More on Pullman and “The Golden Compass” (much more, actually)

December 5, 2007

Several years ago I came across a brochure in a bookstore advertising Phillip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” trilogy. The brochure took the form of a study guide, and asked questions like, “What is the author’s view of sin?” or “What is the author’s view of the church?”

For something advertising a series of science-fiction children’s books, this was fascinating.

So I bought the books and read them.

What I found, of course, was a very well told story that ultimately serves as a (ill-reasoned) polemic against Christianity in general, and the Christian God in particular. Perhaps most fascinating of all I discovered these unapologetically anti-Christian books at the same time that Harry Potter was taking a real beating from many evangelicals, yet I never heard a word about Pullman.

Having read these books, it seems to me that the real danger is not that Pullman wants to kill God off. His depiction of God as a weak, corrupt, decaying old man is quite ridiculous. Perhaps I’m naive, but no reasonable person, whether Christian or atheist, will put any stock in Pullman’s description of who he thinks God actually is. We must remember, this God that Pullman so desperately wants to kill off is the same God he doesn’t believe in. If Pullman himself doesn’t believe in the God that he is describing, neither will his readers. Although he tries, Pullman has nothing substantial to say about God himself. As I said in my previous post, the God Pullman kills off and so hates is certainly not the God of the Bible.

The real danger is that Pullman wants to liberate mankind from every authority, and in particular, from the authority of God. This is a dangerous idea. This is the temptation of all temptations. This is where Pullman will find resonance with sinful man. In our sinful nature we are bent, not on destroying God, but on replacing his rightful reign with our own rebellious reign. This is the temptation Adam and Eve fell into. And the power of this temptation cannot be underestimated. Pullman writes with the goal of liberating mankind from all divinely imposed constraints. Pullman writes for freedom from God.

Ultimately, Pullman’s desire to liberate man from the reign of God will inevitably lead to a the reign of a truly harsh and ultimately deadly taskmaster, sin.

John 8:31-36 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

Romans 6:17-23 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? The end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

For more on the idea of human freedom in Pullman’s books, see my paper, Original Sin, Human Freedom, and His Dark Materials.

Posted by Aaron | Filed Under Blog, Books, Church and Culture 

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