allegory. I believe Lewis would roundly reject this tactic. His work is already an allegory of spiritual truths he draws from his orthodox Christian tradition and directly from Scripture. To turn Tash into anything negative that we want him to be is to greatly distort Lewis’ intent. I am hardly stripping you of your right (though I do dislike how we swing that word around these days) to believe and express what you will, I am simply saying it is out of line to take Tash, a figure to which is ascribed quite specific significance within Lewis’
schema, and make it you own. Just say it if you want to, but don’t twist Lewis. In fact, it would be more acceptable to use the term “devil” for what you are doing (given its broad popular use) than “Tash.”
Wallis said:
I will reiterate what I wrote before: I am Satan, and I am Tash. As long as I wear this Earthly flesh and possess a human nature, my very being and core is Anti-Christ. Therefore, living with and in the Christ, I struggle every nanosecond of the day to cast out the Satan/Tash that desires ascendancy and show the Love and Light of the Christ around me.
Prince of the West addressed the issue of pantheism quite adequately, so I’ll deal with this one: There is no Scripture that sustains the drastic ontological equivalency you are posting here. John in his first epistle warns his spiritual children to test and reject the spirit of anti-Christ as something foreign. Nowhere does he (or anyone else) say that it lives within us continually, much less consist of our inner being and our inner being of it. Yes, Paul reflects on the struggle he has with his flesh (sinful nature) in Romans 7, but in Galatians 2 he declares that he is “crucified with Christ”—yet alive, but it is not he, but rather Christ that lives within him. Similarly, Jesus declares that we are not of this world any more than He is of it (John 17:16). Remember, Jesus had a human nature, too, and died on a cross to impart that new nature to us. We are in process, but through him we are "born from above" (John 3:3), and are no longer under the dominion of the old nature (Romans 6). Usually people try and go soft on human nature and deny our sinfulness and lostness without Christ—a great error. But yours is an equally great error, Wallis, and cannot be sustained except by the most liberal reader-response method of interpretation.
