When God the Son became man in the historical person of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, He closed the chasm between sinful man and holy, holy, holy God—between the mortal and the immortal, between the finite and the infinite.

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world.
—Hebrews 1:1-2

What thoughts come to mind when you think of the word history? Do the syllables conjure up memories of dreadfully boring school assignments and dusty books, prescribed by teachers whose minds were dustier still? Or, does a more romantic feeling overcome you? Feelings of deep mystery and high adventure; long shadows of thought cast by untold, ancient memory and the dwindling light of torches as they dance upon Roman forts and ancient pyramids. Indeed, what does history mean to you?

The Shadow of the Past

Anyone who has read C.S. Lewis’ The Space Trilogy knows that the plot demands much of the reader and their imagination (and some patience, perhaps). However, as is the case with most of his writing, Lewis rewards careful reading of even his most bizarre and fantastical work—of which That Hideous Strength, the concluding novel to the trilogy, is chief.

One of the most haunting and beautiful—hauntingly beautiful—passages in the novel takes place in the final third of the novel as three characters—Jane, Dimble, and Arthur—make their way through a dense, wet forest in search of the wizard Merlin from Arthurian legend. At this point in the story, they know not whether Merlin is friend or foe; they simply know that he cannot fall into the hands of their enemies, such that they are willing to risk their lives in either case to find him and secure victory.

In the hands of any other author, this scene would play out rather forgettably. Lewis, however, is no ordinary author. In these few pages, he unfolds a lofty meditation on the nature of history and myth and how the two are woven in an almost tangible way. Indeed, there is a visceral physicality to this scene as the characters make their way through the forest—through history itself.

As the three characters venture further into the bowels of the wood in search of Merlin, it is Dimble, the wisest and oldest among the group, who first begins to sense the weight of time and history gathering about them: “‘The Dark Ages,’ thought Dimble; how lightly one had read and written those words. But now they were going to step right into that Darkness. It was an age, not a man, that awaited them in the horrible little dingle. And suddenly all that Britain which had been so long familiar to him as a scholar rose up like a solid thing. He could see it all.”

Dimble, an academic and a Christian, begins in that little dingle to see history not as a mere series of events haphazardly cobbled together, but as a tangible, solid thing one could reach out and touch—or rather, a solid thing that reaches out for you. Not a static set of facts; but a living, almost sentient, breathing story that is pulling everything near unto itself.

Right beside Dimble, however, is Jane. At this point in the novel, she has not yet become a Christian and so her perspective on life—and death—is quite different from Dimble’s. As the weight of the wood begins to press in, so do Jane’s thoughts—unlike Dimble, however, her mind turns to religion rather than to the mossy annals of time. Jane’s thoughts are stripped raw of the academic and abstract, leaving with her a question countless others have wrestled with through the long ages since Christ’s ascension. Stumbling through the darkness, with the possibility of death hanging above like a thick cloud, Jane’s mind begins to work:

“If it had ever occurred to her to question whether all these things might be the reality behind what she had been taught at school as ‘religion,’ she had put the thought aside. The distance between these alarming and operative realities and memory, say, of fat Mrs. Dimble saying her prayers, was too wide. The things belonged, for her, to different worlds. On the one hand, terror of dreams, rapture of obedience, the tingling light…and the great struggle against an imminent danger; on the other, the smell of pews, horrible lithographs of the Saviour (apparently seven feet high, with the face of a consumptive girl), the embarrassment of confirmation classes, the nervous affability of clergy-men. But this time, if it was really to be death, the thought would not be put aside. Because, really, it now appeared that almost anything might be true.”

A Dreadful Gap

At a rather simple level, Jane is completely right—“The things belonged…to different worlds.” What fellowship do creaky church benches and He who commands the stars have with one another? How is it that an infinite and holy God beyond all human comprehension can be reconciled with these more common elements of religion—the smell of pews, dusty hymnals, the warm awkwardness of churchgoers, and the like?

For centuries, a ‘rebuke’ along these lines has been an arrow in the quiver of atheists and skeptics alike—though, a rather blunt one. The scoffers postulate and foam with arguments such as, “How dare you Christians say that yours is the only way! There’s an entire universe out there to be explored, and yet you say the One who made it all cares most for the little stuff like marriage and the family and kindness and, worse still, has all sorts of rules against what we can and can’t do with our own bodies! Don’t you think God—if such a Person were to exist—is far too busy to care about things like that?”

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