The Big Idea

I've noticed there is room in C.S. Lewis' Narnia tales for more stories. Those who know the series well might think there couldn't be any more Narnia tales, since C.S. Lewis isn't around anymore and because the series as he wrote it went from the very beginning of Narnia (in The Magician's Nephew ) to the very end (in The Last Battle ). But there is, in fact, at least one noticeable gap in the stories, something that happened of interest that's never been written into books. Between the time of the establishment of the first King of Narnia and the situation where the White Witch rules Narnia (that is, in between The Magician's Nephew  and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe ) the actions of these kings have never been documented, nor has the rise of the White Witch to power. Since the whole series of current Narnia books is called "The Chronicles of Narnia," calling a series of books that covers the time period I'm referencing "Th...

"The Garden's First Sinner" is a short story idea I had years ago but never got around to writing, partly because I'm more interested in the idea than the story. Let me be clear up front that the purpose of this story would not have been to advance any new theological notions (I don't believe what I suggest below myself), but simply to make its readers think about what could be possible... The story would be based on the observation that there is a difference between Satan, the spiritual adversary of the human race, bits of details about whom are visible throughout Scripture, and a serpent, which is described in Genesis as being the most "subtle" beast of the field (in King James English). That is, the serpent is described as the most intelligent of animals, short in smarts only to mankind. Yet Scripture also portrays Satan as a serpent or serpent-like (most famously as a dragon in the book of Revelation) and specifically links him to the temptation of...

I haven’t read Brian Greene’s 2011 book,  The Hidden Reality , but according to an  online post  which includes a summary of this work’s explanation of the most current thinking by theoretical physicists on the subject of multiple universes—a.k.a. “multiverses”—a.k.a. parallel universes—there are not only physicists who believe more than one universe is possible, as a collective whole they have proposed nine different  types  of multiverses. Although naturally they disagree among themselves concerning which of these, if any, has any valid possibility to really exist. Of course, in the classical understanding of the word it’s a contradiction to speak of anything other than one universe, since the word by definition embraces all of material creation throughout all space and time. But what’s meant by more than one universe is that we human beings may be isolated in one possible reality, in which we would only be able to see a certain amount of the “tota...