Not Your Ordinary Zoom Call

LEWIS: [tapping the webcam] Can you hear me?

O’CONNER: Loud and clear.  

FREUD: [rolling his eyes] Yes, we can hear you. Quite well, I might add.

DR. FULLMAN: Sorry for the inconvenience. A Zoom call wasn’t my first choice, but it’s our only option since the Coronavirus caused the conference to be shut down. I appreciate your willingness to speak to our GB IV class, though. Let’s begin our discussion. Madelyn, will you read the first question?

MADELYN: [taking a deep breath] Sure. My question is, “How does the belief in God discourage corruption in the Western world?”

NIETZSCHE: [responding immediately] I don’t think that God has anything to do with the absence of corruption because there is no God. If anything, “philosophy has been corrupted by theologian blood.” (Nietzsche 133).

FREUD: Yes, I am inclined to agree. After all, religion—this oceanic feeling—is “a purely subjective experience” (Freud 3). It is not real and creates problems rather than solves them.

LEWIS: [taking a sip of his tea] Gentlemen, gentlemen, please. Let’s discuss this logically. In the beginning, humans were intrinsically good, but they were corrupted by sin. Now, they are tempted to pursue their own selfish desires and put their needs above others. If man fails to allow a higher power to govern him, then he might try to use science, for instance, to gain power and material gratification. Now that I think about it, this idea is demonstrated through my characters Weston and Devine in Out of the Silent Planet. If man pursues science—or anything other than God—then he will then be led into chaos and destruction.

FREUD: [leaping out of his seat and leaning down to look into his webcam] Now you seek to insult science? I am appalled but not surprised. 

NIETZSCHE: [interrupting Freud] Well, “the priest knows only one great danger: that is science—the sound conception of cause and effect” (Nietzsche 177). 

FREUD: [ignoring Nietzsche] Dr. Lewis, I now see that you simply cannot accept science as a legitimate way to solve mankind’s problems. You are attempting to disqualify science to further your own agenda!

LEWIS: [calmly] You have misunderstood me. If left to his own devices, man will pursue other things besides God. I suppose one could say that he is attempting to fill the God-shaped hole in his life with science or material items or power, which leads to despair and immoral behavior. In my novel, Out of the Silent Planet, there happens to be creatures who demonstrate how humanity is supposed to behave. These creatures follow and obey Oyarsa, the chief angel on Malacandra, their planet—

[In the middle of C.S. Lewis’s sentence, a chime sounds on screen, letting the group know that another guest has joined. Tolkien’s face fills part of the screen, and he waves hello.]

LEWIS: Hello, my friend! How delightful that you could join us.

TOLKIEN: [placing a pipe in his mouth] I’m terribly sorry I’m a few minutes late. Hollywood contacted me about making a fourth Hobbit movie. 

DR. FULLMAN: [guiding the group back to the previous conversation] Excuse me, Dr. Lewis, you had a thought?

LEWIS: Let’s see, where was I…Ah, yes. When Ransom, the main character in my story, explains that humans have been involved in war, slavery, and other disasters on Earth, the creatures are astonished (Lewis 102). They then explain that humans allow sin to infiltrate their lives because “[Earth] [has] no Oyarsa,” and humans cannot follow a good, all-powerful being (Lewis 102). They further say that mankind falls prey to corruption “because every one of them wants to be a little Oyarsa himself” (Lewis 102). Unlike humans, the creatures on Malacandra believe in a higher power, and they value human life and live harmoniously with their neighbors as a result. Similarly, if mankind knows God, then we will also pursue goodness instead of falling prey to corruption.

TOLKIEN: Well said. What a great example. 

O’CONNER: If I may, I would like to interject a thought. You are correct, Dr. Lewis, that one must know God to pursue goodness and live righteously, but he must also have a relationship with Him. I wrote a short story once where the main character marries a Christian named Sarah Ruth. Now, Sarah Ruth does not “smoke or dip, drink whiskey, use bad language or paint her face” (O’Conner 510). She claims that she’s a Christian and seems to avoid all of the wrong things, but sin has a prevalent foothold in her life. At the end of the story, her husband Parker gets a tattoo of God on his back and has a religious experience, connecting with God in the process. When he shows his tattoo to Sarah Ruth, that woman finds a broom and “thrash[es] him across the shoulders…knock[ing] him senseless” and causing large welts to form on his back (O’Conner 529). Sarah Ruth may be morally perfect, but she isn’t Christlike. People can claim to be Christians, but their actions must align with Christ in order to truly be good.

LEWIS: Right you are, Miss O’Conner.

NIETZSCHE: [slamming his hand on the desk in front of him] This is all preposterous! “Whoever has theologian blood in his veins has a wrong and dishonest attitude towards all things from the very first” (Nietzsche 132). Christians do not think rationally; your arguments are all flawed, don’t you agree, Sigmund?

[Freud nods vigorously.]

NIETZSCHE: I will not stand for these outlandish conclusions any longer. “What a theologian feels to be true must be false” (Nietzsche 132). 

[Nietzsche leaves the Zoom call, and Freud follows his example, disappearing from the screen as well. The five people who are left on the screen attempt to suppress smiles at Freud and Nietzsche’s outraged behavior.]

DR. FULLMAN: Well that was interesting to say the least. So, Madelyn, this is your question. What do you think? 

MADELYN: I think…that every single person needs Christ in order to truly live morally. And when you follow and obey God, then you allow the Spirit to lead you instead of letting your sinful desires corrupt you.