The Author/Story Analogy


The Author/Story Analogy

I am not sure who first explicitly used the author/story analogy to describe God’s relationship to the creation, but the first person to do so that I am aware of is Dorothy Sayers (if you do not know her work, you should). Regardless, the analogy has been used quite a bit since then and it is worth exploring here (see the link at the end to a super cool video that narrates a piece by CS Lewis that appeals to the analogy a bunch).

The idea is that in some important respects the creation is to God as a fictional story is to its human author. So, one implication of the idea is that the character and events in a story have their being, their reality because of the author of the story. They depend for their existence, all of their attributes, etc. on the mind of the author. Every item in the story reveals the author in different ways. But there are other elements to the analogy that are worth exploring. Below are a few of them.

Time: The author’s timeline need not (and usually does not) have any correspondence to the timeline of the story. The story’s events unfold over the course of twenty years, whereas the author’s imagining the story into existence may take place over the course of a week, a day, an hour, ....  

Change: The characters in the story undergo all sorts of changes that do not in any way correspond to changes in the author. A character gains some weight, the author does not; a character gains some knowledge, the author does not; a character dies, the author does not.

Features: The characters in the story have all sorts of features that do not in any way correspond to features of the author. A character is male, the author is not; a character is angry, the author is not; a character is tall, the author is not.

Space: There may be two differences here. First, the author occupies space, but the characters do not. Second, the author occupies a different kind of space than the space occupied by the characters.

Badness: After giving a paper on the problem of evil, I once asked the audience “Who killed Voldemort?” They replied, “Harry did.” No one thought to say that JK Rowling’s did. In important respects, they were right. Harry killed Voldemort. So, Harry is responsible for that killing. Rowling is responsible for some stuff, but from the fact that Harry killed Voldemort, it certainly does not follow that Rowling killed Voldemort. Perhaps she is responsible for the entire state of affairs [Harry’s killing of Voldemort] but that’s not the same thing. Just as Harry is a boy, but Rowling is not, Harry killed Voldemort, Rowling did not. Getting the attributions is crucial here, and may help us think about the problem of evil (I have a published paper that appeals to this, if anyone is interested).

Purposes: Just as it is foolish to criticize a Toyota Camry for not being able to drive you to England, so too is it foolish to criticize a sci-fi story for not failing to respect the actual laws of nature, or a romance story for failing to include aliens, etc. Perhaps the same can be said regarding God’s relationship to the creation. What is the purpose of the story that God is writing? Then, and perhaps only then, can we begin to raise objections.

Question 1: any other features of the analogy that we should add?
Question 2: what are some problems with the analogy?

Here is the link to the CS Lewis essay and video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXlBCZ_5OYw&t=616s



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