Leighton's Blog

I just watched Ask Doug — Magic In Literature by Douglas Wilson and his son, author Nathan Wilson. They had some very important things to share but I disagreed with them on a few points…

First let me try to explain what their points were.

From what I understood, their viewpoint is that The Bible is full of magic and if someone rejects magic in literature they are subconsciously rejecting the bible. However the bible condemns sorcery so you have to walk a fine line between sorcery and magic. Sorcery is bad; magic if used properly is good.

That’s what I came away with and if you think I had a misunderstanding feel free to correct me in a comment.

Now here’s my viewpoint.

The magic in the LOTR. Gandalf is called a wizard. He uses “magic". Is the LOTR bad? First you have to ask the question:

Who is Gandalf?

Gandalf is basically one of the lesser valar sent by Illuvatar. Illuvater is Tolkien’s name for God. Valar are basically angels appointed by God.

In that sense Gandalf is not unbiblical. His power comes from God just like an angel’s does. If you’ve never seen or read the LOTR just for the reason that you thought Gandalf wasn’t biblical, you can go check it out.

Now you may ask the question, what about Saruman? He was an angel too. He turned bad and used magic for bad! How could that magic come from God? There are two ways of approaching that one.

One:

You could say that since he became bad that God’s power left him and he turned to sorcery for power. With that answer you have to ask: What is sorcery??

Two:

This is the stance I take. The magic does come from God. Hold on there! Don’t kill me yet! LOL Think about satan. Where does he get his power? Does he have power of his own? He is powerless. His power is appointed to him by God.

Ok, hear me through. lol

Check out Job chapter two! Satan is begging and groveling to God for permission to do evil. Why does God allow Satan, you may ask?! For his glory! Why would an author let his/her character do something bad? Because that event leads to other events that in the end make the end of the story more fulfilling.

I personally don’t call what Moses did in Egypt to be magic. I think of it as God funneling his power through Moses for his glory.

I love the Inheritance Cycle. (Eragon/Eldest/Brisingr) Is it biblical? Nope.

Harry Potter and Eragon, although great adventures are not biblical. Can you read material that isn’t biblical as a Christian? I’ll leave that up to you.

Next Post — Who Is The Author?