Category: C.S. Lewis

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How Do We Understand What a Text Means?

How do we understand what a text means? How do we know what Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, C.S. Lewis, or Tolkien meant? Is it enough to read their books? How do we elicit meaning?

Isn’t it curious that God didn’t come to humanity with a book? He came with a body. The ultimate knowledge of God is enfleshed in the Son of God. He walked among us, and we saw his glory. The Logos became flesh and dwelt among us. We have seen, touched, smelled, and heard, and tasted Meaning. It affected us bodily. We dwelt in its Presence.

Apart from the body, Meaning is impervious. It is ungraspable at the level of the mind.

As Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht says:

“What we need is a form of thinking that is based on the possibility of presence and on the possibility of presence being related to meaning.”

Is meaning related to presence? It is. And our ability to perceive meaning arises from our contact with the Form. Meaning is read off of that Form in which it is embodied.

“That which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.”

The Logos must be incarnate to be perceivable. Knowledge without a body is misleading at best. We don’t arrive at Meaning through interpretation; we arrive at meaning through coming in contact with its embodied Presence.

Interpretation is misleading without Presence. It is a form of narcissism — we tend to reduce the Meaning to the lens through which we choose to see the world. When we see, touch, and taste the Presence, we don’t need to interpret. We grasp the Whole.

Interpretation is necessary when there’s no Presence. Interpretation is the child of absence. In the absence of the body, texts require interpretation. In the presence of the body, they come alive. They walk, talk, and dwell among us.

We see the text, talk with it, laugh with it, eat with it — we have a relationship with it. Meaning is what happens to us as we engage in that relationship. We know without interpreting. If we have to interpret, we don’t know.

“By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.”

To know God means to touch his flesh. When we touch the Body, we know, and all texts come alive. When we interpret the text without touching the Body, it is a dead letter.

The Spirit loves forms. It loves being in the body. It creates “felt presences.” Whatever we encounter in a text, whether it’s Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, or the Bible, already exists in this world as a Presence. Something that we can touch, see, and experience.

The moment we discover that Presence and engage with it, we discover that the text is not outside us to be interpreted. It is inside us to resonate with. We start looking for those resonances everywhere because we fall in love with the celestial Music they reveal.

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What is the Meaning of Aslan’s Name?

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What is the meaning of Aslan’s name in Narnia? I have always found it curious that the name of Aslan caused such different reactions in the Pevensie children. In fact, when I first read that passage, something jumped in me too:

“At the name of Aslan each one of the children felt something jump in its inside. Peter felt suddenly brave and adventurous. Susan felt as if some delicious smell or some delightful strain of music had just floated by her. And Lucy got the feeling you have when you wake up in the morning and realize that it is the beginning of the holidays or the beginning of summer.”

There was something relatable about it. Surprisingly, there was something relatable even in Edmund’s reaction to the name.

“But Edmund felt a sensation of mysterious horror.”

It felt like some judgment was going on. Not externally but internally. The name of Aslan was the ultimate revealer of what was in a person. It amplified the contents of your heart. If there was light in it, you could almost touch it. If there was darkness there, you couldn’t help but feel horror.

When I read John 3:19, it all came together:

“This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light.” 

What is the meaning of Aslan’s name in Narnia? When the light comes, it reveals what is. There’s nothing else to judge. Judgment is internal. It jumps from within us every moment we encounter the Light. We either delight in the light or hide from it. Depending on the state of my consciousness in the moment, the Light will either make me lighter or heavier.

The same curious thing happened in The Lord of the Rings when the company entered LothlĂłrien. The effect of entering the realm of the Lady was such that all the company felt the presence of some inexplicable magic.

For some, it was a delight. For others, torment. Tolkien seems to suggest that the whole land was Galadriel’s mirror — not just the stone mirror itself. As the fellowship walked through the enchanted wood, they saw their secret thoughts and desires revealed as if in a mirror.

Some liked it; others hated it. But they couldn’t hide from it. They stepped into a land of the Last Judgement unfolding 24/7. Galadriel wasn’t the Judge — she was the revealer of what was in each person’s heart. The Judgement was internal, not external.

For Boromir it was torment. For Aragorn, it was a delight. Boromir said,

“It is said that few come out who once go in; and of that few none have escaped unscathed.’ ‘Say not unscathed, but if you say unchanged, then maybe you will speak the truth,’ said Aragorn.”

In the final analysis, we are all judged by how we respond to our encounter with the Ultimate Beauty. For some, it is an eternal delight. For some, eternal torment. If you come with a pure heart, it is a delight. If you come with an idol, it is a curse.

The Light is always sweet for the one who allows it in. It is a horror to the one who doesn’t. The encounter with the Ultimate Beauty can be either heaven or hell — depending on what is inside one’s heart already.