Rehabilitating The Golden Compass's Religion?
Donna Freitas, in yesterday's
Boston Globe, tells us that The
Golden Compass (and its associated trilogy,
His Dark
Materials) is not hostile to God at all, and
that its hostility to Church is targeted at a false Church that we should all be
glad to take aim at. It's a creative interpretation. In an interview
with Freitas, Pullman seems to endorse this view. I would love to be
able to go along with it, to take a grand metaphorical approach to the books,
and to find all the goodness of God in them after all. (I have indeed written
about some good things we can gain from the books.) Freitas's view doesn't ring
true to the books or to Christianity, unfortunately.
Freitas acknowledges that God is killed, and that
the Church is treated with great contempt. She says the God who dies is "not a
true God at all." She's right there, for Pullman's "God" is a usurping, crafty,
deceiving angel. He's an impostor, says Freitas, author of a book on the trilogy
(the variant spelling here is approved in
dictionaries), Killing the Imposter
God. Who, then, is the true God? In
His Dark
Materials, it's Dust. Or He is Dust, or She is
Dust. Freitas says Dust "has a mind of its own," but there's hardly anything
personal about this Dust God, so I'm not at all sure what pronoun
fits.
Pullman is a self-avowed atheist. Freitas's finding God in his stories ought to have seemed quite remarkable to him. In his interview with Freitas, it's apparent that "God" is nothing more than metaphor to him. (Cynically I wonder if he thought that by agreeing with her he might rehabilitate his reputation with religious believers. That would certainly help sales if it worked.) Now, if Freitas is correct in believing that the trilogy's message was "killing an impostor God," then where is the real one? Totally absent from the story. Freitas says it is Dust. Dust, which early on is just "a charged particle" but later is seen to be a great animator of life, is perhaps the main mysterious symbol of the fantasy. I can't explain all that there is to say about it, but for our purposes here it will be sufficient to listen to Freitas's own interpretation, and how she equates Dust with God:
"Dust is the Holy Spirit."
....
"not just a being, but a divinity that loves us and animates us."
....
"Dust's love for humans is unconditional, even though they often do things to hurt and deplete Dust's influence and presence."
....
"Wisdom, Consciousness, Spirit, 'Dark Matter.'"
....
"Dust is a 'spirit' that transcends creation, but all living beings are made of Dust, so Dust is a part of Creation. While Dust is indeed the divine fabric of the worlds of His Dark Materials, Dust is not all-powerful, all-knowing, and immutable. Dust is as dependent on creation for its sustenance as we are dependent on Dust for ours."
This is the God Freitas finds in the trilogy; and she goes on to say that it accords with Catholic feminist and liberation theology (she instructs in religion at Boston University and says she is a Catholic theologian. I can't speak knowledgeably to any specifically Catholic issues, but this vision of God is clearly at odds with historic Christianity, whether Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox. It has much more in common with Eastern-influenced, New Age versions of religion.
Freitas says she is rejecting "the more classical notion of a detached, transcendent God." This is just odd. The classical notion of God is both transcendent and immanent (close, caring); both utterly heavenly and other, and yet very personally involved. He came to earth as a man; he listens to prayers; he comforts, he guides and teaches individually. The impostor God Freitas thinks orthodox theology teaches is an impostor of her own (and other similar theologians') making. He doesn't exist in the Bible.
To equate Dust with the Holy Spirit as she has done is tragically laughable. The Holy Spirit is God's most intimate presence with humans, yet he is also fully God, and thus co-eternal with the Father and the Son, as self-existing as the other two Persons of the Trinity, and as fully involved in creating the world. God as creator is fully other, though involved; I have to insist on that because Freitas seems to think a transcendent God cannot be. The Holy Spirit therefore cannot be a part of creation, nor can he be in a mutually dependent relationship with it.
This Dust, which in the story is mutually dependent with persons, seems to be specifically dependent on the sexual activity of two children just days into puberty (a passage with a definite marker point in the story).
It has also been suggested, by Freitas and others, that the Church Pullman is attacking is not all churches, but only the domineering, authoritarian, hateful, controlling, manifestations of church. That would be a lot easier to believe if a) Pullman had not said all churches are out to bring terrible hurt to children; and b) there had been some contrasting good version of Church in the story. But in the books, all Church, indeed almost all adult authority, is corrupt and deadly. If Pullman was trying to tell us there's a better way for churches to conduct themselves, why did he leave out the better way?
Freitas wants to rehabilitate Pullman, to let us know his ideas are not so opposed to Christianity after all. To do this she sets forth an unorthodox and unbiblical version of New Age theology dressed in Christian terminology, and proudly points at Pullman for agreeing with it. If Pullman agrees with it, it's only metaphorically; and if he agrees with her, he and his books still have massive differences with historic Christianity.
Related:
Series Overview
The Golden Compass and "Killing God"--Not An Urban Legend
Coming Soon To Your Child's School: Hostility Toward God and Church, Heavily Promoted
Once Again, How Can This Be Legal?
On Christianity, the Arts, and How To Have a Disagreement
Original Sin Is the Source of Truth? (The Golden Compass)
Death of Divine Authority—Pullman's Agenda
BreakPoint.org on The Golden Compass
"I'm Trying to Undermine the Basis of Christian Belief"
"Democracy of Reading" or a Hidden Agenda? (Phillip Pullman)
Strongly Recommended: Jeffrey Overstreet on The Golden Compass
A New Bearing on The Golden Compass
Rehabilitating The Golden Compass's Religion?
Over-reacting?
Preacher-Man Phillip Pullman
Pullman is a self-avowed atheist. Freitas's finding God in his stories ought to have seemed quite remarkable to him. In his interview with Freitas, it's apparent that "God" is nothing more than metaphor to him. (Cynically I wonder if he thought that by agreeing with her he might rehabilitate his reputation with religious believers. That would certainly help sales if it worked.) Now, if Freitas is correct in believing that the trilogy's message was "killing an impostor God," then where is the real one? Totally absent from the story. Freitas says it is Dust. Dust, which early on is just "a charged particle" but later is seen to be a great animator of life, is perhaps the main mysterious symbol of the fantasy. I can't explain all that there is to say about it, but for our purposes here it will be sufficient to listen to Freitas's own interpretation, and how she equates Dust with God:
"Dust is the Holy Spirit."
....
"not just a being, but a divinity that loves us and animates us."
....
"Dust's love for humans is unconditional, even though they often do things to hurt and deplete Dust's influence and presence."
....
"Wisdom, Consciousness, Spirit, 'Dark Matter.'"
....
"Dust is a 'spirit' that transcends creation, but all living beings are made of Dust, so Dust is a part of Creation. While Dust is indeed the divine fabric of the worlds of His Dark Materials, Dust is not all-powerful, all-knowing, and immutable. Dust is as dependent on creation for its sustenance as we are dependent on Dust for ours."
This is the God Freitas finds in the trilogy; and she goes on to say that it accords with Catholic feminist and liberation theology (she instructs in religion at Boston University and says she is a Catholic theologian. I can't speak knowledgeably to any specifically Catholic issues, but this vision of God is clearly at odds with historic Christianity, whether Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox. It has much more in common with Eastern-influenced, New Age versions of religion.
Freitas says she is rejecting "the more classical notion of a detached, transcendent God." This is just odd. The classical notion of God is both transcendent and immanent (close, caring); both utterly heavenly and other, and yet very personally involved. He came to earth as a man; he listens to prayers; he comforts, he guides and teaches individually. The impostor God Freitas thinks orthodox theology teaches is an impostor of her own (and other similar theologians') making. He doesn't exist in the Bible.
To equate Dust with the Holy Spirit as she has done is tragically laughable. The Holy Spirit is God's most intimate presence with humans, yet he is also fully God, and thus co-eternal with the Father and the Son, as self-existing as the other two Persons of the Trinity, and as fully involved in creating the world. God as creator is fully other, though involved; I have to insist on that because Freitas seems to think a transcendent God cannot be. The Holy Spirit therefore cannot be a part of creation, nor can he be in a mutually dependent relationship with it.
This Dust, which in the story is mutually dependent with persons, seems to be specifically dependent on the sexual activity of two children just days into puberty (a passage with a definite marker point in the story).
It has also been suggested, by Freitas and others, that the Church Pullman is attacking is not all churches, but only the domineering, authoritarian, hateful, controlling, manifestations of church. That would be a lot easier to believe if a) Pullman had not said all churches are out to bring terrible hurt to children; and b) there had been some contrasting good version of Church in the story. But in the books, all Church, indeed almost all adult authority, is corrupt and deadly. If Pullman was trying to tell us there's a better way for churches to conduct themselves, why did he leave out the better way?
Freitas wants to rehabilitate Pullman, to let us know his ideas are not so opposed to Christianity after all. To do this she sets forth an unorthodox and unbiblical version of New Age theology dressed in Christian terminology, and proudly points at Pullman for agreeing with it. If Pullman agrees with it, it's only metaphorically; and if he agrees with her, he and his books still have massive differences with historic Christianity.
Related:
Series Overview
The Golden Compass and "Killing God"--Not An Urban Legend
Coming Soon To Your Child's School: Hostility Toward God and Church, Heavily Promoted
Once Again, How Can This Be Legal?
On Christianity, the Arts, and How To Have a Disagreement
Original Sin Is the Source of Truth? (The Golden Compass)
Death of Divine Authority—Pullman's Agenda
BreakPoint.org on The Golden Compass
"I'm Trying to Undermine the Basis of Christian Belief"
"Democracy of Reading" or a Hidden Agenda? (Phillip Pullman)
Strongly Recommended: Jeffrey Overstreet on The Golden Compass
A New Bearing on The Golden Compass
Rehabilitating The Golden Compass's Religion?
Over-reacting?
Preacher-Man Phillip Pullman
Posted: Mon - November 26, 2007 at 07:35 PM |
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