Tool Alpha
C. S. Lewis’s Cosmology
Where Lewis’s heavens follow Scripture, where they come from the medieval picture of the cosmos, and where he made them up.
The Bent One
Earth's Oyarsa went bent before any life appeared on Earth, made war on the heavens, lost, and was bound. Lewis's word for the devil is a word for something warped.
Revelation 12:7-9, in every translation this tool compares.
The real question: where does Lewis's story of a great spirit who went wrong before the world began come from? Bent, not broken. A bent nail was once a straight nail. Lewis chose a word for evil that says it was made good first. Whether the rest of his story lines up with the Bible is the question.
In the Bent Years, before life came on Earth, its Oyarsa became bent, tried to spoil other worlds, and was driven back in a great war and bound in the air of his own world. The Malacandrians use bent as their word for evil; the nearest hrossian word for the two men who brought Ransom is bent men.
Revelation 12 describes war in heaven, Michael and his angels against the dragon, who is thrown down to earth and identified as the ancient serpent. Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 describe a figure cast down from a high place, and have long been read of Satan. Scripture presents evil as the corruption of something made good.
Lewis said in The Problem of Pain that the story of an older and mightier being who became apostate before man is not in the creeds but seems to be implied in several sayings of Jesus, Paul and John. The planetary war is the medieval heavens again.
The bombardment of the moon and the cold death brought on Mars are Lewis's invention. So is the timing, though The Problem of Pain makes the same guess in prose.
Not dualism. The Bent One is a creature who rebelled. Lewis rejects any picture of two equal powers.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/divine-council-index\/isaiah-14-12-15\/","n":"Isaiah 14:12-15","s":"Helel ben-shachar, shining one, son of the dawn, falls from heaven.","r":"Isaiah 14:12-15"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/divine-council-index\/ezekiel-28-11-19\/","n":"Ezekiel 28:11-19","s":"A guardian cherub in Eden, on the holy mountain, cast out for pride.","r":"Ezekiel 28:11-19"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/divine-council-index\/genesis-3-1-15\/","n":"Genesis 3:1-15","s":"The nachash in the garden, and the sentence passed on it.","r":"Genesis 3:1-15"}
- Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (1938), chs. 11, 18
- Lewis, The Problem of Pain (1940), ch. 9
