Saw Narnia Saturday. Liked it over all.

The problem with Aslan:

1: Lion’s face seemed over large.

2. Lion seemed too small (someone pointed out to me that his size wasn’t consistent; and that part would be accurate. I just think he should have averaged a larger size).

3. Seemed like a servant to something ultimately impersonal. The deep magic was mentioned, but not the emperor.

Other problem with the movie:

What was the deal with the battlefield after Aslan ozzyozborned the Witch? Suddenly the monsters have all disappeared. Nothing in the book or the movie was consistent with that. It made no sense at all. Plus it was an overly realized eschatology.

What I liked that surprised me (stuff I never noticed in my readings of the book).

1. The particularity of Aslan’s redemption. Aslan died for all only by dying for Edmund the fallen king and representative of Narnia. So the story is that of Israel and Jesus in the world. Israel is sent to save the world, but Israel is of the world. Israel is under sin so that there is no hope for the world. So Jesus is sent to take Israel’s condemnation and thus bring forth salvation for Jew and Gentile alike. Edmund with his siblings is sent to save Narnia from the dominion of the White Witch, but Edmund puts himself under her dominion so that there is no hope for Narnia or himself. So Aslan is sent (again, here is the problem of the absent references to the Emperor) to save both Edmund and the world. The high king is able to save the kingly family and everyone they rule.

Of course, following Paul’s logic, there would need to be no royal distinction between royal human and non-royal Narnian creature, as everyone would simply answer to Aslan. But metaphors always break down somewhere.

2. What is all this about “the ransom theory of the atonement” in which Christ paid Satan? The redemption was obviously a Christus Victor event. Until Adam was given new life, things only got worst after he was killed. His resurrection brought the victory over the witch. Why did no one notice this? One hypothesis: because the death was obviously substitutionary (some sort of ransom or other was taking place, as admitted by all of us). Since in the rhetoric of church polemics, Christus Victor is held to be an alternative to substituionary theories, once the substitutionary nature of Aslan’s death is admitted, no one is open to other options. But the ease with which both views are plainly included in one story should teach us that these are entirely false oppositions.

I’m reminded of John Nevin’s awesome rejoinder to Charles Hodge:

Justification, to be real, must also be concrete–the force and value of Christ’s merit brought nigh to the sinner as a living fact. Strange, that there should seem to be any contradiction here, between the grace which we have by Christ’s death, and the grace that comes to us through his life. Could the sacrifice of Calvary be of any avail to take away sins, if the victim there slain had not been raised again for our justification, and were not now seated at the right hand of God our Advocate and Intercessor? Would the atonement of a dead Christ be of more worth than the blood of bulls and goats, to purge the conscience from dead works and give it free access to God? Surely it is the perennial, indissoluble life of the once-crucified Redeemer, which imparts to his broken body and shed blood all their power to abolish guilt… Abstract it [the sacrifice of Christ] from this, and it becomes in truth a mere legal fiction. The atonement, in this view [Nevin’s] is a quality or property of the glorified life of the Son of man.