Did Lewis want his readers to think deeply about theology or just accept it by faith that Aslan was male?  The Narnia books are not works of theology but fictional stories so I am inclined to think it was faith. Also, the audience was mainly children along with some adults who read children’s books. So if the books are not considered textbooks for pastors studying for the ministry Lewis’ readers should simply accept and embrace the idea that Aslan is male just as he is Jesus without getting into theological debates over the issue. There is actually no need to argue points of theology with Narnia. You can just believe that Lewis wrote the Chronicles in a certain way without arguing the theology.

I've just got one more contribution to this topic that I've been mulling over.  As would be clear from my previous post my opinion stems from what is probably considered a conservative theological approach to the identity of Jesus.  Anyway... enough of my opinion what I've been mulling over is that a year or two ago I heard one preacher pointing out about one of the Christ-like figures or forerunner examples from the Bible, obviously in there would be people like Moses, Abraham, David, Jonah etc for many different reasons, but the person I'm recalling this topic being discussed with is Ruth - as the kinsman redeemer, restoring for Naomi what she had lost.  I had never really heard it in that light before, of Ruth being a Christ-figure.  So even from a conservative theological interpretation there's room for female christ-like figures.

But as you wrote @narnian78, the Chronicles of Narnia books were not written as theological books, but in a way to push past those religious and theological mindsets we might come from and to just take them as they are.  Methinks I'll slink back into the wardrobe (or at least into the Narnia books Lewis has left us) and appreciate the Aslan he has presented us with.

@courtenay That is absolutely ok! Thanks for the references!

One thing I might add to the swarm of ideas here (I say one thing, and it is, though it is a rather long one thing.

My understanding of men and woman is very traditional, so you've probably heard some version of this; but, nobody's said it yet, so I'll put it out there. I think it bears very directly on a female Aslan. I believe my conservative view of men and woman is almost entirely derived from a strict reading of the biblical creation narrative (but quite possible there will be some disagreement on this assertion) I have used JKV for the translation as it was the easiest thing I could get my hands on (admittedly, I do also love it), so please excuse the archaic language.

As we know, in the beginning (or a few days after the beginning, depending on how you count), Adam was created, and put into the garden. He was told to tend the garden, and keep it, and life was very good; except he didn't have a partner. It is the first "not good" thing in God's creation. "And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him." (Gen. 2:18). And so, as we know, Eve is created from Adam's rib. But I think it very notable that Eve is not created with Adam, but from him. It means they are not equivalent. They may be equal in some way or another, but there is at least one way in which they are not equal. Adam was created first, and he represents Mankind or Man. Eve was created after, and specifically as a help mate. But let's not get ahead of ourselves... it was "not good" for Eve to not be there. Man was incomplete without her. But she is come from him. “And Adam said, This [is] now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man." (Gen. 2:23) This much is derived from the first two chapters of Genesis. I think that is the most natural interpretation of the reading.

The next thing is responsibility. Would you agree whomever is responsible for the other, he/she is the leader. I think that is sort of the definition. Well, Adam was responsible for Eve. When they both committed the first sin, God addresses Adam. He wants him to admit to the sin, but instead Adam shoves the blame to his helper, Eve. We all know the story; Eve blames the serpent, and God curses each in turn (the serpent is cursed with defeat, the woman with birthing pains, the man with hardship in work). These curses seem to clear up a whole lot about who each are, so I've written them out clearly below:

The Serpent:

And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. (Gen. 3:14-15)

I won’t go into depth on what this means to me, but one of the biggest things about the serpent (and how he informs the relationship between Man and Woman) is the following:

The serpent deceives woman, who leads man away from God’s commandment. And then, everyone plays a blame game. This doesn’t prove anything about the relationship between man and woman, and their individual places in life, but if you agree that Adam was the leader, it does emphasizes the order: in the first sin, everything is upside down as the lowest creature deceives the woman (the help mate), who deceives the man (the leader). Adam should have been leading, but he fails to do so. This is the failure of men since the beginning, and because of it, woman feel they must take lead, and it gets all backward. Of course there are a few examples in the scripture where woman led or played a pivotal role in the political sphere for great good (Deborah, Ester, the prophetess Anna, maybe Isaiah’s wife). I take this to mean, the role of a help mate to man is not a cold hard rule, but the general wholesome trend. Sadly, today, there are a lot of places where this is messed up.

The Woman:

Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire [shall be] to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. (Gen. 3:16)

I’ll skip any lengthy commentary on this as well, but how interesting that the curse to woman should be child bearing. Also, she is cursed to be ruled over by her husband. I’m not exactly sure what that means, but I know this: whenever we try to escape the curse, things don’t go well for us (Jonah). Today, I see a lot of people trying to escape the curse of sin (death), but that just doesn’t work. There is only one way out of death, and it’s nothing other than Christ. And of course, Jesus didn’t escape the curse, but bore it completely - and how wonderful for us that he did! So, shouldn’t women accept their punishment for sin, embrace their help mate role, and follow?

The Man:

And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. (Gen. 3:17-19)

But the most awful thing is when man fails to lead. What if Jesus hadn’t followed through, hadn’t withstood the temptations and labored along the path to the Cross? And Jesus is the new Adam (Corinthians 15:45). For this failure, Adam is then cursed to hardship as he works to win bread. Work will not be easy; he will be cut and bruised by thorns and thistles. Adam, again, is the one whom God addresses as he speaks to all mankind (he tells Adam he’s going to die, rather than telling Eve). So Adam represents the leader, the breadwinner, and the one responsible.

In conclusion of a rather long idea, just as Christ leads the church, and the church should follow Christ, so man leads women, and women should follow men. Again, this is a generalization for a rule that is wholesome and good, but so very often disregarded to our own hurt. So, I stress, men and woman are not equal. They are in fact unequal. But truly, we would hope that they would be. By this inequality, they built each other up. We don’t have to deny the social trends we see. Men are stronger, women are more put together. Of course I don’t mean every single time; but if we could embrace those facts, we could get so much further. Truly, why would anyone want to argue against these observations?

And this is where a female Aslan comes in. It seems to be all backward; to be messed up. Jesus was a man. Not because he lived in a patriarchal society and God wasn’t sovereign over that society and able completely to decide how to do things; but because it was part of a grand story with an abundance of mysterious and fantastic symbolism (the ultimate paradise for the writer!) If Streep plays Aslan, she suggests that men and woman are equivalent in a way I do not believe they are (illustrated above).

Please, if you have any comments, ideas, or disagreements, are comfortable with speaking out, say something!

@narnian78 I completely agree with this idea of the usefulness of simplistic, child-like faith. I suppose I enjoy so much the untangling of theological positions, as I think Lewis did himself, that I can hardly help myself from asking the questions! But, at the end of the day, these things should not divide us any more than Christ unifies us.

I think you are right also that the wardrobe (as Pete put it) may be used as a sort of escape from the division around us. I mean that escape as Lewis and Tolkien did - not denial, but rest. And, certainly, we can step back, after a long arduous journey of discussion, take out a pipe, and lean against an old oak tree. At least, I think Lewis would have thought so.

Posted by: @courtenay

And it's pretty much for that reason that I don't want to get into endless back and forth arguments about who is right and who is wrong and who is a "real" Christian or who isn't.

I don't really want to get into a debate either, but I've wanted to ask you something for what feels like a long while and this is probably the only good time/place.

With all due respect, why is it so important for you to identify as a Christian? Why not just say "I agree with some major aspects of Christianity and disagree with others." Sure, it'd be wordier but it'd be more intellectually honest. 

There are aspects of Buddhism with which I can agree but I don't feel the need to call myself a Buddhist. If I did, the real Buddhists would laugh me out of court and they would be perfectly right to do so. The same goes for any religion. 

I mean, religions are so complicated, there's probably a little bit of each one that resonates with each of us. There's no shame in it. But there's also no need to say you believe in a religion when you only believe in part of it.

If anyone can be a Christian just by saying, "I'm a Christian" and the actual content of their beliefs doesn't matter, Christianity becomes meaningless. 

P.S.

If you're confused by my saying I don't really want to get into a debate when that's what this thread is for, I don't want to participate in a debate about what constitutes genuine Christianity and what is heresy. I do want to read a debate about whether a female Aslan is theologically sound. 

Posted by: @col-klink

With all due respect, why is it so important for you to identify as a Christian? Why not just say "I agree with some major aspects of Christianity and disagree with others." Sure, it'd be wordier but it'd be more intellectually honest. 

Why is it so important for me to identify as a Christian? Well... mainly because over 20 years ago, at a very dark time in my life, I was introduced to a form of Christianity that spoke to my heart like nothing else ever had (or has), that turned my life around completely, that introduced me to a God I could genuinely know and love with all my heart (and not simply theorise about), and that lifted me out of that very dark place and has been carrying me ever since. Including through more difficult and painful periods since then, but always with something I never had before: hope and the assurance that no matter what happens, no matter how dark things get or how much I might have to learn and repent of, there will always be a way forward. And there always has been.

I should probably add that I wasn't raised in a religious family, and I spent my teenage years as an agnostic, wanting deeply to find a "spiritual path" and investigating the teachings of a lot of different religions, but I was never really convinced by any of them and could only conclude that there was no way anybody could prove anything for certain about God, if indeed there was a God. So when what happened to me, happened... that's why I say, the transformation was so profound that it could not have come from anyone or anything but God.

I absolutely believe, as the Bible tells us, that "the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world" (1 John 4:14) and that "there is one God, and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5). There is no-one else who can show us more truly and perfectly what God is like, "none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved" (Acts 4:12). And the whole Bible, in both Testaments, has been absolutely alive with meaning to me over all these years, through constant study and learning, both formally (including at university) and informally.

Given all that, it would be intellectually dishonest for me not to identify as a Christian, regardless of what anyone else may think. I don't know what else I honestly could identify as, considering there is nobody who means more to me than Christ Jesus, and no other religion or spiritual teaching means anywhere near as much to me, or makes nearly as much sense to me, as the one I follow. It would also be intellectually dishonest of me to claim to believe in doctrines that don't make sense to me and that have never had the same transforming and redeeming impact on my whole life, simply because someone says I can't be a "real" Christian unless I do.

I have absolutely no difficulty in considering other Christians to be my brothers and sisters in Christ, even when there are issues we don't and can't agree on. Ultimately, only God knows each individual's heart, and none of us are answerable to anyone else but Him. Just as Aslan knew Emeth belonged to Him even though Emeth (whose name, I think I already remarked somewhere recently, is the Hebrew word for "truth") had spent his earthly life worshipping a different god — but he in turn recognised the true One when he met Him.

Clearly it's not the doctrines we profess, but where our heart is, that matters the most to God. Which is why I'm content to leave it at that and not try to argue anybody else into or out of anything.

Hi all,

First of all, there are a lot of great thoughts in this discussion.  I am really enjoying reading what everyone is saying! 😊

In the original post, @lamp-lighter asked:

Posted by: @lamp-lighter

Would a female Aslan be theologically sound?

Asking for scriptural references, if possible, to back up the argument.  I would agree, that C. S. Lewis is not asserting a theological argument in the Chronicles of Narnia for whether we can refer to Jesus / Aslan as anything other than male, he just gets on with telling the story.  When people object that making Aslan female is contrary to sound theology, they are making a theological argument at that point though, and I do not know how to engage with this question without talking theology.

C.S. Lewis, himself, said in Mere Christianity (pages 153 & 155):

“Everyone has warned me not to tell you what I am going to tell you in this last book. They all say ‘the ordinary reader does not want Theology; give him plain practical religion’.

…

In other words, Theology is practical: especially now”

There are a wide range of views amongst the spectrum of Christians on this stuff, based on different interpretations of the bible – as several people have rightly pointed out in the above posts.  Given that the objections from people, mentioned in the original post, came from people visiting this site who - presumably - love the writings of C. S. Lewis, I suspect the objections are coming from people whose theology is likely similar to the theology Lewis, himself, presented.

Lewis has been read by a wide variety of people.  His Christian devotional writings (Mere Christianity, The Problem of Pain, Reflections on the Psalms, The Four Loves, Miracles, Letters to Malcom, Surprised by Joy, A Grief Observed, his various collections of essays, etc.) have largely been popular with Evangelicals (particularly American Evangelicals who love his apologetics), Roman Catholics, Anglicans and Episcopalians (not surprising as he was an Anglican himself), intellectuals & apologists (who love his logical, simple defences of Christianity) and modern seekers.  His non-fiction is generally popular with those looking to strengthen their faith against secular arguments.  I suspect these categories represent the people who are objecting, saying ‘a female Aslan being theologically unsound’ (for full transparency, I would consider myself to be one of them – though I wholeheartedly echo @courtenay ‘s comment that I am just glad that there’s room for all of us here on this site, and in this conversation, regardless of where we stand on these issues).

C. S. Lewis was, himself, in many ways quite theologically conservative.  With regard to Gender pronouns used for God, Lewis once wrote (in his essay “Priestesses in the Church"):

…

Common sense, disregarding the discomfort, or even the horror, which the idea of turning all our theological language into the feminine gender arouses in most Christians, will ask "Why not? Since God is in fact not a biological being and has no sex, what can it matter whether we say He or She, Father or Mother, Son or Daughter?" But Christians think that God Himself has taught us how to speak of Him. To say that it does not matter is to say either that all the masculine imagery is not inspired, is merely human in origin, or else that, though inspired, it is quite arbitrary and unessential. And this is surely intolerable: or, if tolerable, it is an argument not in favour of Christian priestesses but against Christianity. It is also surely based on a shallow view of imagery. Without drawing upon religion, we know from our poetical experience that image and apprehension cleave closer together than common sense is here prepared to admit; that a child who has been taught to pray to a Mother in Heaven would have a religious life radically different from that of a Christian child. And as image and apprehension are in an organic unity, so, for a Christian, are human body and human soul.

The innovators are really implying that sex is something superficial, irrelevant to the spiritual life. …

In part, I think Lewis is saying here, that God is revealing himself to us in scripture and, whether I understand it or not, is revealing something in the use of the masculine pronouns used in scripture.

I think this is partly the point @narnian78 is making when saying:

Posted by: @narnian78

So, if you have faith in the Bible just accept it as God’s word that he is always referred to as male. You don’t need to be a theologian to understand that.

(@narnian78, please correct me if I am misrepresenting you in any way.)

Lewis, and many Christians –myself included – have noticed that the bible consistently uses masculine pronouns when referring to the triune God, as such we use the same.  As C. S. Lewis says in the above quote, this is not because God is biologically male, but because this is the way that God refers to himself in the scriptures and we trust that he is revealing something about himself when doing so.  This is not to deny that both male and female are created in God’s image, and both sexes are his representatives over creation, nor to assert that one sex is in any way superior to the other.  (I could be wrong – again those who hold a different perspective to myself, by all means feel free to correct me and explain how I have misunderstood – but I sense that a big part of the objection to the use of masculine pronouns for God stems from an understanding that the use of these terms imply that there is something better, or more ‘Godlike’ about men as opposed to women.  I do not believe that men are in any way superior Spiritually to women, and I do not think that most people who refer to God as ‘he’ believe this either.)

When I say that masculine pronouns are used of God, I am referring to him being referred to as ‘he’ throughout the bible (far too many instances for me to document here), as well as God, the Father, being referred to as ‘father’, God the Son being referred to as “son”, etc.

This is not to deny the point that @pete made, that God often use feminine metaphors in reference to himself.  To add to @pete ‘s references, there are:

• Metaphor of God as a mother giving birth (or at least as a pregnant mother): Deuteronomy 32:18 “You deserted the Rock, who fathered you; you forgot the God who gave you birth.”, Isaiah 42:14 “For a long time I have kept silent, I have been quiet and held myself back. But now, like a woman in childbirth, I cry out, I gasp and pant.”, Isaiah 46:3 “Listen to me, you descendants of Jacob, all the remnant of the people of Israel, you whom I have upheld since your birth, and have carried since you were born.”Job38:28-29 “Does the rain have a father? Who has begotten the drops of dew?  From whose womb does the ice emerge?  Who gives birth to the frost from heaven,”,
• Metaphor of God as a protective mother: Isaiah 49:15 “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!”, Isaiah 66:13 “As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you; and you will be comforted over Jerusalem.”, Deuteronomy 32:10-11 “… He shielded him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye, like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them aloft.”, Hosea 13:8 “Like a bear robbed of her cubs, I will attack them and rip them open; like a lion I will devour them-- a wild animal will tear them apart.”

Al though the term ‘complementarian’ was not widely used in C. S. Lewis’s time (to my knowledge), C. S. Lewis had a largely complementarian theology.  In his book https://preprostost.si/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Mere-Christianity-C.-S.-Lewis.pd f" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mere Christianity, page 84 he writes:

All the same, the New Testament, without going into details, gives us a pretty clear hint of what a fully Christian society would be like. Perhaps it gives us more than we can take. It tells us that there are to be no passengers or parasites: if man does not work, he ought not to eat. Every one is to work with his own hands, and what is more, every one's work is to produce something good: there will be no manufacture of silly luxuries and then of sillier advertisements to persuade us to buy them. And there is to be no "swank" or "side," no putting on airs. To that extent a Christian society would be what we now call Leftist. On the other hand, it is always insisting on obedience-obedience (and outward marks of respect) from all of us to properly appointed magistrates, from children to parents, and (I am afraid this is going to be very unpopular) from wives to husbands. Thirdly, it is to be a cheerful society: full of singing and rejoicing, and regarding worry or anxiety as wrong. Courtesy is one of the Christian virtues; and the New Testament hates what it calls "busybodies."

In his essay “Priestesses in the Church", (just before the previous quotation above) he also argues that men only, and not women can be priests:

Suppose the reformer stops saying that a good woman may be like God and begins saying that God is like a good woman. Suppose he says that we might just as well pray to "Our Mother which art in heaven" as to "Our Father". Suppose he suggests that the Incarnation might just as well have taken a female as a male form, and the Second Person of the Trinity be as well called the Daughter as the Son. Suppose, finally, that the mystical marriage were reversed, that the Church were the Bridegroom and Christ the Bride. All this, as it seems to me, is involved in the claim that a woman can represent God as a priest does.

Now it is surely the case that if all these supposals were ever carried into effect we should be embarked on a different religion. Goddesses have, of course, been worshipped: many religions have had priestesses. But they are religions quite different in character from Christianity.

There are a few things to note here.  Today, in debates between Christian Egalitarians (those who believe that men and women are equal in value and in role in the church) and Christian Complementarians (those who believe that men and women are equal in value, though having different roles), the deal breaker, today, is often whether women can preach or not (though there is a lot of variance, and I do not what to discuss all the variations on complementarian and egalitarian positions within the church).  In contrast to most contemporary Complementarians, C. S. Lewis assumes women can preach as stated in this essay:

Nor can you daff it aside by saying that local and temporary conditions condemned women to silence and private life. There were female preachers. One man had four daughters who all "prophesied", i.e. preached. There were prophetesses even in Old Testament times. Prophetesses, not priestesses.

(C. S. Lewis is referring to Acts 21:8-9 where Phillip - one of the seven deacons from Acts 6 & who baptises an Ethiopian in Acts 8 – has four daughters who are gifted with prophesy.  Other prophetesses include Miriam [Exodus 15:20], Deborah [Judges 4:4], Huldah[2^nd Kings 22:14], Isaiah’s wife [Isiaha 8:3], Anna [Luke 2:36], etc.)

The main thing to note is that C. S. Lewis is referring to a priestess in a more theological sense here.  He is concerned that the priestess would represent God to the congregation:

To us a priest is primarily a representative, a double representative, who represents us to God and

God to us. Our very eyes teach us this in church. Sometimes the priest turns his back on us and faces the East - he speaks to God for us: sometimes he faces us and speaks to us for God.We have no objection to a woman doing the first: the whole difficulty is about the second. But why? Why should a woman not in this sense represent God? Certainly not because she is necessarily, or even probably, less holy or less charitable or stupider than a man. In that sense she may be as "God-like" as a man; and a given women much more so than a given man.

Lewis thinks it is inappropriate for a woman to represent God on a theological level.  He is not critiquing a woman’s ability to do the various tasks of the priesthood.

(I note here, that I would disagree with Lewis at this point, as I would agree with what I included on a previous post:

Women have been excluded from the ordained ministry and from holding certain offices. The false argument has been used that only a man can represent a male Jesus. But this portrays an inadequate understanding of the incarnation. The Son of God, in assuming our humanity, became a man, not to sanctify maleness, but our common humanity so that, be we men or women, we can see the dignity and beauty of our humanity sanctified in him.

But that is not important, what is important is Lewis own view on these things (as best as I can understand it from what he has written).

My point is that Lewis thought it to be wrong to have a representative on earth for God who was feminine.

In Perelandra, Lewis talks about Masculine and Feminine as real realities that exist outside of ‘male’ and ‘female’.  He is writing fiction at this point, so it is not altogether clear whether he is stating this as a fictitious reality, or as something that he believed to be true, but for what its worth he says (referring to the angelic beings in these books):

Both the bodies were naked, and both were free from any sexual characteristics, either primary or secondary. That, one would have expected. But whence came this curious difference between them? He found that he could point to no single feature wherein the difference resided, yet it was impossible to ignore. One could try — Ransom has tried a hundred times — to put it into words. He has said that Malacandra was like rhythm and Perelandra like melody. He has said that Malacandra affected him like a quantitative, Perelandra like an accentual, metre. He thinks that the first held in his hand something like a spear, but the hands of the other were open, with the palms towards him. But I don’t know that any of these attempts has helped me much. At all events what Ransom saw at that moment was the real meaning of gender. Everyone must sometimes have wondered why in nearly all tongues certain inanimate objects are masculine and others feminine. What is masculine about a mountain or feminine about certain trees? Ransom has cured me of believing that this is a purely morphological phenomenon, depending on the form of the word. Still less is gender an imaginative extension of sex. Our ancestors did not make mountains masculine because they projected male characteristics into them. The real process is the reverse. Gender is a reality, and a more fundamental reality than sex. Sex is, in fact, merely the adaptation to organic life of a fundamental polarity which divides all created beings. Female sex is simply one of the things that have feminine gender, there are many others, and Masculine and Feminine meet us on planes of reality where male and female would be simply meaningless. Masculine is not attenuated male, nor feminine attenuated female. On the contrary, the male and female of organic creatures are rather faint and blurred reflections of masculine and feminine. Their reproductive functions, their differences in strength and size, partly exhibit, but partly also confuse and misrepresent, the real polarity. All this Ransom saw, as it were, with his own eyes. The two white creatures were sexless. But he of Malacandra was masculine (not male); she of Perelandra was feminine (not female).

Though it is fiction, I think Lewis is pointing to his understanding of masculine and feminine and is partly informing us of how he understood God to be masculine.  I could well be wrong, and I realise this is very vague!  Hopefully that is helpful to someone for understanding Lewis’ position.

But, I think for Lewis - as for many Christians – the pronouns used for God tie directly to the mystery of who God is:

But as soon as you look at any real Christian writings, you find that they are talking about something quite different from this popular religion. They say that Christ is the Son of God (whatever that means). They say that those who give Him their confidence can also become Sons of God (whatever that means). They say that His death saved us from our sins (whatever that means).

There is no good complaining that these statements are difficult. Christianity claims to be telling us about another world, about something behind the world we can touch and hear and see. You may think the claim false, but if it were true, what it tells us would be bound to be difficult—at least as difficult as modern Physics, and for the same reason.

Now the point in Christianity which gives us the greatest shock is the statement that by attaching ourselves to Christ, we can ‘become Sons of God’. One asks ‘Aren’t we Sons of God already? Surely the fatherhood of God is one of the main Christian ideas?’ Well, in a certain sense, no doubt we are sons of God already. I mean, God has brought us into existence and loves us and looks after us, and in that way is like a father. But when the Bible talks of our ‘becoming’ Sons of God, obviously it must mean something different. And that brings us up against the very centre of Theology.

One of the creeds says that Christ is the Son of God ‘begotten, not created’; and it adds ‘begotten by his Father before all worlds’. Will you please get it quite clear that this has nothing to do with the fact that when Christ was born on earth as a man, that man was the son of a virgin? We are not now thinking about the Virgin Birth. We are thinking about something that happened before Nature was created at all, before time began. ‘Before all worlds’ Christ is begotten, not created. What does it mean?

We don’t use the words begetting or begotten much in modern English, but everyone still knows what they mean. To beget is to become the father of: to create is to make. And the difference is this. When you beget, you beget something of the same kind as yourself. A man begets human babies, a beaver begets little beavers and a bird begets eggs which turn into little birds. But when you make, you make something of a different kind from yourself. A bird makes a nest, a beaver builds a dam, a man makes a wireless set—or he may make something more like himself than a wireless set: say, a statue. If he is a clever enough carver he may make a statue which is very like a man indeed. But, of course, it is not a real man; it only looks like one. It cannot breathe or think. It is not alive.

Now that is the first thing to get clear. What God begets is God; just as what man begets is man. What God creates is not God; just as what man makes is not man. That is why men are not Sons of God in the sense that Christ is. They may be like God in certain ways, but they are not things of the same kind. They are more like statues or pictures of God.

…

(Mere Christianity pages 156 - 158)

I said a few pages back that God is a Being which contains three Persons while remaining one Being, just as a cube contains six squares while remaining one body. But as soon as I begin trying to explain how these Persons are connected I have to use words which make it sound as if one of them was there before the others. The First Person is called the Father and the Second the Son. We say that the First begets or produces the second; we call it begetting, not making, because what He produces is of the same kind as Himself. In that way the word Father is the only word to use. But unfortunately it suggests that He is there first—just as a human father exists before his son. But that is not so. There is no before and after about it. And that is why I think it important to make clear how one thing can be the source, or cause, or origin, of another without being there before it. The Son exists because the Father exists: but there never was a time before the Father produced the Son.

Perhaps the best way to think of it is this. I asked you just now to imagine those two books, and probably most of you did. That is, you made an act of imagination and as a result you had a mental picture. Quite obviously your act of imagining was the cause and the mental picture the result. But that does not mean that you first did the imagining and then got the picture. The moment you did it, the picture was there. Your will was keeping the picture before you all the time. Yet that act of will and the picture began at exactly the same moment and ended at the same moment. If there were a Being who had always existed and had always been imagining one thing, his act would always have been producing a mental picture; but the picture would be just as eternal as the act.

In the same way we must think of the Son always, so to speak, streaming forth from the Father, like light from a lamp, or heat from a fire, or thoughts from a mind. He is the self-expression of the Father—what the Father has to say. And there never was a time when He was not saying it. But have you noticed what is happening? All these pictures of light or heat are making it sound as if the Father and Son were two things instead of two Persons. So that after all, the New Testament picture of a Father and a Son turns out to be much more accurate than anything we try to substitute for it. That is what always happens when you go away from the words of the Bible. It is quite right to go away from them for a moment in order to make some special point clear. But you must always go back. Naturally God knows how to describe Himself much better than we know how to describe Him. He knows that Father and Son is more like the relation between the First and Second Persons than anything else we can think of. Much the most important thing to know is that it is a relation of love. The Father delights in His Son; the Son looks up to His Father.

Before going on, notice the practical importance of this. All sorts of people are fond of repeating the Christian statement that ‘God is love’. But they seem not to notice that the words ‘God is love’ have no real meaning unless God contains at least two Persons. Love is something that one person has for another person. If God was a single person, then before the world was made, He was not love. Of course, what these people mean when they say that God is love is often something quite different: they really mean ‘Love is God’. They really mean that our feelings of love, however and wherever they arise, and whatever results they produce, are to be treated with great respect. Perhaps they are: but that is something quite different from what Christians mean by the statement ‘God is love’. They believe that the living, dynamic activity of love has been going on in God forever and has created everything else.

And that, by the way, is perhaps the most important difference between Christianity and all other religions: that in Christianity God is not a static thing—not even a person—but a dynamic, pulsating activity, a life, almost a kind of drama. Almost, if you will not think me irreverent, a kind of dance. The union between the Father and the Son is such a live concrete thing that this union itself is also a Person.

(Mere Christianity pages 172-175)

This is a relational reality that is being pointed to via the Son and the Father in the triune God of grace.  There is something significant about the fact that the God we worship is relational; and therefore, that humans are also relational (created male and female); and therefore that Christian ethics are largely relational ethics.  Who we are is founded in who God is.  How we live is grounded in who God is and who we are in relation to him.

I guess this is just my long-winded way of saying what @courtenay said earlier.  Regardless of whether a female Aslan can be considered 'sound theology' or not, it is not consistent with C. S. Lewis's theology - and it is not unreasonable that those who hold similar theology to Lewis take offence at something Netflix put into his stories that he would never have allowed in his stories.

Posted by: @col-klink

Well, I guess I was responding to the argument I've heard (not really on this site; elsewhere) that God only identifies as male in the Bible because that's the only way the original culture would see Him. That's just not the picture of God I get from the Bible.

Apologies – I probably misrepresented you there.  I thought you were saying "God is a bit of a meany!" Sorry, that was lousy on my behalf.

Posted by: @courtenay

Given all that, it would be intellectually dishonest for me not to identify as a Christian,

I get that, though my experience is a bit different from yours. You see, I can't really profess to be a Christian because, biblically speaking, Christians are supposed to be always ready to give a defense for their faith and are supposed to exhibit good works and fruit of the spirit, and I can't really say that of myself. But, on the other hand, I can't really describe myself as a non-Christian because I keep going to church and sort of wishing I were a real Christian.  

I promise this will be my last post in this thread that's off topic. 

I wonder if Fantasia will take part in this discussion. Her particularly negative response to the Meryl Streep news made me wonder if she had ideological reasons for disliking it. 

@davidd ; This is gold. Thank you very, very much for the extensive quotations provided here. I've got plenty to simmer over now!

Also, I think you are right; to engage in this discussion, we sort of have to talk theology... it's a theological question .

@narnian78 I wonder if that leader had been taught New Testament Greek, and been able to read the masculine pronouns consistently used to refer to Jesus, and his being called Son of God, Son of Man, and people rejecting him in his home town as being only "Joseph's son".  If the Scriptures use Masculine in a way that does not mean 'both make & female' 

Some churches and individuals in the later 20th century and early 21st, who refer to God as female, or male & female, have EITHER:

Followed a sort of feminism that blended into more liberal thinking, 

OR

Been misled by  Syncretism [combining teachings and practices of Christianity with other religious practices and teachings]  which has plagued the church since its early years, incorporating the worship of goddesses [in this case] into Christian teaching and worship. Some notably confused respect for Jesus' mother Mary with worship of goddesses from other religions.  The Old Testament also records centuries of Israelites deserting The Lord for other gods (particularly female ones), or trying to serve both. 

Inclusive language was being used back in the early 1970s (eg 'people' instead of 'men'). However the idea of using 'she' for God as  often as "he", is not part of inclusive language. 

As to whether someone who believes different things from us about Jesus, and about God the Father, is a Christian, that's outside what this thread should be.  The bottom line is one where God knows  the person's heart, and it is our role to point them to the Scriptures to assess ideas and beliefs against. 

[I have updated this post].

I wonder what would happen if Aslan was a lion without a mane such as a mountain lion.  But then I am not sure that the animal could be considered a true lion or simply a large cat such as a lynx or caracal. Would Aslan have worked as a cougar?  I am not an expert on cats, but I think lions are the only felines that have manes, and that is only in the male of the species. I don’t think Aslan probably would be as effective as a tiger or any other kind of a large cat.  But I wonder where Lewis got the idea for a lion for his story.  Perhaps because a lion was always considered the king of beasts. 

Posted by: @narnian78

But I wonder where Lewis got the idea for a lion for his story.  Perhaps because a lion was always considered the king of beasts.

Some quotations on this point 🙂 

A letter from C. S. Lewis:

Dear Miss Jenkins,

It is a pleasure to answer your question. I found the name in the notes to Lane's Arabian Nights: it is Turkish for Lion. I pronounce it as Ass-lan myself. And of course I meant the Lion of Judah. I am so glad you like the book. I hope you like the sequel (Prince Caspian) which came out in November.

Yours sincerely,

C.S. Lewis

A letter from C.s. Lewis to Anne Jenkins (3.5.1961):

Anne– What Aslan meant when he said he had died is, in one sense, plain enough. Read the earlier book in the series called The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, and you will find the full story of how he was killed by the White Witch and came to life again. When you have read that, I think you will probably see that there is deeper meaning behind it. The whole Narnian story is about Christ. That is to say, I asked myself ‘Supposing there really were a world like Narnia, and supposing it had (like our world) gone wrong, and supposing Christ wanted to go into that world and save it (as He did ours) what might have happened?’ The stories are my answer. Since Narnia is a world of Talking Beasts, I thought He would become a Talking Beast there, as he became a Man here. I pictured Him becoming a lion there because (a) The lion is supposed to be the King of beasts: (b) Christ is called ‘The Lion of Judah’ in the Bible: (c) I’d been having strange dreams about lions when I began writing the books.

From C.s. Lewis to William Kinter (10.28.1954):

Aslan is the Turkish word for a lion: I chose it for the sound.

Of Other Worlds: Essays & Stories, Harcourt, Brace & World. 1966, p. 42

One thing I am sure of. All my seven Narnian books, and my three science fiction books, began with seeing pictures in my head. At first they were not a story, just pictures. The Lion all began with a picture of a Faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood. This picture had been in my mind since I was about sixteen. Then one day, when I was about forty, I said to myself: ‘Let’s try to make a story about it.’

At first I had very little idea how the story would go. But then suddenly Aslan came bounding into it. I think I had been having a good many dreams of lions about that time. Apart from that, I don’t know where the Lion came from or why He came. But once He was there He pulled the whole story together, and soon He pulled the six other Narnian stories in after Him.

So you see that, in a sense, I know very little about how this story was born. That is, I don’t know where the pictures came from. And I don’t believe anyone knows exactly how he ‘makes things up’. Making up is a very mysterious thing. When you ‘have an idea’ could you tell anyone exactly how you thought of it?

@davidd 

I remember that quote from Of Other Worlds.  I have owned that book since I was in college. It seemed like the Lion, the faun, and the wood were a spontaneous creation. The mythology played a large part of Lewis’s life. The lion was the king of beasts and may have had something to do with the lion of Judah in the Bible. But I think it must have been a male lion since God has always been male in Scripture.

.

Posted by: @coracle

Some churches and individuals in the later 20th century and early 21st, who refer to God as female, or male & female, have EITHER:

Followed a sort of feminism that blended into more liberal thinking, 

OR

Been misled by  Syncretism [combining teachings and practices of Christianity with other religious practices and teachings]  which has plagued the church since its early years, incorporating the worship of goddesses [in this case] into Christian teaching and worship.

Actually, since the 1860s or '70s, in my church's case. And based entirely, as I said before, on the fact that Genesis 1:26-27 states that both "male and female" are created in the image and likeness of God.

I appreciate that we all have our own convictions (or, for those who aren't committed to a particular religious path, maybe preferences) in these things. NarniaWeb isn't a religion-based website and we have people here from a range of different backgrounds and beliefs. But for that reason, I just think it would be better, in theological discussions, if we could find ways to share our own position and the reasoning behind it without getting into assertions of "our way is right, yours is wrong". That's just not what this particular forum is for.