This week, we go underground in The Silver Chair, the Narnia book about how people actually lose their faith — not argued out of it, but slowly seduced out of it. We dig into Puddleglum’s answer to the witch as the best response to atheism in the series (and why it isn’t an argument at all), why Lewis treats spiritual deadness as environmental and not just moral, faith as remembered obedience, and more. Let’s get to it.
In this episode:
(00:00) Intro
(01:07) Why this book grew on us
(04:44) Experiment House and Lewis on education
(06:09) “Will you promise not to eat me?”
(07:37) The four signs and our habit of forgetting
(09:17) The lost prince and the underworld
(10:38) Puddleglum stamps out the fire
(14:05) Why he doesn’t out-argue the witch
(15:13) You can’t reason with two different planes
(17:34) Seduction, not force
(18:54) Spiritual deadness as an environment
(20:18) The coffee shop and losing your discernment
(26:10) “There is no other stream” and the God who won’t promise safety
(31:04) Passing the torch, generation to generation
Links
C.S. Lewis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._S._Lewis
The Chronicles of Narnia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Narnia
The Silver Chair: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silver_Chair
The Silver Chair (movie): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098912/
Plato: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato
J.R.R. Tolkien: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien
The Pilgrim’s Progress: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pilgrim’s_Progress
John Bunyan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bunyan
Is God Really In Control? | The Horse and His Boy: https://www.thechristianskeptic.org/is-god-really-in-control-the-horse-and-his-boy/
Have We Tamed Jesus? | The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: https://www.thechristianskeptic.org/have-we-tamed-jesus/
Donald Trump: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump
Mere Christianity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere_Christianity
The Screwtape Letters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Screwtape_Letters
The Great Divorce:
Weight of Glory:
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