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C. S. Lewis - That Hideous Strength with Philip D. Bunn and Ronni Kurtz · Christians Reading Classics

0:08
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps the year 1945 is most commonly remembered as the end of World War II.
0:14
SPEAKER_00: But we're here to talk about another reason to remember this year.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: It was a very productive one for the British academic, theologian, and novelist C.S.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: Lewis.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: In 1945, he published not one but two books, The Great Divorce and That Hideous Strength.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: We're here today to talk about the second of these, That Hideous Strength, which is perfectly readable as a standalone novel.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: But Lewis actually wrote it originally as a concluding portion of his space trilogy.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: The first two installments are Out of the Silent Planet and Paralandra.
0:52
SPEAKER_00: It is an unusual novel in many ways.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: The following excerpt perhaps demonstrates some themes.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: You thought, all that was mythology, no doubt, you thought, because fables had clustered about the phrase, son of man, that man would never really have a son who will wield all power.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: But he will.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: I don't understand.
1:23
SPEAKER_00: I don't understand, said Mark.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: But it is very easy, said Philostrato.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: We have found how to make a dead, dead man live.
1:33
SPEAKER_00: He was a wise man, even in his natural life.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: He lives now forever, he gets wiser.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: Later, we make them live better.
1:41
SPEAKER_00: For at present, one must concede, this second life is probably not very agreeable to him who has it.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: You see, later we make it pleasant for some, perhaps not so pleasant for others.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: For we can make the dead live, whether they wish it or not.
1:57
SPEAKER_00: He who shall be finally king of the universe can give this life to whom he pleases.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: They cannot refuse this little present.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: And so, said Strake, the lessons you learned at your mother's knee return.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: God will have power to give eternal reward and eternal punishment.
2:15
SPEAKER_00: God, said Mark, how does he come into it?
2:18
SPEAKER_00: I don't believe in God.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: But, my friends, said Philostrato, does it follow that because there was no God in the past, there will be no God also in the future?
2:31
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Christians Reading Classics, a new podcast from your Orthodoxy.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: I am Nadia Williams, and today it is a delight to speak about that hideous strength with two experts who approach it from different directions.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: Philip Bunn is assistant professor of political science at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia.
2:51
SPEAKER_00: His research has been published in Political Science Quarterly and American Political Thought.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: His reviews and essays have appeared in The Review of Politics, Plow Quarterly, Comment Magazine, and The University Bookman, among others.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: Ronnie Kurtz is assistant professor of systematic theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: He is the author or editor of at least five books, right?
3:15
SPEAKER_00: Am I counting correctly?
3:17
SPEAKER_01: I think that's something like that, yes.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: And the most recent of them has like this really gorgeously trippy cover, a light, unapproachable, divine incomprehensibility and the task of theology.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you both for being here today.
3:32
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having us.
3:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's my joy.
3:34
SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Nadia.
3:35
SPEAKER_01: Appreciate you putting on these conversations.
3:38
SPEAKER_00: So this season of the podcast focuses on literary classics with significant anniversaries this year.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: So I want to open with a question that actually isn't necessarily specifically about C.S.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: Lewis.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: What is a classic?
3:53
SPEAKER_00: Is it enough that we're still reading this book 80 years after publication?
3:57
SPEAKER_00: Or what other criteria would you add?
4:02
SPEAKER_02: I'll let you start, Philip.
4:04
SPEAKER_03: Sure.
4:04
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, I tend to think of a classic as yeah, any book that has stood the test of time and also that gets regularly recommended by people I trust.
4:12
SPEAKER_03: So I am very conscious of the fact that I'm still developing my taste and judgment as a reader all the time.
4:18
SPEAKER_03: Uh and so if somebody I trust uh who has recommended things I've liked before, or somebody who I generally think is much wiser than I am, recommends something that that moves it up the list.
4:28
SPEAKER_03: So I mean, yeah, you've got the standard like canon of the classics, like capital C, and then that list expands if you're willing to admit stuff that's like 20th century and afterwards.
4:37
SPEAKER_03: But just for me, it's the general descriptor is just like it's of sufficient quality and influence that it's held up for long enough that people I trust recommend it and it makes it somewhere up my reading list.
4:45
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
4:46
SPEAKER_02: I I think that's exactly right.
4:48
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I I don't think I would really even add I was gonna say I don't feel like I'm qualified to really dictate what is and isn't.
4:55
SPEAKER_02: And so I like Philip's strategy of letting other people do it, things that have been recommended, uh sufficient quality so the test of time is kind of the go-to.
5:03
SPEAKER_02: And classics, you know, until they truly become canonized in some way, it it almost is intuitive.
5:09
SPEAKER_02: It's it's easier to point to one than to describe one, like, ah, this is one.
5:13
SPEAKER_02: Uh and that's probably not one, but but giving a firm definition can be a little more slippery.
5:19
SPEAKER_00: I like it.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: It's uh I know one when I see it.
5:22
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: But also um, I appreciate both of you mentioned kind of the idea of tradition that uh classics stand the test of time.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: It's not just um no one person has the authority to just point at a book and say this is a classic.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: It is more of a collective human endeavor.
5:41
SPEAKER_03: Well, yeah, I think too, um that like that that can be a process of recovery.
5:46
SPEAKER_03: So there are books I think that like have not gained a certain reputation that I would like more people to read, and I think they might gain that reputation.
5:52
SPEAKER_03: So I think it's it makes it a fun thing to be a reader now to be able to advocate for things and be like, no, no, this is kind of a forgotten work, and I I think it could become a classic if you guys read it and agree, you know, just try to put that on others' lists.
6:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that that is exactly right, Philip.
6:05
SPEAKER_02: There's a way that even ties to this book.
6:07
SPEAKER_02: And I I just recently finished Harry Poe's uh trilogy, the biography of C.S.
6:13
SPEAKER_02: Lewis through Crossway, which by the way, I think is is wildly underappreciated.
6:18
SPEAKER_02: Um, Harry Poe's um he uses primary sources in a way that is um just a model for how biography should be written.
6:29
SPEAKER_02: And there was so much stuff as a Lewis lover myself that I just had no idea.
6:33
SPEAKER_02: And in one of the letters that Harry Poe uses, he talks about Lewis's bemoaning that the abolition of man wasn't really received well uh in terms of sales and those kinds of things after it was written, after the lectures were given.
6:48
SPEAKER_02: And that's a great example.
6:49
SPEAKER_02: The abolition of man, in my opinion, is amongst the best of what Lewis ever did and is kind of put in fiction form here with that hideous strength and the space trilogy in general, but probably wouldn't have, if you were alive in Lewis's day, you probably wouldn't have guessed that would have been a Lewis classic.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: I recently had a conversation on this podcast about uh the Lord of the Rings, because the return of the King um has an anniversary this year also.
7:17
SPEAKER_00: And it's interesting that originally the reception was lukewarm.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: Like most scholars especially thought, like, what is this?
7:27
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's get into C.S.
7:29
SPEAKER_00: Lewis's space trilogy.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: So, what kind of a work is this anyway?
7:34
SPEAKER_00: How would you describe it to someone who might not have read it before?
7:37
SPEAKER_02: Right?
7:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I have a hard time.
7:41
SPEAKER_02: This is this is probably the hardest question I get because I have said before, and this might sound like a caricature or an exaggeration, so please give me grace here.
7:49
SPEAKER_02: But I've said, if you really want to understand what I hope to do with my life, not that I'm accomplished it or anything, but it would be hard to get your mind around what I'm trying to do with my own theology and my love of poetry and literature without having read that hideous strength.
8:07
SPEAKER_02: Um you would just it it gives a category, an artifact for what I would like to do with however many years God gives me.
8:17
SPEAKER_02: But you would think having it that high on my my priority list of like you probably can't understand Ronnie well without having read that hideous strength.
8:27
SPEAKER_02: You would think I would be able to categorize it better.
8:29
SPEAKER_02: Because what I what I often find myself saying when people hear me say that, they're like, Well, what do you love about it?
8:35
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, well, that's too hard.
8:38
SPEAKER_02: It's uh it's uh, you know, it's a science fiction, but don't write it off for that reason.
8:42
SPEAKER_02: It's a theology in a way, but don't write it off for that reason.
8:45
SPEAKER_02: And so I find myself wanting to apologize for the book in in really unneeded and unhelpful ways.
8:53
SPEAKER_02: Um, and once once people get into the book, I don't think it takes you much more than the early conversation of should we sell the land at Braggdwood to be like, oh, this is the conglomeration of four or five kinds of literatures.
9:12
SPEAKER_02: And it is the reason we love C.S.
9:14
SPEAKER_02: Lewis is the way he's able to tie uh, you know, he he called it a a fairy tale for grown-ups.
9:20
SPEAKER_02: And the way he's able to tie the fiction, the science fiction, the theology, the philosophy.
9:26
SPEAKER_02: Um it it's all kind of wrapped up together in that hideous strength.
9:29
SPEAKER_02: So that's kind of a great non-answer answer for you.
9:33
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I um first we should throw the nerds listening a bone and say I some people are gonna complain that you're still calling it the space trilogy because they I I've been told the real fans prefer the ransom trilogy or the cosmic trilogy because the point is this isn't space, right?
9:48
SPEAKER_03: It's it's a very rich heavens, right?
9:50
SPEAKER_03: And that's I think how I explain it to people most of the time.
9:52
SPEAKER_03: The way this is also just kind of joking, and it doesn't really help.
9:55
SPEAKER_03: But I'm just like, well, imagine you know the medieval were kind of right about you know the the order of the cosmos and the heavenly spheres, and then you traveled in space.
10:03
SPEAKER_03: What would that look like?
10:04
SPEAKER_03: And so that's I think sort of the hook of it, right?
10:07
SPEAKER_03: So it's you know, another book that not everybody gets around to, uh, the discarded image of the series of lectures on the medieval mind that Lewis gave is also very helpful, I think, as sort of a preface to this, because you get to see the imagination that is in the background here, um, very different than the sort of scientific imagination that uh ransom is literally fighting against in the course of the trilogy.
10:26
SPEAKER_03: But yeah, just I mean, in broad overview, in case there's anybody listening who somehow hasn't read them, right?
10:31
SPEAKER_03: You've got like you learn through the trilogy that each of the planets in our solar system has an angelic being attached to it that's just sort of oversee it.
10:39
SPEAKER_03: Uh the an Oyarsa uh is what they're called.
10:41
SPEAKER_03: And then the one on Earth is is has become bent.
10:45
SPEAKER_03: It's Satan, and so he's corrupted, and so the the the music of Earth has been silenced, it's kind of cut off from the the heavenly chorus, and so it's the silent planet, and and that's just sort of the the hook of the whole thing.
10:54
SPEAKER_03: And I think it's you know it's it's spectacularly weird.
10:57
SPEAKER_03: Uh it it's it's very strange, and it's especially when you start with uh out of the silent planet or you get to Paralandra, you're just like it's so much of it is just description and it's very kind of conceptual and flow.
11:07
SPEAKER_03: There's not a ton that's going on for a lot of it, and it can be I think throws people for a loop sometimes, especially if they've heard all the praise for that hideous strength.
11:14
SPEAKER_03: If you start with the trilogy and work your way through it, you just you kind of get confused for a little bit.
11:18
SPEAKER_03: It takes a little bit to get into it.
11:19
SPEAKER_03: So um, it can be tough of tough sell, I think.
11:22
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
11:22
SPEAKER_03: Um, I don't yeah, apologizing for sci-fi is another thing too.
11:25
SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, that's um I started uh when I first read it, I read the trilogy in order.
11:32
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, like having uh read a lot of Isaac Asimov, for example, like this is not the same sort of sci-fi.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: So if you think this is what you're getting, you're in for a surprise.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: But it is a richly theological work.
11:45
SPEAKER_00: Ronnie, you pointed that out.
11:47
SPEAKER_00: It's uh it seems like, well, is it accurate to say that everything Lewis wrote was theology?
11:54
SPEAKER_02: I I mean, I don't I don't know how he would feel about it, but it's hard not to come to that conclusion.
11:58
SPEAKER_02: Um he has a a God-entrenched vision of all things and and is even less embarrassed about it than a lot of modern writers, you know.
12:10
SPEAKER_02: Um, again, don't want to give too much away, but a main character in this book becomes a Christian, basically, um, in the book.
12:17
SPEAKER_02: And that's that's a wildly unembarrassed move to make for an author, a Christian author of a book that probably could have done well in non-Christian circles and has done well in non-Christian circles.
12:28
SPEAKER_02: And so, yeah, I I think I would be okay with with that kind of a phrase.
12:33
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think it's interesting though that um I I'd I wish I had written down this reference.
12:38
SPEAKER_03: Um, I saw a letter or conversation recently recounted that Lewis had with a friend about um Paralandra specifically.
12:44
SPEAKER_03: And and the question sort of on the table was like, did you intend to set out to write this story as it is if you if you go read Paralandra?
12:50
SPEAKER_03: It's kind of like a second telling of Adam and Eve and and what that would look like.
12:54
SPEAKER_03: Um and and the question was, did you basically just write this as a didactic retelling of the Garden of Eden, or did that just sort of happen?
13:00
SPEAKER_03: And he's like, I started with the floating islands and that and everything else kind of loaded out from there, right?
13:04
SPEAKER_03: So it wasn't, I didn't sit down and intend to write it this way, but once I had that, and then I start building it, the theology just flows through everything he writes.
13:10
SPEAKER_03: So it's yeah, I I think that's an important point.
13:13
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: And that's a fascinating insight into Lewis's creative process.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: Like, how much did he plan?
13:19
SPEAKER_00: Did this turn out exactly as he planned it?
13:22
SPEAKER_00: Maybe not totally, but so let's get to the novel proper.
13:29
SPEAKER_00: Um, without excessively spoiling the plot and the ending, what is going on here?
13:34
SPEAKER_00: Like, who are the key characters and key themes?
13:38
SPEAKER_02: Philip, you want to take this one?
13:39
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, sure.
13:40
SPEAKER_03: I mean, so you you start off and you get kind of an A and a B plot going on.
13:44
SPEAKER_03: You've got um one of the main characters, Mark Studdock, who's uh uh it's the English system, I would call him a professor, but I guess he's like a senior fellow of sociology uh at this college, small college that at as as uh Ronnie mentioned at the beginning, is considering whether or not to sell off this kind of ancient wood that's part of the college property to this organization called NICE, the National Institute for Coordinated Experiments.
14:06
SPEAKER_03: Uh, and you kind of figure out pretty quickly that there's something kind of more nefarious going on in the background here.
14:11
SPEAKER_03: But then the sort of B plot is Mark's wife Jane, uh, who's a struggling PhD student trying to finish a dissertation, which I empathize with greatly.
14:19
SPEAKER_03: Uh, and and she's, you know, kind of hit a wall, and she's seeking advice both in, you know, her professional calling, but then also her marriage from from women around her, and through that plot ends up intersecting with uh Dr.
14:31
SPEAKER_03: Ransom, the main character of the first two books.
14:34
SPEAKER_03: And so she kind of gets insight into the sort of things going on in the background of nice before Mark is even fully cognizant of it in some ways.
14:41
SPEAKER_03: And then a bunch of crazy things happen.
14:43
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I don't know how much to spoil or not, but uh, I mean it gets it gets wacky really fast.
14:48
SPEAKER_02: Yes, that's a great, that's a great setup.
14:50
SPEAKER_02: I I often like to explain it for people who have never like just have some handrails to get into the book if you've never read it.
14:56
SPEAKER_02: I like the juxtaposition of Mark and Jane, the husband and wife, and their different trajectories, uh, which complement each other so well from a literary perspective.
15:06
SPEAKER_02: And then also on kind of the A B thing too, Philip, I like the way you said that, is um if they're the first couple, then I like to use uh Wither and Ransom as the second pairing uh and their different trajectories, because in some ways, again, don't want to give too much away here, but in some ways they could both be considered the the boss of their group, whether that's the NICE or the company at St.
15:32
SPEAKER_02: Anne's.
15:33
SPEAKER_02: Um, but in some ways, while they are the boss, they're also not in control fully.
15:39
SPEAKER_02: And the way in which they relate to their authorities and the way in which they carry out the goal of their authorities is is pretty remarkable when you do a comparing and contrasting.
15:51
SPEAKER_02: So those two couples are kind of a good following the storyline.
15:55
unknown: Yeah.
15:56
SPEAKER_00: I always found it fascinating that Lewis, a lifelong academic, set this up in an academic setting.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: What do we make of that?
16:05
SPEAKER_03: He's clearly bringing some some uh past trauma from faculty meetings into some of the writing here, right?
16:11
SPEAKER_03: Some of these characters that you just have to imagine, he's just like scribbling and he's remembering one particular guy and how ridiculous he was.
16:17
SPEAKER_03: But I mean, yeah, I think it's interesting because you start off with this kind of stuffy conversation about are we gonna sell part of the college property, you know, get some money in in the bank and continue operations for a while.
16:28
SPEAKER_03: And and the considerations that they that they're working with are just not the ones that some of the readers coming to the book would have, right?
16:34
SPEAKER_03: The kind of history and tradition and place and the richness of it.
16:37
SPEAKER_03: None of that is a consideration for the people who are selling the stuff off.
16:41
SPEAKER_03: Uh and and the use to which that land is going to be put is an important uh plot hook as well.
16:46
SPEAKER_03: But um, yeah, I mean, I think the academic setting is really important because he's run into people like this who who think this way, who've sort of instrumentalized education and all of the things that they've inherited and are perfectly willing to gut it um regardless of the history of the sort of thing that they've picked up and been given uh custodianship over.
17:02
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
17:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
17:03
SPEAKER_02: And you remember, this is this is largely a fiction version of that of um the abolition of man, which is while it's while it's easy to take it different direction, that the abolition of man is largely lectures on pedagogy.
17:19
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, he starts with uh that word sublime, you know, with the green book and and ways in which that that word can be hijacked.
17:27
SPEAKER_02: But if you think about how much Lewis cared about teaching, and even the way he like sets up his time at um at Cambridge eventually when, you know, his his opening lecture he calls himself a dinosaur, and it's kind of shocked they even wanted him.
17:42
SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm an old dinosaur, I read old stuff, I live in the medieval world.
17:47
SPEAKER_02: Um, I do think he is making pedagogical commentary on the fact that this has an academic environment from what these individuals want to do from a in from an academic post.
18:01
SPEAKER_02: One is bent towards pragmatism and efficiency.
18:05
SPEAKER_02: And I think Lewis is making some comments on that being the predominant motivation in in different pedagogical settings.
18:13
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I a friend recently pointed out, and I think this is really true, that the best um, in addition, obviously, to Ablish No Man, uh, which again very strongly overlapping themes here, uh, the best Lewis to pair with this is the silver chair.
18:26
SPEAKER_03: So out of the Narnia books, you get this setting of like this experimental school that's doing things in this new pragmatic way.
18:32
SPEAKER_03: Uh, and then you get the sort of like technological experimentation um underground with the with the uh the Green Lady, the witch, and and what she's doing to the people there, to the prince, all these things.
18:42
SPEAKER_03: Like they they pair very well together.
18:43
SPEAKER_03: You get this sort of like threefold repetition of like, look how awful these new experimental schools are between uh Avolition of Man, that hideous strength, and Silver Chair that I think is really helpful.
18:52
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
18:53
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
18:54
SPEAKER_02: That Silver Chair is my favorite Narnia.
18:56
SPEAKER_02: So you just you just brought all of my worlds together, Philip.
18:59
SPEAKER_02: I appreciate you.
19:01
SPEAKER_00: Well, and uh both of you have mentioned um elsewhere how the technology aspect comes through so strongly here, and especially in connection with education.
19:11
SPEAKER_00: So what do we make of that?
19:18
SPEAKER_03: I I find it I I find the book and and abolition of man as a pairing so easy to teach because the things feel so timely.
19:27
SPEAKER_03: Um, because he's really grappling ahead of his time in a way with things that we're seeing the fruits of now.
19:34
SPEAKER_03: So he's considering in both uh that hideous strength and abolition of man, the idea that, hey, we can do some embryonic modification eventually, right?
19:41
SPEAKER_03: That's a that's a an idea that's on the table.
19:42
SPEAKER_03: The technology is not really there yet, but now we're sitting here grappling with CRISPR and all of its consequences, right?
19:47
SPEAKER_03: So so it feels very timely, even though it is uh quite quite old at this point.
19:52
SPEAKER_03: And uh it's it's questions that we all have to grapple with because of that.
19:56
SPEAKER_03: Um, and then especially, again, both both the lectures and the book, um, dealing with questions of reproductive technologies, human conditioning, what that means for the future.
20:05
SPEAKER_03: These are questions everybody's been playing with for a long time, but they feel so more salient now in a lot of ways than even when he was writing.
20:11
SPEAKER_03: So it just feels very prophetic.
20:13
SPEAKER_03: I think that's uh one of the reasons that it has this sort of perennial draw, yeah.
20:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's hard not to let your mind go to modernity, uh, recent modernity, whenever you're reading these books.
20:25
SPEAKER_02: I mean, they're they are modern themselves, but it's hard not to immediately want to pull them out of 1945 and into 2025.
20:34
SPEAKER_02: And that is a credit to Lewis, in my opinion.
20:36
SPEAKER_02: He has written something that so puts its finger on the realities of our world and some of the the he's embodied with people like um Wither, kind of the the mentality of like, if I can do it, then I ought to do it.
20:53
SPEAKER_02: And that it's okay to be or to seem something rather than to be something.
20:58
SPEAKER_02: It's it's okay to seem wise rather than to be wise.
21:02
SPEAKER_02: And um it's why I've I um Nadia, I think you saw this online.
21:06
SPEAKER_02: It's a it's a silly little it's a silly little thing I added to my syllabus this year, and it's it's probably not gonna change anybody's lives, but it it it allowed me to feel like okay with my conscience.
21:18
SPEAKER_02: Um we are in the world right now of trying to decide what to do with AI in the classroom, and it's changing every 45 minutes, and I am not really a grumpy person, but I want to, if I can use a theme of the book, I want to be Bultitude for a minute.
21:34
SPEAKER_02: Um and with when it comes to AI because it just has me in my grumpiness in a way that nothing really else has.
21:42
SPEAKER_02: And I think it's because I see I see the short changing effect that it's having on students from a pedagogical perspective of where they really can seem like something rather than be something.
21:54
SPEAKER_02: I even had a student the other day come up to me and I love classical theology, I love old.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: Books and I had a student come to me today and or not today but this week and said, Look, I used I used Chat GPT to to help me find all of the best Augustine quotes.
22:09
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, I I get why you think I would have liked that.
22:13
SPEAKER_02: I need you to never tell me that again.
22:16
SPEAKER_02: Because what you did was you now seem like a person who has spent time with Augustine, but you are not one.
22:26
SPEAKER_02: Uh you you have not spent the requisite time in the works to be able to pull those out from your own experience in your own reading.
22:35
SPEAKER_02: And so he he was thinking, like, I'm doing this very not terrible thing.
22:40
SPEAKER_02: I'm just looking for quotes, but I'm like, no, you've actually shortchanged so much here, and you're gonna make others, this is now a show.
22:46
SPEAKER_02: This is now a doctrinal stage on which you are performing, and it looks like you're a person who knows Augustine.
22:52
SPEAKER_02: Now, the the uh the syllabus thing that I've added this year, it's again, it's not overly brilliant, but I've added into my syllabus any student who is caught using AI, they they have to rewrite the assignment, of course, but then they have an extra assignment, which is they have to read that hideous strength, and they have to answer two prompts.
23:10
SPEAKER_02: The first prompt is in your own words, uh, what do you think the three fundamental convictions of the NICE are?
23:18
SPEAKER_02: And I just want them to get what I want them to feel is I might not be all that different than the NICE.
23:25
SPEAKER_02: And the second thing is they have to write, the second prompt is what would Ransom and Withers' view of artificial intelligence be, if you could put it in your own words, and which view do you think best cultivates souls to appreciate truth, beauty, and goodness?
23:41
SPEAKER_02: Again, it's not overly brilliant.
23:43
SPEAKER_02: My guess is students who are caught using ChatGPT will likely use ChatGPT to write this prompt.
23:49
SPEAKER_02: However, my hope is maybe for at least one student they might see a vision of the world in which pragmatism isn't the only reason to do something.
23:59
SPEAKER_02: And that maybe for a student, the thought of beauty is worth it, and a slower life is worth it if it means a cultivated soul rather than seeming overbeing.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: It's just so a beautiful vision for what education should be.
24:15
SPEAKER_03: Go ahead, Philip.
24:16
SPEAKER_03: Sorry.
24:16
SPEAKER_03: I yeah, I don't want to drag us too far down like a spooky conspiracy rabbit hole or anything, but you know, there there are people that I respect and enjoy listening to.
24:25
SPEAKER_03: I don't know how fully I agree with them, but who will suggest, you know, some of the sort of darker spiritual things in the background of all this AI stuff, you know, demons and machines and all that.
24:32
SPEAKER_03: But I I think even if we don't necessarily fully subscribe to that, one part of the story that I think is interesting, and I'll try not to give too much away, but there's a sense in which the uh NICE folks think that they are using uh new technology to do some really incredible things.
24:49
SPEAKER_03: What they don't realize ultimately, and this is, I think, one of the other brave parts of the story is that the theology is everywhere, they don't realize that they're actually channeling the supernatural and doing demonic things instead.
24:58
SPEAKER_03: It's not them with their technology that's able to achieve these great things.
25:01
SPEAKER_03: They're just channeling uh dark spiritual forces.
25:04
SPEAKER_03: And so you have a very poignant image of this in an animated uh uh dead person that becomes a mouth for the demonic.
25:13
SPEAKER_03: And uh I I can't help but think of that when you describe this uh what's happening when I use AI in the way that you've described, right?
25:20
SPEAKER_03: You you become a sort of channeler of some things, and even if the facts are accurate, even if the content's true, right?
25:26
SPEAKER_03: It's not something that's coming from you, it's coming from somewhere else, and you think you've got a grasp on it, but really you don't in any meaningful sense at all.
25:33
SPEAKER_03: Um and that's that's quite terrifying to me in a lot of ways, right?
25:36
SPEAKER_03: So so this is what Lewis talks about in abolition of man as well.
25:38
SPEAKER_03: You have what he calls like secular magicians, basically, who are doing this work uh and and perhaps not realizing the spiritual dimensions.
25:45
SPEAKER_03: And so again, even if we're not channeling demons with AI, I think what we are doing is is harming our souls in very distinct ways.
25:51
SPEAKER_03: At the very least, we're failing to uh do constructive things that our uh instructor intends us to achieve in the process of education.
25:59
SPEAKER_03: Uh, and possibly worse than that, we might be doing some act of corruption to ourselves by lying, you know, misrepresenting work that's uh not ours as ours, et cetera, right?
26:07
SPEAKER_03: So at the very least, we're losing the opportunity to improve and we're potentially making ourselves worse.
26:11
SPEAKER_03: And that just scares me left and right.
26:13
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: So the idea that we are being formed by the work we're doing.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: And of course, that's like nothing new or um earth-shattering, and yet um we forget this to our own detriment, or rather, 18-year-olds regularly forget this to their detriment.
26:29
SPEAKER_00: It's um it's interesting.
26:30
SPEAKER_00: So, Augustine specifically, in general, with famous authors, there are always so many quotations that circulate.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: And the more famous the author, the more spurious some of those quotations are.
26:41
SPEAKER_00: I ran into this um, the most recent book I uh completed, uh Christians Reading Classics.
26:47
SPEAKER_00: I have a chapter on Augustine, and I kept seeing online for years like this quotation that people would share about Augustine, like how um like the gist of it, and it's a really short, like punchy quotation, like how I didn't uh fully um fully understand like anything until I knew Christ.
27:07
SPEAKER_00: But um, but it's kind of like a run through um pagan literature, and it's really punchy.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: And I was thinking, like, I've never seen this in the confessions.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: Like, I think I know where it might be, like if it were there.
27:19
SPEAKER_00: And so I ended up like one of the rereads through confessions.
27:22
SPEAKER_00: I finally realized where this quotation was coming from, and it wasn't actually a quotation of Augustine, it was a very corrupted paraphrase of an entire chapter.
27:34
SPEAKER_00: So, like, uh, but of course, Chat GPT doesn't distinguish between made-up quotations and real like chunks of Augustine.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: And it also just kind of circulates everything and makes up its own quotations on occasion.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: So it's just um the whole idea, Philip, I hear you, like the conspiracy theories about like the demonically possessed uh AI.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: But you know, this is how like it gets so easy to believe this.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: Like, this is very much corrupting um a brilliant thinker whose um whose influence on us like continues.
28:08
SPEAKER_00: And yet, like, how does it shape us if suddenly instead of reading Augustine, we're reading AI version of Augustine?
28:14
SPEAKER_00: Like that's getting into the territory that would probably terrify even C.S.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: Lewis.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: And yet that is what NICE is doing.
28:23
SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, let's talk a little bit more about NICE, the philosophy.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: So, like the question you give your students, Ronnie.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: Let's spoil this.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: Like anybody, anybody who gets caught and uh you make them do that assignment.
28:38
SPEAKER_00: Um if they if they actually do their research and listen to this podcast, what is the answer we're looking for?
28:47
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm happy to supply it if they'll give some some thought to it.
28:50
SPEAKER_02: There's so much that um, you know, goes behind the the NICE kind of mentality.
28:57
SPEAKER_02: And and Nadia, you and I have actually worked on a uh on a book together or a uh a review that I did that you had me do for um I Cheerfully Refuse.
29:06
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
29:07
SPEAKER_02: And uh they the I kept feeling that Warwick in I Cheerfully Refuse from Leaf Inger so embodied much of what Wither was doing in the NICE.
29:20
SPEAKER_02: And uh, if I can you know mix metaphors here a minute, there is there is a scene in I Cheerfully Refuse, in which the main character, the um the protagonist Rainey, is talking to Werick, who is kind of the NICE version in I Cheerfully Reviews.
29:36
SPEAKER_02: And Rainey basically says, Hey, I understand all of the arguments are in your favor, but I'm not I'm not appealing to your papers, I'm appealing to your humanity.
29:47
SPEAKER_02: And Werick has this line where he says, You keep using that word humanity as if it represents your favorite set of values, but it never did and it never will.
29:58
SPEAKER_02: And there is there is something transferable of Weirick's terrible understanding of what it means to be a human into the NICE where it's um really all that it means to be a creature or all that it means to be human are actually obstacles meant to be overcome.
30:19
SPEAKER_02: And the primary conviction I think of the NICE is getting over organic limitation.
30:28
SPEAKER_02: And whatever whatever means we need to get over those, as opposed to pressing into them as creatures, as humans, as those who are finite and and actually can maybe recognize that even finitude is theologically here, finitude is not a product of the fall.
30:46
SPEAKER_02: Uh rather, it's it's deeply embedded to the ontology of what it means to be human and it's good news, uh, not something to be overcome.
30:53
SPEAKER_02: And so I think, you know, you could kind of say maybe the, maybe the the the conviction of the NICE is overcoming organic material, maybe the conviction of the NICE is pragmatism and efficiency.
31:04
SPEAKER_02: I think you see it in um uh you see it in in Paralandra and in Out of the Silent Planet that uh maybe a conviction of the NICE is prolonging our species, even if that means hurting other species, um, especially in in Out of the Silent Planet, um, the the first book of the trilogy.
31:24
SPEAKER_02: So those would be kind of the some of the key convictions that I see represented by the NICE.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, speaking of finitude, I'm just gonna put in a plug for Philip Bunn's uh Covenant College colleague, Kelly Capek, who has written so beautifully about like the theology of what it means to be human and like limited and why it's a good news.
31:45
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
31:46
SPEAKER_02: It's literally in red.
31:48
SPEAKER_00: Yes, the Ronnie just held it up.
31:52
SPEAKER_02: For why creaturliness is good news.
31:54
SPEAKER_02: And uh what just an incredible book.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: It is.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: You're only human.
32:00
unknown: All right.
32:00
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, um your take shortly before the the quote that you read at the beginning here there in this conversation between Mark and Filestrato.
32:08
SPEAKER_03: This was a section I was looking for earlier.
32:09
SPEAKER_03: I finally found it.
32:10
SPEAKER_03: Um Mark looks up at the moon and is just like, oh, look at that dead world.
32:14
SPEAKER_03: And Filestrato says, No, actually, we know that there is a race that lives there and they're better than us.
32:19
SPEAKER_03: And the reason he says they're better than us is they've almost freed themselves of organic life.
32:23
SPEAKER_03: So they've they've purged the surface of the moon, so there's not organisms running around.
32:27
SPEAKER_03: And he says that the masters of this race are just barely hanging on by the slightest thread to what we would call organic life.
32:33
SPEAKER_03: They they they basically don't uh eat and reproduce the same way that we do, the sort of underlings and whatever this race is.
32:39
SPEAKER_03: Uh they're the ones who are doing the reproduction, and these masters are sort of sitting above it all.
32:44
SPEAKER_03: And he's just like in awe of whatever that is.
32:46
SPEAKER_03: And I love this section partially because it's this is like a whole dimension of the world that we haven't really heard that much about.
32:51
SPEAKER_03: It's just kind of in there, and we, whoa, that's kind of cool, and we just move on from it.
32:54
SPEAKER_03: But also because like this to him is like an ideal.
32:57
SPEAKER_03: Like I can look up there and say, there's that race up there that's doing the things the what the way I would like to do.
33:01
SPEAKER_03: And I would like to be one of those masters freed from all of the sort of dirty business of organic living.
33:06
SPEAKER_03: Um, and so that's yeah, I would put that really high on the list.
33:09
SPEAKER_03: And so I again this feels so relatable, I think, because we know exactly these sorts of people today, right?
33:15
SPEAKER_03: The there's a whole um ecosystem of the sort of like life hacky Silicon Valley transhumanist thing that seems to just wake up every day and be be mad that they're hungry.
33:25
SPEAKER_03: But you know, I I think it's actually Nietzsche who has I'm bastardizing the quote, but says something like our stomachs remind us three times a day that we're not gods, and that's really actually important, I think.
33:33
SPEAKER_03: The the you know, not that Nietzsche's where I get most of my theology, but I think that's a real good point, right?
33:38
SPEAKER_03: That um it the the physical limitations that these people are trying to free themselves from, whether in fiction or real life, um, are uh yeah, we don't need to view them as like, well, these are the the dirty, nasty effects of the fall.
33:48
SPEAKER_03: Like it's it's uh a product of of being human and there's there's lovely things about it.
33:52
SPEAKER_03: Um so yeah, so however they can do that, right?
33:54
SPEAKER_03: So so all of the the idea of like conditioning the sort of lower classes to behave in certain ways that are more uh preferable to the upper class masters or conditioners, freeing over time yourself from these biological limitations, a radical life extension, all these things are part of the novel.
34:11
SPEAKER_03: Lewis is seeing the seeds of them in his own day, and I think we're seeing the sort of culmination of it.
34:16
SPEAKER_00: So, what do we make of Ransom in the mix of all of this?
34:19
SPEAKER_00: Who is he?
34:21
SPEAKER_02: You know, one of my favorite things about the trilogy, I think, is that Ransom is fairly unremarkable.
34:27
SPEAKER_02: And maybe you all have a different opinion of him, but um it's never it was never the case for me that I was like, St.
34:36
SPEAKER_02: Anne's is going to succeed because Ransom is an incredible person.
34:41
SPEAKER_02: That was never really the where my hope was, which means Ransom is a remarkable parable for the life of the Christian, right?
34:50
SPEAKER_02: That the church doesn't succeed because you're remarkable.
34:53
SPEAKER_02: Uh the gospel doesn't go forward because you're remarkable.
34:56
SPEAKER_02: The gospel goes forward because the God who is plentitude in his own trying relations is good towards us, even though we don't deserve it.
35:03
SPEAKER_02: And uh it's it's a really good now.
35:06
SPEAKER_02: I do love, I'm a nerd, and I do love that he is uh a philologist.
35:12
SPEAKER_02: I do love that it is um it is their uh ability to know Latin that actually has a really significant advantage for them later on in the story.
35:24
SPEAKER_02: And all of us, you know, nerds are like, yes, there is a benefit.
35:28
SPEAKER_02: Uh if you want to talk to Merlin, you better know Latin.
35:30
SPEAKER_02: Um so there is, you know, he does have some embodiment of virtues that we, as people who are, you know, prone towards the intellectual life might appreciate.
35:41
SPEAKER_02: Um his ability to be curious about the language and out of the silent planet is what's going to separate him from the protagonist and what's going to give him the ability to communicate in a way that the the, or sorry, the antagonist, and what's going to give him the ability to communicate in ways that the antagonist just can't.
35:58
SPEAKER_02: And so his ability to appreciate the small things.
36:02
SPEAKER_02: And this is actually an excuse to bring up a a uh another Lewis essay.
36:08
SPEAKER_02: Sorry, we're kind of nerding out here, but uh never apologize for nerding out.
36:12
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
36:13
SPEAKER_02: This is my kind of people.
36:14
SPEAKER_02: Um you might have read it, I think it's in his um his other collections, his other essays book.
36:21
SPEAKER_02: I forgot what it's called off the top of my head, but it's um where he talks about the Parthenon and the optative.
36:26
SPEAKER_02: Have you guys read this essay?
36:27
SPEAKER_02: Where he basically he is comparing um ways to teach language, and it ends up being an argument for uh learning Greek in a way.
36:38
SPEAKER_02: He says, often uh people will start teaching Greek by showing the uh the the Parthenon, this this beautiful, exquisite building, and say, look what the Greeks did.
36:49
SPEAKER_02: It's amazing.
36:50
SPEAKER_02: And they try to rouse up appreciation.
36:52
SPEAKER_02: And he's he Lewis basically says, and again, I'm I'm very much um quoting here and and summarizing, he says, I like to start instead of with the Parthenon with the optative, which is a which is a uh a mood, right?
37:04
SPEAKER_02: A Greek tense.
37:05
SPEAKER_02: And so he he says, what you what you get in the former version of pedagogy, where you try to start with appreciation, look how great the Parthenon is as a building, and look what the Greeks did, is you get a flash of excitement that maybe might stick for one in a few thousand students.
37:24
SPEAKER_02: But if you start with the optative, which is the language, the mechanisms, the words, the nerdy stuff, you will you will develop the ability to appreciate the small things which will cultivate your soul to really be able to appreciate something like the the the Parthenon.
37:40
SPEAKER_02: Um so it's it's this idea of like, this is what Ransom is doing.
37:45
SPEAKER_02: He is a he's able to appreciate the small things, things like language and words.
37:49
SPEAKER_02: And it's actually what gives him the ability to appreciate the larger things, like, no, maybe we shouldn't take over uh Machandra or something, you know, maybe we shouldn't do that.
37:59
SPEAKER_02: Maybe uh prolonging our own species isn't the best motivation for what we're doing.
38:04
SPEAKER_02: And so I think that that's kind of the two things I want to say about Ransom.
38:07
SPEAKER_02: He himself is not altogether that brilliant or that amazing.
38:09
SPEAKER_02: And yet the thing that is amazing about him is his being able to find beauty in the mundane, being able to find beauty in the small things.
38:18
SPEAKER_00: That's striking because other characters here as well.
38:21
SPEAKER_00: Like there's such emphasis, like Jane, he goes out of his way to remark on how like unremarkable she is.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: Like she's not the most intelligent.
38:29
SPEAKER_00: This is why she's really struggling with her dissertation.
38:31
SPEAKER_00: It's like, tell me more.
38:34
SPEAKER_04: That's right.
38:35
SPEAKER_03: Philip.
38:36
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I I I like that uh insight.
38:39
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I think there are places, especially in that Hideous Strength, where you kind of like see the person that he's become over time through the trilogy.
38:46
SPEAKER_03: And you know, he's he's um uh given this kind of inheritance.
38:50
SPEAKER_03: He's the he's the inheritor of the kingdom of King Arthur, the pin dragon, and he so he there, there's he's he's sort of the mortal ruler of what he calls like the good side of England, like whatever's left of it.
39:00
SPEAKER_03: Um and so there, I think I I'm trying to remember.
39:02
SPEAKER_03: I think there's one particular scene when Jane is meeting with him where she kind of gets a flash of this and like sees some of that kind of behind and through him.
39:08
SPEAKER_03: But you're right, like in general, this is just like he's not the point.
39:11
SPEAKER_03: It's it's all kind of pointing to something else.
39:13
SPEAKER_03: And I think that's true even in the sort of climax of this.
39:16
SPEAKER_03: Again, I won't spoil too much, but it it turns out like he doesn't come in and win the day and everything.
39:20
SPEAKER_03: It's it's a sort of like ancient power that he's able to do, uh or able to you know communicate with, as you mentioned, because of the cool nerdy things about him, uh, that is able to win the day at the end of this.
39:30
SPEAKER_03: So it, you know, he doesn't come in with guns blazing or you know, swords flashing, like he's he's um stewarding in in a way that's pointing to something that's older and and more important than him.
39:39
SPEAKER_03: And I think that's really key.
39:41
SPEAKER_03: And it's true, I think, in in the first two as well.
39:43
SPEAKER_03: Like the way that he ends up having victory in in both of the previous novels is not usually just because he's like this, you know, awesome uh hero.
39:51
SPEAKER_03: He he's he's able to gain some insight into the truth of the world around him and sort of fight evil that way in a way that is more yeah, more mundane than I think most people expect from especially sci-fi heroes, right?
40:03
SPEAKER_03: Yes, that's right.
40:05
SPEAKER_00: Should we should we see some of C.S.
40:08
SPEAKER_00: Lewis himself in this character, do you think?
40:12
SPEAKER_02: It's hard not to.
40:14
SPEAKER_02: Um I mean, Lewis he was that kind of a person who was cultivated and obviously has flaws, and he's not the he's not a perfect theologian, not a perfect person or anything, but he's meant so much to me because he cared about beauty in a way that is hard to find in modernity.
40:34
SPEAKER_02: And and he the reason he's so meaningful to me as a teacher is I tell my students often the reason you love C.S.
40:43
SPEAKER_02: Lewis is you love the medievals in the ancients.
40:47
SPEAKER_02: You just haven't had a good guide.
40:49
SPEAKER_02: And Lewis can become that.
40:51
SPEAKER_02: And they Lewis brings a lot of the medieval worldview and even the the small tweak of what what Philip said earlier of stop referring it, stop referring to it as outer space and refer to it as the heavens.
41:06
SPEAKER_02: That is a small tweak that shows a different worldview, a different vision of how things work, and uh a medieval cosmology that I think offers a lot more beauty than than current modern cosmologies.
41:19
SPEAKER_02: And so, um, so it's hard for me not to to see C.
41:23
SPEAKER_02: S.
41:23
SPEAKER_02: Lewis in that kind of a light and as a little bit of a the old dinosaur himself, kind of the the smuggler for me and uh getting my students into classical mindset.
41:34
unknown: Yeah.
41:36
SPEAKER_03: I've heard people make comparisons a lot uh as well to to Tolkien, just as an influence on the character.
41:42
SPEAKER_03: And so I'd like to think of it as like a melding together of like the the things I really love about Lewis and the things I really love about Tolkien.
41:48
SPEAKER_03: And I mean there's other inspirations for the character as well, but I mean, yeah, it it seems like if if there is a kind of self-insert character, it's gotta be it's gotta be that to some extent at least.
41:57
SPEAKER_00: So amazing, like nerds um bringing themselves into their own work, but he's he's not afraid to laugh at himself.
42:07
SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate that.
42:10
SPEAKER_00: So we've talked about this a little bit, but here we are.
42:13
SPEAKER_00: It's 2025.
42:15
SPEAKER_00: Um why does this novel written in 1945 resonate so deeply right now?
42:22
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I I think again, it's just part of it is when you sit down and you like you said, from the very first conversation, we're trying to figure out are we gonna sell this wood or not, and and why, um, you immediately start to get like looped into the ideas behind this that are animating this organization, the things kind of at play in the background, and they all feel so, so, so dramatically relatable.
42:44
SPEAKER_03: Uh and so I, yeah, I've I've taught abolition of man quite a few times.
42:47
SPEAKER_03: I I would always I I got handed a class when I was teaching at Clemson that was a sort of play-to-de NATO in one semester kind of thing, just an impossible task.
42:56
SPEAKER_03: Uh, and the way the syllabus had been structured before was ending on Nietzsche, which was which was just horrible.
43:00
SPEAKER_03: I couldn't do that to the students.
43:02
SPEAKER_03: And so I just made the executive decision to tack on abolition of man to the end of this class as a sort of rebuttal to Nietzsche.
43:08
SPEAKER_03: And even at, you know, a secular university, I'm sure some of the students were Christians, some weren't.
43:11
SPEAKER_03: I'm sure some had read Lewis, some hadn't.
43:13
SPEAKER_03: But even there, like the students, I think, just found something remarkably compelling about this, especially just the key insight that he gives towards the beginning of when he turns to technology, that you know, we view ourselves as kind of inheritors of all these wonderful contraptions of science and technology, and we think that that's given us, mankind, power over nature.
43:32
SPEAKER_03: It's like you're thinking about this all wrong, right?
43:34
SPEAKER_03: The sort of analogy that he uses is, you know, if you pay someone to carry you, you are not a strong man yourself.
43:38
SPEAKER_03: And so, yeah, there's a small group of people who have uh the the sort of wheels and levers of of technology and society who are able to do amazing things, and sometimes they're even nice enough to let us use those things too.
43:48
SPEAKER_03: Isn't that cool?
43:49
SPEAKER_03: Uh, but that doesn't make me the the master of that technology and the things it's doing to nature and the things it's doing to myself.
43:55
SPEAKER_03: In fact, quite often it's it's sort of in service of some higher, higher, some different.
44:00
SPEAKER_03: A greater end that I that I'm not even aware of.
44:02
SPEAKER_03: And so then he gives these examples of contraception and the radio and the airplane and how that's changed our relationship to ourselves, to nature, to history.
44:10
SPEAKER_03: And I think it really grabs students in a way that they might not have thought about these things before.
44:16
SPEAKER_03: So I find that, you know, anytime I ask students to think deeply about technology, this is a really useful launching off point.
44:22
SPEAKER_03: And, you know, you don't end up agreeing with him on everything, perhaps, but it at least is a springboard into thinking more critically about these things.
44:29
SPEAKER_03: Um, that I've just watched light bulbs come on into students' eyes.
44:32
SPEAKER_03: And so in the same way, I think that Ivy's strength does the same thing in an imaginative form, right?
44:36
SPEAKER_03: So you've got the fictional story here that is, you know, in this speculative fiction genre that is just like so compelling, so exciting, and and especially again, compared to the first two, there's a lot more happening.
44:46
SPEAKER_03: There's a lot more, you know, it's a much faster-paced book.
44:49
SPEAKER_03: So it kind of hooks you in.
44:50
SPEAKER_03: Um, and it's a really, I think, useful site for exploring those questions.
44:54
SPEAKER_03: Um, so I think anybody who picks it up finds this.
44:56
SPEAKER_03: And and again, you know, you may get to the end of it and you may have some issues.
44:58
SPEAKER_03: People have some issues with how uh Jane's character is is resolved and is treated in the course of the novel.
45:03
SPEAKER_03: And like you can, you can find, you can, you can have some disputes, but um, I I can't help but being sucked in and wrestling with those questions.
45:10
SPEAKER_03: And I think that's what the literature particularly is is super helpful for.
45:14
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
45:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I that's great, Philip.
45:17
SPEAKER_02: I agree with everything you said there and feel very deeply that I resonate with what you're saying.
45:22
SPEAKER_02: I think also for me, I there is a this intangible quality that I want my students to have that I there's surely a better word for, but but right now it just feels like the word is depth.
45:35
SPEAKER_02: Um, I think my students and myself just I want that for them.
45:40
SPEAKER_02: I want them to have depth in a shallow world.
45:44
SPEAKER_02: And Richard Foster, you know, you you you all probably know who that is, celebration of discipline.
45:48
SPEAKER_02: He he has that little quote where he says, the world is not in need of more intelligent people, the world is not in need of more powerful people, the world is in need of more deep people.
45:58
SPEAKER_02: And I feel that.
45:59
SPEAKER_02: Um, I feel that even for me, myself, that that when I think about what I want to be with my life, um, two words that often come up in my mind are are wise and stable.
46:10
SPEAKER_02: I I desperately want to be a wise man and I desperately want to be a stable man.
46:16
SPEAKER_02: And there is a sense in which the fight between the St.
46:20
SPEAKER_02: Anne's Company and the fight between the NICE is a fight of depth versus expediency.
46:28
SPEAKER_02: And that paradigm can be put onto a lot of our modern conversations.
46:33
SPEAKER_02: In fact, Lewis himself kind of warned in in in one of the prefaces, I forgot to which edition of um that he is strength, but he said, often we think um as we kind of take advantage of these scientific or these technological advances, that it gives men the power over nature, as Philip was saying.
46:49
SPEAKER_02: But but Lewis warned, rather, it probably gives men the power over men, with nature being the instrument.
46:56
SPEAKER_02: And there is there is ethics at stake here that is deeper than a mere sci-fi book, you know.
47:03
SPEAKER_02: And it it gets to the vision of the good life that I want to give to my students, which says, consider, consider the pace at which the St.
47:13
SPEAKER_02: Ann's Company is living their day-to-day life and the pace at which the NICE is pursuing technological advancement.
47:21
SPEAKER_02: One of them is a pace in which a heart and a soul can be cultivated, and one of them is not.
47:28
SPEAKER_02: And there is something there for my students in 2025 that I desperately want them to hear.
47:36
SPEAKER_00: I like that.
47:36
SPEAKER_00: I'm reminded of um at some point, I don't I don't remember whether this was before or after he wrote That Hideous Strength, but uh a student wrote to C.
47:46
SPEAKER_00: S.
47:46
SPEAKER_00: Lewis asking for advice um on how to become a better writer.
47:51
SPEAKER_00: And C.S.
47:51
SPEAKER_00: Lewis said, first things uh ditch your typewriter.
47:55
SPEAKER_00: It's just going to corrupt you.
47:57
SPEAKER_00: It was like amazing.
47:58
SPEAKER_00: It's like ditch the technology.
48:01
SPEAKER_00: It's a basic technology, but still it's not going to be helpful to you as a writer.
48:05
SPEAKER_00: And just sort of like brings it um, what does it mean to be human and think like a human and live like a human?
48:13
SPEAKER_00: Um, and this feeds into the next question.
48:16
SPEAKER_00: Um, what is the purpose of fiction?
48:18
SPEAKER_00: And especially what is the purpose of fiction for C.S.
48:20
SPEAKER_00: Lewis?
48:21
SPEAKER_00: Like, why does he write novels?
48:24
SPEAKER_03: Uh, I've had a chance to teach this class that I call it politics and literature before.
48:29
SPEAKER_03: And I always start with um a lecture by Russell Kirk on the moral imagination.
48:35
SPEAKER_03: Uh, and so he borrows the term or the phrase from uh Edmund Burke, and he defines it as effectively the faculty that lets us perceive higher things than we can see with just our eyes.
48:46
SPEAKER_03: And he sort of lays out a sort of program of education for young people, like at certain ages, you know, be reading these types of books kind of thing.
48:52
SPEAKER_03: And and the whole point, he says, is that we can, you know, our process of reading both nonfiction and fiction, but especially imaginative works of fiction, um, it's a soul-strengthening exercise.
49:02
SPEAKER_03: It helps us see reality more clearly.
49:04
SPEAKER_03: And so he says, you know, when you engage in a good work of fiction that is actually challenging you and asking you to grapple with it, you get to do maybe a kind of moral assessment, right?
49:13
SPEAKER_03: You morally assess the characters and the story and maybe even the author.
49:17
SPEAKER_03: Uh and you say, well, what should I have done in this situation?
49:20
SPEAKER_03: You get to do kind of like thought experiments, right?
49:22
SPEAKER_03: And run through these situations in advance.
49:24
SPEAKER_03: It's always um a fraught thing to like try to draw too strong a line between like contemporary neuroscience stuff and this kind of speculative thinking about what this work does.
49:34
SPEAKER_03: But I I have seen decent studies on you know faculties of empathetic reasoning being improved by engaging in fiction reading and things like this.
49:41
SPEAKER_03: So it seems like it it's it's an intuition that at least conforms with some of these you know more empirical studies.
49:46
SPEAKER_03: And so I think that that's how I encourage my students to approach it.
49:49
SPEAKER_03: I haven't actually taught that class since I've been at Covenant, but when I was at uh Wisconsin and Clemson teaching that class, at least I was able to convince even you know a sort of secular academic environment that this is a good use of literature um for the purpose of engaging our moral reasoning.
50:04
SPEAKER_03: Uh and so I think that's one reason this is uh quite helpful, right?
50:07
SPEAKER_03: We're never gonna find ourselves exactly in the situation that Ransom and and Jane and all the rest do, but uh we can we can have some very productive engagement with the ideas raised by the the story.
50:17
SPEAKER_03: So that's that's usually the first thing I grab onto.
50:20
SPEAKER_03: It's it's kind of maybe too practical for some people, like, well, here's a use of literature, but uh I think it it is useful for that.
50:26
SPEAKER_02: So no, I think that's great, Philip.
50:28
SPEAKER_02: I I very much appreciate that.
50:29
SPEAKER_02: That's uh it it makes it feel like my answer is gonna be a little less sophisticated.
50:33
SPEAKER_02: So uh listen to Philip here.
50:36
SPEAKER_02: Um I I have often been I've been influenced by Kevin Van Hooser's little uh line that theology ought to serve the administration of reality.
50:45
SPEAKER_02: Uh Van Hooser's systematic theologian like myself.
50:48
SPEAKER_02: And that little phrase, it was a passing comment he made in a lecture actually here at Midwestern back when I wasn't uh I was probably late MDIV, early PhD, but he said uh he said that phrase, that administration of reality, and it kind of lodged itself into my head.
51:03
SPEAKER_02: Um I can't even remember what the rest of the lecture is about.
51:06
SPEAKER_02: Sorry, Dr.
51:06
SPEAKER_02: Van Hooser, but uh that administration of reality meant a lot to me because we live in a world of lies.
51:12
SPEAKER_02: And I I again want my students to be people of depth who, without freaking out, without losing control, which we have enough of today, uh, can hear lies, take them down and with a posture and a tone that can be categorized by the fruit of the spirit, gentleness, kindness, self-control, can hear the lies, take them down, and in their place administer that which is real.
51:39
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's a really worthwhile way to spend your days, even if you don't find yourself, you don't think of yourself as remarkably effective.
51:47
SPEAKER_02: I think it's a worthwhile way to find meaning and beauty and really regular rhythms of like a normal vocation or whatever it might be.
51:55
SPEAKER_02: And I'm convinced that fiction can help us with the real.
51:59
SPEAKER_02: I I'm just convinced of it.
52:01
SPEAKER_02: And I'm a convert.
52:03
SPEAKER_02: I did not grow up a fiction lover.
52:05
SPEAKER_02: In fact, I didn't grow up a reader, which is uh shocking to a lot of my students, but I just didn't have an I didn't have an educated family.
52:13
SPEAKER_02: Uh, I'm the first one in my immediately family group to finish high school, let alone continue on to doctoral studies and whatnot.
52:20
SPEAKER_02: So uh just don't come from a family of deep intellectual heritage.
52:25
SPEAKER_02: And one of the ways that I have found meaning in administrating reality is through fiction.
52:31
SPEAKER_02: A lot of what Philip is saying, like the cultivation of uh empathy or the cultivation of being able to know many stories beyond my own story.
52:39
SPEAKER_02: In fact, I was able to find it.
52:40
SPEAKER_02: I was I was hoping when I forgot about the this uh this this quote and was able to Google it.
52:45
SPEAKER_02: Sorry, I'm using technology in a conversation largely about not using technology.
52:49
SPEAKER_02: But I recently read uh Nile Williams, my first book by Niall Williams.
52:53
SPEAKER_02: If you guys haven't read him, highly recommend Niall Williams.
52:57
SPEAKER_02: He is in the line of uh Marilyn Robinson, uh he's in the line of you know the uh Wendell Berry types that just finds beauty.
53:06
SPEAKER_02: He's uh lives in the Irish countryside and knows how to describe it in a way that'll just tear you apart.
53:11
SPEAKER_02: But he has a book called This Is Happiness.
53:14
SPEAKER_02: And um, I absolutely loved it.
53:16
SPEAKER_02: And I don't want to give anything away about This Is Happiness, but I do want to read a couple of sentences here, if you can indulge me here.
53:22
SPEAKER_02: Um, this is after a ridiculous scene, actually, in which a character gets intoxicated in a bar and begins singing wildly.
53:31
SPEAKER_02: And reflecting on this, this is what uh one of the characters says.
53:35
SPEAKER_02: He says, It seems to me that the quality that makes any book or music or painting worthwhile is life and just that.
53:43
SPEAKER_02: Books, music, and painting are not life.
53:45
SPEAKER_02: They can never be as full or as rich or as complex or surprising or beautiful.
53:51
SPEAKER_02: However, the best of them can catch an echo of that and they can turn you back to look out the window or go out the door aware that you've been enriched, that you have been in the company of something alive, and that has caused you to realize once again how astonishing life really is.
54:08
SPEAKER_02: And you leave the book or the gallery or the concert hall with that illumination, which feels, I'm gonna say, holy, by which I mean human raptness.
54:18
SPEAKER_02: And for me, that that embodies the the administration of reality, where through fiction, uh through something like that hideous strength, through that which is fake, Lewis has taught me so much about that which is real and about ways to administer that which is real.
54:34
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
54:35
SPEAKER_00: And we'll add um those reading recommendations in the show notes.
54:38
SPEAKER_02: Oh, great, yes.
54:42
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm gonna end with the hardest question of all.
54:46
SPEAKER_00: What classic book, whether fiction or nonfiction, do you wish you had written and why?
54:52
SPEAKER_00: You have to explain your answer always.
54:56
SPEAKER_00: Ronnie is shaking his head.
54:57
SPEAKER_02: Well, I I'm shaking my head.
54:59
SPEAKER_02: I love the question.
54:59
SPEAKER_02: It's a good question.
55:01
SPEAKER_02: I I am um the reason this question scares me is because I don't want anyone to think that I presume that I could have.
55:09
SPEAKER_02: Does that make sense?
55:11
SPEAKER_02: Um okay, humility is a virtue, yes.
55:14
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
55:14
SPEAKER_02: I because what I want to say is the brothers Karamatov.
55:18
SPEAKER_02: And but I don't have the intellectual ability nor the the literary ability.
55:25
SPEAKER_02: Uh Fyodor Dostoevsky lives on a different universe than I do, and his is more beautiful and more profound, and I I couldn't have written that book.
55:34
SPEAKER_02: However, um there's very few days that go by that I don't think about it in some way.
55:41
SPEAKER_02: Um it's it's probably my favorite novel of all time.
55:45
SPEAKER_02: Um it's the the novel to which when I have like doubts about the world, I will like want to ask like what would Zosima thought about this, or what would Eliosha have thought about this?
55:56
SPEAKER_02: Um and in ways that maybe is silly to most people, but you know, they're kind of like Marilyn Robinson has a whole bit in her collection of essays.
56:06
SPEAKER_02: When I was a child, I read books about how fiction uh fiction characters can become mentors and can even you can even like fall in love with them in ways.
56:14
SPEAKER_02: And uh in a lot of ways, Zosima and Alexi are that for me.
56:19
SPEAKER_02: And um, so the psychology that he gets into that book and the the levels of depth that are in the Brothers Karamatsaf is hard to explain.
56:31
SPEAKER_02: Um, even someone who comes from a little bit of a broken family as I do, with a little bit of a broken past as I do, um, the the brotherly relations are wild to me.
56:41
SPEAKER_02: That the the transformation of going from a broken family to at the end of the novel, young children chanting Yay Karamazov is a transformation of a family line that's gut-wrenching and soul stirring to me in so many ways.
56:55
SPEAKER_02: That's it's hard to recommend or even explain.
56:58
SPEAKER_02: So uh I want to answer the brothers Karamatov, but I want it with the nuance of I could have never done that in 10 lifetimes.
57:08
SPEAKER_03: That's a great answer.
57:09
SPEAKER_03: Um, yeah, I don't I I had a similar hesitation, I guess, because it's like, well, yeah, what what what is implied here by wish I could have written?
57:16
SPEAKER_03: There's a lot of things I wish I could have written, I guess.
57:18
SPEAKER_03: But you know, if I was choosing fiction, I might I might go with East of Eden because you stole Brother Ker Brothers Kermatsov from me.
57:24
SPEAKER_03: But um more in line with the conversation, I guess, the where my brain went was I consider it a classic.
57:30
SPEAKER_03: So it's uh a collection of essays by George Park and Grant called Technology and Justice.
57:34
SPEAKER_03: That was sort of the thing that set me on my life trajectory from then on.
57:38
SPEAKER_03: I read it in my junior year of college, and I've through the years read a lot more Grant, and I've found in him kind of like a kindred spirit.
57:45
SPEAKER_03: We're both very grumpy, uh, we're both very upset about the things technology is doing to us, and uh, but he he articulates it in a way that is so wrapped in a kind of theological hope that I find really appealing.
57:57
SPEAKER_03: So he he is very much a pessimist, he's sometimes a kind of techno-determinist and like doesn't seem to think that all this is gonna get better, except in the sort of grand sense of he believes in a good god, uh that this is you know will will be worked for good in some way.
58:12
SPEAKER_03: Um, and so we I find every time I I pick him up, read one of his essays or reviews, he's he's always pulling from people that uh I find appealing for similar reasons.
58:19
SPEAKER_03: Not again, yeah, not to put myself like on his intellectual level or whatever, but he was a a great student of of Nietzsche.
58:25
SPEAKER_03: I I find Nietzsche like darkly interesting.
58:28
SPEAKER_03: He loved uh Camus and Simone Vay, and these are people that have drawn me over the years.
58:32
SPEAKER_03: So like every time I pick something new up from him that I haven't read yet, I'm just like, oh yes, yes, similar.
58:37
SPEAKER_03: I'm I'm on a similar train of thought, and and that usually to me says I'm pointing in the right direction if I'm on a similar train of thought to somebody like George Park and Grant.
58:45
SPEAKER_03: So um I feel like a lonely American sometimes, being, you know, most of my friends who like him are Canadian, so trying to introduce him to down here, you know, south of the border and uh get more people thinking like he does, I think would be we'd be better off for it.
58:58
SPEAKER_00: So well, thank you both so much.
59:03
SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
59:03
SPEAKER_01: What a joyous promise.