The Mystery of Grace: A Theological Reading of C. S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces
Till We Have Faces is profitably read at three levels: for its surface story, as a crime drama, and as an exploration of the theological mystery of grace. By transposing the myth of Psyche into the mystery genre, Lewis prepares the reader for Orual’s unreliability as a narrator and lures the reader...
Autor principal: | |
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Tipo de documento: | Recurso Electrónico Artigo |
Idioma: | Inglês |
Verificar disponibilidade: | HBZ Gateway |
Journals Online & Print: | |
Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
Publicado em: |
Sciendo, De Gruyter
2022
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Em: |
Perichoresis
Ano: 2022, Volume: 20, Número: 3, Páginas: 91-107 |
Classificações IxTheo: | CD Cristianismo ; Cultura KAJ Época contemporânea NBK Soteriologia |
Outras palavras-chave: | B
Christian Humanism
B Beauty B Grace B prevenient B C. S. Lewis |
Acesso em linha: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) |
Resumo: | Till We Have Faces is profitably read at three levels: for its surface story, as a crime drama, and as an exploration of the theological mystery of grace. By transposing the myth of Psyche into the mystery genre, Lewis prepares the reader for Orual’s unreliability as a narrator and lures the reader into the novel’s theological depths. Part Two of the novel contains a series of visionary labors which Lewis borrows from Lucius Apuleius but recasts as feats achieved jointly by Orual and Psyche. The theological reading in this article finds textual support for rereading Part One of the novel as depicting Orual, by grace, unknowingly performing Psyche’s labors. Read thusly, the novel is a working out of Lewis’s belief that God can change the past—that grace can reach back into our histories and retell our story. By ascribing to the mutability of the past, Lewis sidesteps the dispute among various branches of Christianity over whether prevenient grace (the grace that pursues us prior to conversion) is both irresistible and salvific. An examination of four sources of grace in Orual’s life (love of beauty, love of wisdom, religious practice, and bereavement) reveals that what would have been common grace in her life becomes salvific as it leads to her redemption. This exposition also shows the novel’s indebtedness to the many classical Greek sources to which Lewis alludes within it, as well as its affinity with some of the ideas of Simone Weil. |
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ISSN: | 2284-7308 |
Obras secundárias: | Enthalten in: Perichoresis
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Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.2478/perc-2022-0019 |