“You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!”
James 2:19
“She’s angry about all the things I’ve been saying lately,” thought Edmund. And though he did not like to admit that he had been wrong, he also did not much like being alone in this strange, cold, quiet place; so he shouted again.
C. S. Lewis, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe
“I say, Lu! I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. I see now you were right all along. Do come out. Make it Pax.”
Still there was no answer. “Just like a girl,” said Edmund to himself, “sulking somewhere, and won’t accept an apology.”
Articles in this Series
See the first article for the list.
Just Like a Girl
This article will examine Edmund’s disingenuous repentance and the lessons we can learn from his false repentance. In a previous article1, I already detailed some things that we can learn about forgiveness from Narnia. Here, I will detail more. One of Lewis’ brilliancies was his insight into the human condition. Just read his The Screwtape Letters2 to see what I mean. The man understood things, especially people, and could express this understanding in a simple yet deep manner. He said, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it but because by it, I see everything else.”3, and he was not lying. He saw “everything else” sharper than most Christian writers do.
The clearest indication of Edmund’s disingenuous repentance is his statement, “Just like a girl”. When Lucy gives no response to Edmund’s apology, his immediate reaction is to insult her and assume that she is “sulking somewhere, and won’t accept an apology.” Contrast Edmund’s plea with Tumnus’ genuine repentance when the Faun asks Lucy, “can you ever forgive me for what I meant to do?”. While Tumnus recognised that Lucy may be so angry that she did not want to extend forgiveness, Edmund thinks he is owed forgiveness. Of course, Lucy would be required to forgive Edmund, for the Scriptures adjure us into “forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Eph. 4:32). But when we ask for forgiveness, we should not use this requirement as leverage. We should not say, “Well, I may or may not be genuinely sorry, but I guess you have to forgive me anyways. It is Biblically mandated.” As if that would work.
Biblical repentance does not manipulatively use leverage; instead, it is characterised by humility, which is perfectly modelled in the incarnate Christ who casts aside His divine prerogatives (Phil. 2:1-11). Lewis said a humble man “will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all.”4 So the humblest man, Christ, was not thinking about Himself in the incarnation. He “came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mk. 10:45). Likewise, and streaming from this incarnational light, Biblical repentance involves confessing your sin and asking for forgiveness without any consideration of your own appearance or ego. The person repenting does not care to look sophisticated or superior. After all, he is in the wrong.
However, I believe there are other smaller indications that Edmund’s repentance was not genuine. For instance, note his unjustified claim that “[Lucy’s] angry about all the things I’ve been saying lately”. When Edmund could not find Lucy, his immediate reaction was to impute false motives for Lucy’s disappearance. Instead of being concerned that Lucy was missing, Edmund assumed that she must be hiding out of anger. However, Lucy had previously shown no indication of anger, only that she was “very miserable”. Furthermore, Edmund’s reason for shouting an apology was that he “did not much like being alone in this strange, cold, quiet place”. Edmund’s apology was not out of genuine remorse but because he was scared and uncomfortable. And, even in the apology itself, Edmund merely says sorry for not believing Lucy, and he acknowledges that Lucy was right. Note that he does not apologise for having “sneered and jeered at Lucy”. He acknowledges his being wrong, which is blatantly obvious, but does not apologise for the deeper, heart-level sins.
I want to provide two applications related to the previous paragraph. The first is that genuine repentance must not be ultimately characterised by fear. The second is that merely intellectual repentance is ultimately useless. Firstly, Edmund’s repentance, which results from a fear of being alone, should not primarily characterise Christian repentance. In Scripture, we are told that “perfect love casts out fear” (1 Jn. 4:18). The context of this verse makes it clear that fear is contrasted to “confidence for the day of judgement” (1 Jn. 4:17). If we are to base our repentance merely on fear of judgement, then we are indulging in pragmatism. That is, our repentance will not be out of genuine contrition for sin and love of God but simply because we want to avoid judgement. Edmund repented not because he was genuinely sorry but because he was scared and wanted Lucy to accompany him.
To illustrate my point further, Pascal’s wager, a philosophical argument advanced by Blaise Pascal, argues that the benefits of believing in God far outweigh the consequences of disbelieving in God. If God is real and we believe in Him, then we will be saved; if God is real and we disbelieve in Him, then we will be damned. If God does not exist and we believe or disbelieve in Him, nothing will ultimately happen. The crux of the argument is the fact that denying in God has a possible disadvantage, namely damnation, whereas believing in God has no ultimate disadvantage. You get the idea. Though there are many rebuttals to this argument, I think that one problem with it is that it is based on pragmatism. It is based on what works. However, if our belief in God and repentance is based on the probabilistic reasoning in Pascal’s wager, it falls short of the Biblical standard. God is not honoured when we believe in Him out of a fear of judgement.
Secondly, merely intellectual repentance should not characterise Christian repentance. It is not merely enough that we believe that the points in the Gospel are true. One can do that and still be damned. James says, “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!” (Jm. 2:19). If you believe that it is true that man is sinful, God is righteous, Christ is God, and He died for our sins, and that on the third day, He rose again and thereafter ascended to the right hand of God, in a sense that is no better than the beliefs of an atheist. You may have more truths correct, but that will not save you. It is Christ who saves you through the instrument of God-given faith wherein we receive Christ’s person and work (Eph. 2:8-9). One can repent intellectually, saying, like Edmund did, that this belief and that belief were false, but it will not save. A qualification here is that we must not fall off the other side of the horse and say that the content of belief does not matter. It is not enough to merely consider the Gospel as true. But it is necessary to consider the Gospel as true. In other words, believing that the Gospel is true is necessary but not sufficient for salvation.
Here, I have examined the indications that Edmund’s repentance was not genuine. To reiterate, the primary indication was his statement, “Just like a girl”, which indicates Edmund’s shunning of Christ-like humility, but there were smaller indications of non-genuine repentance, too. Based on these smaller indications, I examined two applications. The first was that Christian repentance must not be primarily driven by fear, and the second was that mere intellectual assent in the context of Christian belief or repentance is not sufficient. It is necessary, however. I am most sure that we will see opportunities to examine Narnian forgiveness and repentance in future articles. Lewis’ work is chock-full of it.
Footnotes
- See https://sojournal.co.nz/fragments-from-narnia-part-nine/.
- Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters consists of fictional letters written by a senior demon, Wormwood, to his nephew, Screwtape. Wormwood desires to educate Screwtape on how to tempt humans. The brilliancy of this work is that Lewis does not teach us how to avoid temptation by plainly stating “avoid x and y and z”, but by saying “the devil works in x and y and z manner”.
- See Lewis’ paper Is Theology Poetry?.
- See Lewis’ Mere Christianity.