CS Lewis and Gerard -- Mimetic Theory and Literary Study

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Date Posted: 20:36:30 02/10/08 Sun
Author: JPJ II
Subject: CS Lewis and Gerard

I was having some trouble with Gerard last week on account of a re-read of Lewis' 'Abolition of Man' and parts of 'Mere Christianity.' It seemed to me that both Lewis and Gerard had made the same anthropological observations concerning the sacrifice and scapegoating mechanisms but had come to slightly different conclusions. In talking out my thoughts with Dr Jackson, this is where my mind ended up:

Lewis looked at the different mechanisms of sacrifice and concluded that they were all nearly correct in that they perceived the 'perfect sacrifice' or 'the one true myth' that was to come in the sacrifice of Christ at the cross. That is to say, Lewis concluded that the scapegoat mechanisms found throughout human culture were anticipating, and grounded in, the perfect sacrifice that was essential to the salvation history of the world.

Gerard, on the other hand, saw those same mechanisms at work throughout human history in the context of the gospel texts and reasoned that the reverse was true. That is, where Lewis saw the human, imperfect model anticipating and based off of the divine, perfect model to come, Gerard saw a perfect, divine model finding its roots in the imperfect human model. For Gerard, the Crucifiction is reacting to and made necessary by the innately flawed mechanism of sacrifice and scapegoating of man.

So, to reduce the last paragraphs:

Lewis says that human scapegoating is based off of the Crucifiction, where Gerard says that the Crucifiction is based off of human scapegoating.

...I like that less after I wrote it down...

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Replies:

Re: CS Lewis and Gerard -- Shannon, 13:54:07 02/11/08 Mon
- Re: CS Lewis and Gerard -- Kiernan, 10:23:57 02/13/08 Wed