Why Read Fiction?

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amishrockstar

amishrockstar

Puritan Board Freshman
I'm a literature major at a non-Christian college and we just got done going through Sir Philip Sidney's "The Defense of Poesy" where he's answering Stephen Gosson (who's alleged to be a Puritan-- I'm not familiar with the man though) and what was supposed to be a general Puritan idea that declared the reading/writing of poetry (fiction) is a waste of time and shouldn't be practiced.
:pilgrim:
I've often thought about and been confronted by other Christians with the idea that all we need is the Bible-- reading fictional works such as those of C.S. Lewis are a waste of time. I'm wondering how some people at P.B. would answer that.
:detective:
One of Sir Sidney's answers was to assert that poetry (fiction) inspires us to virtue in ways that philosophical books can't because they can be very 'wordy' and dry. I can only imagine a Puritan of that era stating that "we have God's Word to instill virtue in us, so again, why do we need fiction?" In other words, why do I need a flashlight (poetry) to convey 'meaning' and virtue when I have a floodlight (the Bible)?
:2cents:
Thanks for your thoughts,
Matthew
 
The Bible has fiction (and fantasy!) in it: talking trees, walking trees, Dragons in it. The bible uses fiction to tell a story.
 
Why read (good) fiction?
Because it is pleasurable.

Why make wine?
"To gladden the heart" (Psa 104:15).

Why did God make trees beautiful?
To be "pleasant to the sight" (Gen 2:9).

Etc.
 
Anyone who requires more of a justification than "because it's fun" is a functional monastic who, in one way or another, is living inconsistently with his or her own principles by recreating. According to such reasoning, why do anything when we could be doing something "religious"?

There really is a lot behind this issue. Some people believe that our activities must necessarily be baptized with religion proper in order to be justifiable. They don't have an understanding of what it means to be a citizen of the city of man as well as the city of God. There's nothing inherently wrong with the city of man. In other words, God cares about good culture and we can eat, drink, read Dickens, and listen to Chopin to his glory. I recommend Michael Horton's book Where in the World is the Church?
 
CarolinaCalvinist,
Thanks for your comments-- I just ordered that book by Horton from monergism.com ...
My dad recently opened a Bible bookstore and one of the first things that he said was that he doesn't want 'fiction' in the store. He's attending an Anabaptist church so I had to donate a bunch of my own books in order to get some solid-reformed books in there (books by Packer, Pink, Sproul, Spurgeon, Owens, etc).
I also ran into this "every-book-is-a-waste-of-time-except-the-Bible" mentality at an SBC church that I used to go to. Their reason, again, was why do I want a 'flashlight' when I have a 'floodlight.' You made some interesting points-- thanks again.
Matthew
 
The ability to write literature and story is a gift from God. We should enjoy it and use it to his glory. Plus, fictional literature has a way of speaking truth (or error) to society that can't be accomplished in other means. Consider the Lord of the Rings, which is clearly influenced by Christian themes (though not an allegory). You could also consider the societal effects of books like Uncle Tom's Cabin. Literature has a way of shaping and combating worldviews. Christians should use it and enjoy it appropriately. :2cents:
 
I'd add that Puritans wrote poetry and fiction, although the focus was on faith. Think of Milton and Bunyan.

Fiction has a role in inspiring our imagination to good aspirations. Courage, intelligence, wisdom, charity, etc. can all be found in characters of good literature. And bad characteristics are set out too. Fiction is a great vehicle for bringing out in bold relief the subtle conflicts we have in our daily lives. For instance, whenever I run across an obsessive-compulsive type who is pursuing some end at all cost, I think of Ahab (the captain, not the king). It helps me put things in perspective. I remember that Melville's Ishmael was "alone to tell the story" and proceed with caution in my dealings.

A great deal of fiction is not worth reading. A great deal of non-fiction isn't worth reading. Yet, a great deal is too. The problem is that you can't find out which is which unless you read it.;)
 
CarolinaCalvinist said:
Anyone who requires more of a justification than "because it's fun" is a functional monastic who, in one way or another, is living inconsistently with his or her own principles by recreating. According to such reasoning, why do anything when we could be doing something "religious"?

There really is a lot behind this issue. Some people believe that our activities must necessarily be baptized with religion proper in order to be justifiable. They don't have an understanding of what it means to be a citizen of the city of man as well as the city of God. There's nothing inherently wrong with the city of man. In other words, God cares about good culture and we can eat, drink, read Dickens, and listen to Chopin to his glory. I recommend Michael Horton's book Where in the World is the Church?
Click to expand...

Is having "fun" or pleasure its own end? I.e. an ultimate end, or is it a means to an end?
 
Thanks Puritan Sailor,
I'd agree with a lot of what you said, but I can just hear the 'knee-jerk' reaction from those who would disagree-- "as Christians, we are to use the Word of God to effect society and combat worldviews, not fiction."
Anyway, I'm not sure if we can convince someone who doesn't 'want' to be convinced.
Thanks again,
Matthew
 
Peter said:
Is having "fun" or pleasure its own end? I.e. an ultimate end, or is it a means to an end?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure I understand.

amishrockstar said:
CarolinaCalvinist,
Thanks for your comments-- I just ordered that book by Horton from monergism.com ...
My dad recently opened a Bible bookstore and one of the first things that he said was that he doesn't want 'fiction' in the store. He's attending an Anabaptist church so I had to donate a bunch of my own books in order to get some solid-reformed books in there (books by Packer, Pink, Sproul, Spurgeon, Owens, etc).
I also ran into this "every-book-is-a-waste-of-time-except-the-Bible" mentality at an SBC church that I used to go to. Their reason, again, was why do I want a 'flashlight' when I have a 'floodlight.' You made some interesting points-- thanks again.
Matthew
Click to expand...

I'm glad you found it helpful. As a fellow college student I know what it feels like to be presented with numerous intellectual pursuits while sometimes feeling unnecessarily held back by a semi-gnostic understanding of the created world. Let me know what you think about the book!
 
People who think "stories" are a waste of time better get out their scissors and cut all of Christ's parables out of their New Testaments...

I'm reading The Way We Live Now (1875) by the English novelist Anthony Trollope (1815-1882). This novel is generally considered to be his masterpiece. Trollope uses this novel to indict the English society of his day for its rampant materialism and political and social corruption.

Not only entertaining, but edifying, too.

Good fiction truly is one of God's good gifts.
 
bookslover,
Thanks for your comments, maybe I'll take a look at that book by Trollope one of these days (after I read the mountain of books I have now).

The point that the individuals I’ve run across are trying to make is NOT that any 'stories,' parables, or anything found in the Bible is bad (so we can put the scissors away), but rather that anything OUTSIDE of the Bible is a waste of time to read or at the very least fictional stories are idle pursuits and we could better spend our time in the Bible.
Being a literature major, I read quite a bit outside of the Bible, I was simply curious how others on PB might answer their objections, such as believers reading Christian fiction, etc.
Thanks again
 
I read a fair amount of science fiction when I was in my late teens and early 20s. Not much since then; I guess I've lost my taste for it.

But the best science fiction is very good, indeed.
 
amishrockstar said:
Thanks Puritan Sailor,
I'd agree with a lot of what you said, but I can just hear the 'knee-jerk' reaction from those who would disagree-- "as Christians, we are to use the Word of God to effect society and combat worldviews, not fiction."
Anyway, I'm not sure if we can convince someone who doesn't 'want' to be convinced.
Thanks again,
Matthew
Click to expand...

Stories can convey the truth of the Word of God, just like good music, poetry, art, etc. I'm certainly not saying we should make Mark Twain our devotional reading, but there is much we can learn about our own culture and ideas through reading those great works which have influenced our culture. It also gives those gifted in writing an avenue to confront our culture with it's blindspots, and do so in such a way that is rather disarming or sometimes even comical. Just look at Jane Austin's novels or Charles Dickens. Or consider the disturbing portrayals of modernism and socialism in Orwell or Huxely. In fiction we can reveal the emptiness of worldy values and illustrate the true value of Christian virture without naming names. It's a different way to transform culture. As Christians we are not to retreat from culture. God equips people with writing gifts to be used for His glory. Who are we to tell them not to use those gifts? :2cents:
 
The value of fiction is what Aristotle termed "mimesis," or imitation. Fiction mimics reality in a metaphoric relationship ("X is Y," rather than simile, which would be "X is like Y"). For a time, as Coleridge would have it, we are to "suspend disbelief," and allow the author's world to become our own. Only after we have had such an experience can that exchange be analyzed for its accuracy to the "real world."

Fiction is valuable, therefore, because it acts as a heuristic device in many cases. Consider Dostoevsky, for example, whose novels test the nihilism prevalent in his own time. Fiction is also valuable because it awakens one's imagination to the sacramental nature of life. If one understands the metaphoric value of a piece of literature, if one comprehends the significance of inky scratches upon a sheet of white paper, then one begins to intuit the way in which the divine is infused into the mundane. In other words, the whole world becomes a poem, with infinite complexity and multivalence. Fiction reminds us that the world is full of the presence of what Faulkner called "the old verities," and that there is more to life than the question, "When will I be blown up?" In other words, fiction is a way of comprehending the world indirectly, which offers not mere pleasure (though it is pleasurable), but the access to the deepest realities.
 
Literature also makes its readers have a greater sympathy and appreciation for-albeit often sinful-people/culture around them. It fosters genuine humility and healthy emotions for others.

It heightens, deepens, and broadens the creative powers of the intellect, which, in turn, will affect one's ability to illuminate an otherwise confusing situation and to persuade others to the truth.

One feature of the Bible that I find so compelling is that it's a story, one in which a reader can get lost. The drama of God's redemptive plan is rich and complete; the beauty of its structure, of its coherence, of its characters is aesthetically pleasing and grand for the eye to behold. When I read the Scripture, I really am existentially caught up in the christological climax of every passage. One basic reason why people don't read their Bibles well is that they don't read well in general.
 
weinhold said:
Fiction is valuable, therefore, because it acts as a heuristic device in many cases.
Click to expand...

And steak is valuable because it acts as a heuristic device, especially with blue cheese topping it. Oh and that is also the value of a good massage: massages are nice heuristic devices. And don't forget the beauty of looking at such minimally well-designed pieces of technology like iPods. Heuristic beauty, that is. ;)

weinhold said:
Fiction is also valuable because it awakens one's imagination to the sacramental nature of life.
Click to expand...

Amen!
 
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k.seymore said:
And steak is valuable because it acts as a heuristic device, especially with blue cheese topping it. Oh and that is also the value of a good massage: massages are nice heuristic devices. And don't forget the beauty of looking at such minimally well-designed pieces of technology like iPods. Heuristic beauty, that is. ;)
Click to expand...


Sorry, I didn't get the joke.
 
Draught Horse said:
means to an end, although I don't see what you are getting at.
Click to expand...

If fiction is fun why should we have fun? Don't we believe some things people do for fun is unjustifiable?

What is the point of fun? Rest, catharsis from daily stress? Does reading fiction fit into this? how?
 
Peter said:
If fiction is fun why should we have fun? Don't we believe some things people do for fun is unjustifiable?

What is the point of fun? Rest, catharsis from daily stress? Does reading fiction fit into this? how?
Click to expand...

With all due respect,

1) I have no idea what you are talking about.
2) It seems like you are splitting hairs.
 
Peter said:
If fiction is fun why should we have fun? Don't we believe some things people do for fun is unjustifiable?

What is the point of fun? Rest, catharsis from daily stress? Does reading fiction fit into this? how?
Click to expand...

True, somethings that people do for fun are unjustifiable, but we know those things are so because of the word of God. That same word of God has nothing to say about fiction either way.

I would appreciate if you could clarify the meaning of your questions, or why you feel there is a need for christians to answer them. The bible tells us in Pro 24:13 to eat honey simply because it is good and sweet. Granted, that is part of a larger metaphor teaching the value of wisdom, but I fail to see where the bible prevents christians from engaging in activities simply for the sake of enjoyment if those activities are not condemned by God.
 
Puritan Sailor said:
God is fun! :D

I read some where that we were suppose to "enjoy him forever..." :book2:
Click to expand...

I've been watching this thread, as writing is a twin passion for me along with ministry (the two are one in some respects). As Patrick implied earlier, works such as LOTR powerfully impact the moral, aesthetic, and very heart-sense of us.

Sometimes fiction, and I think of a special sort of fiction, that which enters into the mythic realm, may intuit spiritual realites in such profundity, that so-called "realism" pales before it. Arthurian legend is an example of such.

THE MIRAGE OF ARTHUR

I do not say legend as that is less
real
than a reflection of the real,
distorted or hazy as that may be
floating as it is in air
or consciousness
over the reflected

what, then, is the real
under the mirage of Arthur?

Take a king
of unique and mysterious birth
rising out of mean obscurity
to seize a sword of such unearthly power
— which none other can grasp and wield —
by it uniting disparate and warring peoples
into a unified kingdom
and by his prowess,
majesty of personhood
and true love of them
win such love from his people
they would as soon die as live
for love of him

the sword given by a woman
in whom rested the living waters
from a High Throne off-world,
from whence also was forged the blade
which had no beginning
gleaming always with the brilliance
of the child’s father

A king who died a mysterious death
and the word was
would return
and bring the kingdom again
in true and greater glory.

They live — even in this day —
who live by this
real-under-the-mirage joy,
Story-beneath-all-stories joy,
who dance and sing
in the king’s unending kingdom
while yet in Time,
for the glory of legends and such mirages
has overflowed into Time
and cannot any longer be contained
but must wash across the earth
till the whole is filled with it

even though the precious dispensing vessels
be first broken, blood like seed soaking the earth,
saints and martyrs all, for love,
for Arthur’s true image, and return.​

-------------

Love some fiction as I do, I personally prefer to write in a new genre called, Visionary adventure, non-fiction. May not the truth of our lives following Christ, beset about by devils, en route to Celestial City, tested and refined by fiery trials as we stand visible before the world in the Global Arena of Consciousness, be as exciting and attention-arresting as make-believe stories?

Is not our very consciousness the stuff of heroic legend, albeit containing an element of the anti-hero (Tim Keller: "more wicked than we dared to think, more loved than we dared to hope"), and yet these lives as sons and daughters of the Almighty, adopted into His royal lineage are stunningly more glorious than any legend of earth!

And from whence we came! Was it not from the monsters of the brood, the living dead, glorious of skin-covering perhaps, but within progeny of the prince of demons in our human form.

Fiction pales before the actuality of this human condition we are in, were there but the tellers to say it. Did not Dylan intimate such, in his “Chimes of Freedom,” flashing like lightning,

strikin’ for the gentle, strikin’ for the kind,
strikin’ for the guardians and protectors of the mind,
and the poet, and the painter far behind his rightful time…​

----------

THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL

will never be written

because, first, who cares
for even a great sprawling fiction
since there is not one Dostoevsky alive
to fill it with living vision

and then, again, who cares
for but another fantasy
however shot through with genius
in these archetypal days of our reality

no, a novel is a plaything
of genius, and peoples
to make up for the absence
of an epic Poet

only the actual matters
anymore, only the truth
of these our lives & this our world
has any relevance whatsoever

and it is in the works

THE GREAT AMERICAN POEM​

-----------

Art may encompass the real world, and in it to "enjoy Him forever" our raison d'être, He the strength of our hearts, His loving kindness better than life. All this in the adventure of the ages, a grand saga of horror and glory. Our lives.

Sorry for going on so; y'all were touching upon one of my loves!
 
satz said:
True, somethings that people do for fun are unjustifiable, but we know those things are so because of the word of God. That same word of God has nothing to say about fiction either way.

I would appreciate if you could clarify the meaning of your questions, or why you feel there is a need for christians to answer them. The bible tells us in Pro 24:13 to eat honey simply because it is good and sweet. Granted, that is part of a larger metaphor teaching the value of wisdom, but I fail to see where the bible prevents christians from engaging in activities simply for the sake of enjoyment if those activities are not condemned by God.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure how I could possibly clarify the question. With the exception of a single grammatical mistake I think it's pretty strait forward English.

I think they're important questions because Christians are called to redeem the time because the days are evil and to do everything for the glory of God. Every moment we live under the watchful eye of God. Every act should be ordered before him. Everything we do we do for a purpose that we think will ultimately lead us to good. Have we examined to what purpose we act and followed the chain of lesser good-for-something-else's-sake to its source, what's good for its own sake ? I believe any act done simply for the sake of its own enjoyment is idolatry. It's condemned by the command to have no other god's before God. God alone is Good.

I agree heartily with Patrick.

I think I got you guys defensive b/c I gave the impression I'm attacking fiction. I believe from common sense intuition that fiction is good but I'd like to know why. How does fiction bring us to God?
 
Let's not forget that Paul was well-versed (no pun intended) in Greek poetry, despite the fact that his master, Gamaliel, was quite opposed to it.
 
Peter said:
I think I got you guys defensive b/c I gave the impression I'm attacking fiction. I believe from common sense intuition that fiction is good but I'd like to know why. How does fiction bring us to God?
Click to expand...

Where did you get the phrase "bring us to God" and where did the requirement for whatever that means come from?
 
Another justification for reading fiction is that we need to be familiar with the currents of thought in modern culture. As much as it pains us to admit, most people in culture are not influenced by weighty, nuanced theological treatises. Francis Schaeffer made this point really well: more people are influenced by literature than they are by abstract arguments.

How many of us can name the top books in American life at the moment? How would you respond to them? Could you, using those books, anticipate the way culture is heading? David Wells is particularly good at this.

Why read fiction? One of the reasons is that it is the arena in which we do battle. For example, one of my favorite authors is Robert Jordan. However, Jordan's books have a cyclical/hindu view of history and evil. How would I respond to it, etc. etc.
 
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