"All that mankind has done, thought, gained or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books."
-Thomas Carlyle

by Louis A. Markos

How wonderful will that heavenly reality seem to those who have wrestled all their lives with shadows!

But then again, that statement is not altogether true. The reality of heaven will only seem wonderful to those whose primary reason for wrestling with the shadows was the faint hope that they might someday break through to the reality behind them. Those interested only in the shadows themselves will not greet reality with joy; rather, they will more than likely kill any messenger who proclaims a reality deeper and higher than their beloved and sacred shadows. Such is the case with the prisoners in Plato's Cave. Most of you, I am sure, are familiar with the famous Allegory of the Cave; here it is in Plato's (or Socrates') own words:

Socrates goes on to reason that such people (at least all those who place their total trust in the physical information culled by their five senses) would consider the shadows cast by the puppeteers to be not an imitation of an imitation of reality but reality itself. (Just so, the materialist considers this earth to be all there is, rather than realizing that our poor fallen world is but a weak copy of that Garden world that is itself a copy of the New Jerusalem.) They would study with great vigor the lives and actions of the shadows cast on the wall, and might even begin to compete with one another as to who could best predict what figures would parade by next and in what order. There whole existence and all their greatest efforts would be tied up with the shadows, and they would neither care to see the source of those shadows nor even believe, for that matter, that there was a source.

Imagine then, Socrates continues, that one of the prisoners should break his chains and, by a slow and painful process, make his way out of the cave into the true reality of the outside world. And imagine further that, having glimpsed this reality, he chose (out of compassion for his fellow prisoners) to return to the cave and share this good news with them. What would their response be? Would they greet this news with joy or would they resist and even kill their "savior?" Sadly, the latter reaction is the more likely. Socrates explains:

Just so, in our world, there are many who use their gifts but not in such a way as to prepare them for the greater reality that awaits us in heaven. Like Plato's prisoners, they prefer to concentrate all their efforts on shadows, thinking perhaps that by doing so they will gain the applause of their fellow prisoners. Preferring darkness to light and the arts of darkness to the arts of light, they become living examples of what is perhaps Jesus' most sobering pronouncement: "And this is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their deeds were evil" (John 3:19). Unless we keep our eyes fixed on the divine Light of Christ (and the reality that that Light both gives and is), we risk slipping into the darkness and the shadows, and, as a result, using our gifts to serve the fallen copy rather than the glorified original. Aside from using our gifts for purposes that are outright evil (like the propaganda films that Leni Riefenstahl made for Hitler), there are two distinct ways by which human beings thus misuse and, at least by heavenly standards, squander their talents. Of these, the first is a particularly modern malady, while the second is more perennial. Let us begin with the former.

Art as nihilism

We said above that our talents represent that part of us that bears the image of God's creativity. That is to say, our talents should inspire us to mold and shape objects and ideas that partake, at least in part, of that beauty, harmony, and purpose with which God filled his universe. Thus, to use our talents for the sole purpose of creating ugliness, disorder, and/or meaninglessness is not only to deviate from the course set by God but to hunger after and even help to create a world diametrically opposed to the New Jerusalem. The impulse (I had almost said the disease) that drives people to offer their gifts to the service of this perverse and finally Satanic counter-vision is profoundly anti-God and can have no more place in heaven than feelings of pride, lust, envy, or anger. Now that is not to say that ugliness, disorder, and meaninglessness have no place whatsoever in artistic production (used here in its broadest sense). All three of these things, for example, appear in Dante's Inferno, just as disparities appear in the sculptures of Michelangelo, distortions in the paintings of van Gogh, and dissonant notes in the symphonies of Tchaikovsky. However, these elements never emerge as the primary message, function, or impact of the works they inhabit; rather, they are subordinate to (and actually intensify) the grander scheme of beauty, harmony, and purpose to which these works give praise.

In addition to my teaching duties at Houston Baptist University, I am the faculty sponsor for Sigma Tau Delta, the International English Honors Society. The founders of this worthy organization designated that the three Greek letters that make up our name would stand for three words: sincerity, truth, and design. I can think of no better words to illustrate the proper end toward which our gifts should be used or to explain why such an exercise of gifts will remain with us in heaven. Nevertheless, despite academia's supposed acceptance of this society and its founding principles, the modern university and the larger sphere of society which it influences has all but rejected these three words (and their cognates) as guideposts for the arts. Actually, they have retained one (sincerity), but, by cutting it off from the other two, they have transformed it into a polite cover-up for perverse self-expression and reckless self-indulgence. Whether the field be art or sculpture, classical music or popular songs, literature or film, the last half-century has seen a disturbing slide away from our responsibility to use our gifts and talents to fashion objects and ideas that square with the divine harmony of our Creator. Instead, our society has grown more and more fierce in its desire to topple all such higher measures and standards and to assert its prerogative to wallow in an artistic filth that critics ironically refer to as "reality." Beauty, ever an abiding concern for aestheticians and literary theorists, has been abandoned as an end of art, and the very concept of form attacked on every side. Filmmakers like Martin Scorsese and Oliver Stone (both endowed with a phenomenal gift for cinematic direction) have chosen to use their talents not to revive the Golden Age of American film but to present characters and themes that are repugnant by any standard of measure. Rap (perhaps the lowest form of "art" ever to be inflicted on the human race) has succeeded in completing the task begun by Rock and Roll: the utter dissociation of music from beauty and grace, harmony and melody. Even in the area of clothing and personal style, many young Americans have chosen to adopt wardrobes that are intentionally ugly and vulgar (as opposed to the styles of the 70's, which were unintentionally ugly and vulgar) as a symbol, well, of something or other.

If it weren't so tragic and destructive, it would be funny, almost a joke. What possible end can be served by rejecting order and running headlong after chaos? Will our lives be thus improved, our joy refined, our natural desire for purpose and worth fulfilled? Thankfully, our Lord has still been able to extend the redeeming arm of his grace through much of this "art" (there are, believe it not, Christian rap groups that win children and students to Christ every day), but that is only, I'm afraid, because the grace works in opposition to rather than in accord with the exercise of the gift: that is to say, the soul is saved but the spirit is not edified. If we are to fashion works that bear the message of God's grace, would it not be better to model those works on the nature of God (beauty, harmony, purpose) rather than on the warped principles of our modern world (ugliness, disorder, meaninglessness)? Why limit ourselves to the lowest common denominator, when God gave us the ability and the will to soar upward and share in his creative power?

So why then have modern artists rejected form and beauty? The answer is rather simple. Form and beauty have at least three effects on those who seek them: 1) like the Law celebrated in Psalm 119, they inspire discipline and a willingness to submit to a higher authority; 2) like the Light of Christ, they expose and dispel evil and sin; and, 3) like the Logos, they establish order in the midst of chaos. I shudder to think what kind of people Shelley and Byron would have been had their lusts not been balanced and tempered by the overwhelming beauty and precise formalism of their poetry. Indeed, beauty and form have been the (at least earthly) salvation of many an artist, providing them with signposts and boundary stones that kept them on track.

Not so the modern artist, who refuses to be accountable to anything higher than himself, who prefers to keep his dark little secrets hidden in the dark, and who relishes the chaos of his life as a sign of his freedom and self-determination. For such people, gifts serve only as self-indulgent outlets, never as magic keys to unlock the doors of true wonder and mystery.

I suppose the perfect metaphor for this kind of misuse of gifts is that greatest of all modern abominations: MTV. For those who have never had the misfortune to view this cable channel, let me explain. MTV offers its subscribers the chance to see their favorite Rock songs interpreted visually on the screen (rather like a Satanic version of Walt Disney's Fantasia). What this boils down to is an endless, psychedelic barrage of chaotic images of sex and violence. In The Closing of the American Mind, Allan Bloom argues that teenagers who spend most of their waking hours absorbing loud, raucous music through their Walkman headphones are engaging in an experience that is essentially masturbatory; MTV is this and more. It offers the child a closed, safe, Cave-like world cut off from parental authority, a world that asks nothing of its inhabitants but to receive passively. Neither growth nor maturity is expected. The double-edged sword of reality has no power here; the child may believe or feel whatever he wants, unmolested by any higher standard. He quickly learns the parameters of this world (as the prisoners in the Cave learn to recognize certain patterns and combinations among the shadows on the wall), and then stubbornly refuses to question or problematize the nature of the world itself. Just so, the "artists" who create these videos inhabit a small, closed world that is ever barred against the intrusion of any outside light that might expose it all as dirty, wretched, and finally mundane. Our talents, when used for such ends, do not produce in us anything worth carrying to the real world of heaven. Feelings thus produced would only cause us to cower and hide from the bright light of heaven, naked and ashamed like Adam and Eve in the Fall. Such works, and the anti-God motivation and "aesthetic" that underlies them will burn up in that final fire described in 1 Corinthians 3, and, though the artist (if he is in Christ) will be saved, it will be as through fire (3:15).

Art as an end in itself

Our modern world has indeed gone astray in its promotion of the "virtues" of ugliness, disorder, and meaninglessness; however, I would not have you thus conclude that it is only modern artists who misuse their God-given gifts. There is a second and just as dangerous a way to misuse our gifts that has been followed by even the most passionate aesthetes and diligent formalists. That second way, a way that perhaps tempts the traditionalist more than the modernist, concerns the wrongheaded notion that art is and should be an end in itself. Artists who give in to this notion generally overemphasize form to the detriment of content and show more passion for the tools and tricks of their trade than for the dreams and ideals and visions that their art (with all its tools and tricks) was created to capture.

C. S. Lewis describes just such an artist in his fantastical study of heaven and hell (and their respective inhabitants), The Great Divorce. In Lewis' admittedly fictional vision of the afterlife, the sinners are allowed to take holidays to heaven and meet there with the souls of the blessed. There, before the plain of heaven, the damned and saved souls come together, and the saved try desperately to convince their fallen brothers to accept the grace of Christ and enter in to heaven. In one such meeting, a redeemed painter (the Spirit) tries to convince his infernal counterpart (the Ghost) to join him in Paradise. When he catches his first glimpse of the landscape of heaven, the Ghost immediately yearns to transfer it to canvas and kicks himself for not having remembered to bring his paints. In response, the Saint begins to laugh and exclaims, "'That sort of thing's no good here.'" He then goes on to explain:

But the visitor from below is still not satisfied. He insists on knowing when he can start painting. The following conversation ensues:

Lewis' insight here is, as always, stunning. The Spirit is right. We are all first drawn to the arts by a desire to grab hold of something that we perceive as being just out of our reach. It's the light, the truth, the mystery, the yearning that we desire, not the artistic media in and of itself. To bring back an earlier metaphor, the media (the gift) is but the bridge that we construct to reach that distant shore that calls out to us with such force and resonance ("deep calls to deep," says the forty-second Psalm). As long as we stay focused on that shore, our gifts and talents will serve us as stewards and speed our journey to the one who created the shore. But when we lose our focus, when we turn our eyes instead to the bridge, we court disaster. (Just so, when Peter took his eyes off Christ and looked at the raging sea about him, he began to drown.) When any art becomes an end in itself, it becomes an idol: something that blocks rather than facilitates our vision of God. The Ghost in the story above can neither enjoy heaven nor receive God. To him, heaven and God are merely subjects to be studied, not realities to be embraced. The Spirit offends and pains him with his silly talk of light and reality. Like the prisoners in Plato's Cave, the Ghost is interested only in the shadow, the reflection, the imitation. For him, the copy is more real than the model.

Our love of "ink and catgut and paint" will not go with us to heaven (or, if it does, it will be quickly purged away). Indeed, all those temporary forms we used to contain reality will vanish; the sword of God's truth will shatter the scabbard of worldly forms. If we refuse to give up the scabbard, we will not be welcome in heaven (or rather, we will not accept the free welcome). If we give it up, we will have eternal access to that flashing sword that impelled us to create the scabbard in the first place. The forms of art are useful receptacles of truth on this earth, but in heaven, those forms shall be swallowed up by the very truths they once sought to contain. Even so, I rejoice on earth that the Spirit indwells me, but I rejoice far more that in heaven, I shall dwell in God. No, the tools will stay behind; to covet them is like clinging to our earthly body when God desires to give us a new and glorious Resurrection body. "For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed, but to be clothed, in order that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life" (2 Corinthians 5:4).

Louis Markos is a Professor in English at Houston Baptist University and is the author of Lewis Agonistes: How C. S. Lewis can Train us to Wrestle with the Modern and Postmodern World (Broadman & Holman, 2003).

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