Masarykova univerzita Filozofická fakulta
Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky
Bakalářská diplomová práce
Markéta Růžičková
2012 Markéta Růžičková
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Masaryk University Faculty of Arts
Department of English and American Studies
English Language and Literature
Markéta Růžičková
Atheism in His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis
Supervisor: Stephen Paul Hardy, Ph. D.
2012
I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.
…………………………………………….. Author’s signature
I would like to thank my supervisor Stephen Paul Hardy, Ph.D. for his valuable advice, kind support and patient guidance.
Table of Contents
Introduction ...... 1
1. Atheism, theism and religion ...... 5
2. His Dark Materials ...... 12
3. The debate about His Dark Materials ...... 37
Conclusion ...... 42
Works Cited ...... 46
Primary sources ...... 46
Secondary sources ...... 46
Resumé (English) ...... 50
Resumé (Czech) ...... 52
Introduction
In this bachelor thesis I am going to focus on atheistic elements in the fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials by British author Philip Pullman. The series includes three volumes published as follows: The Golden Compass (originally published as The
Northern Lights), The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass1. Although these books are primarily intended for young readers, they are widely read by adults and have become frequent topics of academic research. Later, the release of The Golden Compass film based on the first book of the series in 2007 drew the attention of the public to His Dark
Materials trilogy and its acquired wide publicity set off a passionate debate between believers and non-believers.
In order to provide insight into the so-called “Philip Pullman controversy”2, the first chapter involves an introduction to atheism in general and gives an idea of issues I am going to refer to in demonstrating atheistic ideas in His Dark Materials.
I will describe the crucial difference between theistic and atheistic approach as a source of continuous effort to justify the truthfullness of one of them over another.
Religion and its aspects are the main concern of Pullman; however, he does not deal with all its forms. In order to give an idea of the nature of the object of Pullman‟s criticism, the term „religion‟ will be defined. Nevertheless, there is not only one definition of religion for there are many forms which religion includes. Since Philip
Pullman mostly deals with Christianity, the fundamental understanding of Christianity as a world religion and what it means to be Christian will be provided. Atheism is also somewhat complicated because it takes several forms such as deism, pantheism,
1 In the thesis, abbreviations of the titles of the books will be used for the purpose of citing (TGC – The Golden Compass, TSK – The Subtle Knife, TAS – The Amber Spyglass). 2 As Christopher Hartney terms it in his essay "Imperial and Epic: Philip Pullman‟s Dead God".
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naturalism, agnosticism and evolutionism, definitions of which will be clarified in order to describe various conceptions of atheism.
The second chapter focuses on atheistic elements in the His Dark Materials trilogy and the way Philip Pullman expresses his opinion on religion and the Church throughout the story. In order to put the story into context, the short synopsis and settings of all three books of the series will be provided and I will also describe fundamental elements of the trilogy which include Pullman‟s confessed inspiration in the works of John Milton and William Blake, the purposeful use of the genre of fantasy and the theory of parallel universes
Though the trilogy is described as an atheistic one, the story itself is theological in nature. Pullman uses theological ideas and subverts them to criticize religion and its aspects which he does not agree with as a supporter of humanism. One of Pullman‟s objections to religion is the abuse of power and corruption which is depicted in the form of the Church in the trilogy. Pullman characterizes features of religous power and its consequences in the article “The War on Words”3 which will be used to demonstrate how Pullman describes the Church in the trilogy.
Further to theology in His Dark Materials, Pullman‟s concept of the soul which is similar to the Christian understanding but also different in some ways will be dealt with. The relationship between a human and his soul is often incorrectly compared to the relationship that believers have with God. Another use of theology is very unusual - science and religion are interconnected since the Church fully controls and introduces censorship. Through the linkage between science and religion, experimental theology as a scientific discipline concentrates on making use of science in favor of thelogical aims.
One of the main concerns of the trilogy and experimental theology is a mysterious
3 See Philip Pullman: „The War on Words‟ in The Guardian, 6 November 2004.
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elementary particle called Dust which is considered to be the manifestation of Original
Sin. However, Dust is examined from various perspectives and acquires many meanings throughout the trilogy.
The traditional Christian concepts of the Temptation and the Fall are also subverted in the trilogy and used to show Pullman‟s attitude to the business of growing up and the notion of innocence and experience. In the trilogy, the Temptation, the Fall and growing up are interconnected and express Pullman‟s unusual attitude to them. The
Tempter and the character of Eve are also seen in different way than in the traditional
Christian account.
Pullman notes that his story, besides other things, is about killing God.
Pullman‟s fictional God, known as the Authority in the trilogy is actually not the
Creator but a liar who oppresses all intelligent beings. This concept causes controversy and meets with harsh criticism. The most discussed issue is the death of God depicted at the end of The Amber Spyglass. Like Nietzsche, Pullman claims that personal God is dead but he is not as radical as Nietzsche. In the story, the death of God serves as both a metaphor and a means of criticism.
Pullman‟s notion of Heaven and Hell is another theological aspect subverted in the trilogy and its different concept indicates what opinion Pullman has on the belief in
Heaven and Hell. However, even if he would agree with getting rid of it he states that people still need Heaven. That is why Pullman introduces his notion of the Republic of
Heaven and elaborates the idea of replacing the Kingdom of Heaven with the Republic of Heaven which includes eradication of the Church and God and, subsequently, the idea of converting the belief from something only promised and imaginary into something useful for the present-day world.
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The third chapter focuses on criticism of His Dark Materials in general from the point of view of two groups of critics. The first group includes those who disagree with
Pullman‟s attitude to Christianity and the Church, his concept of children‟s literature and its role. The most often objections raised against the trilogy will be dealt with in this chapter and Pullman‟s answer to them will be provided. These objections include
Pullman‟s criticism of organized religion, dogmatism, nihilism of atheism and his attitude to children‟s literature and its topics.
The second group of critics compares His Dark Materials to the Chronicles of
Narnia by C.S. Lewis. Pullman is often called anti-Lewis and accused of writing his trilogy as a purposeful attack of the Narnia seires. I will describe Pullman‟s opinion on
Narnia and Lewis„ concept of childhood which clashes with the one Pullman presents in
His Dark Materials.
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1. Atheism, theism and religion
This chapter intends to give an outline of the concepts Philip Pullman deals with in the His Dark Materials trilogy. It is necessary to define the difference between theistic and atheistic approaches for they serve as contraries, aspects of which are compared with each other. Religion is also in the centre of Pullman‟s attention. Since it is a notion which includes many various forms, the particular concept which is the object of Pullman‟s criticism needs to be specified. So does atheism and its forms which are as diverse as forms of religion.
Ravi Zacharias, a Christian apologist and the author of numerous books concerning Christianity and atheism, points out: “Nothing, absolutely nothing, has a more direct bearing on the moral choices made by individuals or the purposes pursued by society than belief or disbelief in God.” (21) These two approaches represent two completely different ways of perceiving life and divide society into two major notional groups – believers and atheists, the first one being much larger than the second one. The most significant difference between them is that atheists do not consider God to be the creator of the world, they question his existence and therefore his participation in world events and lives of people, and finally, they do not derive the moral codes of their behaviour from religious scriptures. Believers, on the other hand, seek the meaning of life and a universe in the existence of a supernatural being, almighty God, who created the world and directs it justly. These facts lead to an incessant discussion which Philip
Pullman has contributed to, and not only in the His Dark Materials trilogy.
Since ancient times, religion has undergone development from primitive tribal animism through polytheism to monotheism. Each nation has its own mythological stories explaining the origin of the cosmos which was created out of primal chaos by a supernatural mysterious force - this is how ancient people tried to answer their deeply
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rooted psychological need for finding context and this urge still remains in existence, being one of the explanations why religion is present even in the modern age and remains an essential part of some people‟s lives.
However, religion includes a wide range of its forms acquired in the course of its development, therefore its definition is rather problematic. Definitions describing religion as a belief in a supernatural force, which is infinite, and to which people dedicate their souls, prove to be shallow and insufficent for they exclude non-theistic religions such as Buddhism and another religious conceptions such as political religion and various economic or other systems including for example capitalism. Martin
Southwold in his essay “Buddhism and the Definition of Religion” demonstrates the difficulty of defining religion and points to the fact that religion is not an “institution with sharp boundaries” (362) and therefore, a traditional theistic definition fails to embrace all conceptions of religion.
In fact, it is almost impossible to describe a religious diversity in one definition and that is why there are as many definitions as forms of religion. Definitions could be divided into several categories on the basis of two general functions of religion – transcendental and pragmatic. In his essay “Transcendental and Pragmatic Aspects of
Religion”, David G. Mandelbaum focuses on religion from the point of view of anthropology and argues that religion, in its basic meaning regarding its primary purpose, is “a group‟s belief and acts relating to their concept of the supernatural. The term „religion‟ thus includes abstract cosmology as well as specific „magical‟ devices used to cure or exorcise.” (1174)
However, each people has its own unique culture which is also reflected in religion and its various rituals and deities. In spite of such differing cultures, all religions answer at least similar needs of society. “A prime need is to explain the world;
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another is to relieve some of the suffering that men are heir to” and “a main point of the religious quest is the search for certainty and determined order.” (1183) The need for finding someone‟s context in the world is included in a transcendental aspect which is fundamental and timeless while a pragmatic aspect, to ease someone‟s life, is personal and specific. Therefore the transcendental aspect must be unquestionable and accepted dogmatically by all believers so that religion serves its purpose while the pragmatic aspect could fail without breaking down of society.
Martin Southwold argues that anything which could be called a religion must have at least some of attributes shared in various forms by all religions. These attributes include concerns with godlike beings and the sacred, the possibility of salvation from worldly existence, ritual practices, dogmatically accepted beliefs which cannot be explained by logical assumptions, an ethical code and punisments for infringements of the code, a mythology, a body of scriptures, religious elite such as a priesthood and an association with a moral community and an ethnic group. (370-371)
David G. Mandelbaum defines religion on the basis of the relation between transcendental and pragmatic aspects. He determines four categories in which these aspects are undifferentiated, partly differentiated, more fully separated and reform.
(1174) “The first appears in very simple societies, the second holds true in many tribal societies, the third has been characteristic of the major civilizations, while the fourth includes the widespread modern trend to do away with the pragmatic aspects of religion.” (1174) With regard to a study by Robert Bellah, a sociologist interested in the evolution of religion, Mandelbaum assigns each of the four categories to one of the
Bellah‟s five stages of the development of religion.
The first stage, primitive religion, is a “relatively unspecialized kind of religion maintained by peoples of relatively unspecialized cultures.” (1185) The second stage,
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archaic religion, is usually known as tribal religion, and comparing to the first stage, it is a more diversified kind of religion based on rather differentiated culture. A two-class system of society began to emerge – those in power were superior to others in terms of politics and religion while the superiority was dependent on the transcendental concerns of religion. (1185)
The third stage called historic religion includes religions based on its own written scripture. The transcendental aspect is more separated from the pragmatic one reflecting the formation of a traditional four-class system of society: the cultural- religious elite, political-military elite, urban merchant and artisan lower-status groups and rural lower-status groups. (1185) There are many forms of historic religions as they differ a lot from each other but all of them share a dualistic quality. They suppose the existence of dual worlds, earthly and heavenly, the former is inferior to the latter and the afterlife is assigned main religious concern. The transendental aspects are separated from the pragmatic concerns, each has its own set of procedures but both still operates under the same supernatural concepts. (1185) The emergence of historic religions in the first millennium B.C. marked a milestone in the human religious history as they have formed world religions of today, among them Christianity.
The fourth stage, early modern religion, denies the notion of a rejection of playing down earthly life. Regarding the Protestant Reformation in Europe, “religious beliefs in this category postulate that salvation is attained not necessarily through withdrawal from worldly activities, but in the midst of them. Salvation is potentially available to everyone.” (1186) The transcendental and pragmatic practices are opposed for pragmatic aspects are rejected as a legitimate part of religion. The separation of religion from magical rites and their mutual incompatibility are also influenced by the rise of science. As far as the contradiction of transcendental and pragmatic aspects is
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concerned, the fifth stage goes further. “Religion is conceived as being grounded in the human situation; the cosmos is viewed as having an infinitely multiplex rather than a simple duplex structure.” (1186)
All these forms of religion are categorized according to people‟s relation to the supernatural. However, the supernatural can take many forms distinct from its fundamental understanding of something “beyond the grasp of man and above the natural world”. (1174) While the supernatural has gradually ceased to be an inseparable part of life, especially in the twentieth century, it does not dissapear but only change its form. This can be demonstrated by so-called political religion. In his essay “The
Concepts of 'Religion', 'Political Religion' and the Study of Nazism” in which he deals with religious aspects of political religion, Stanley Stowers argues that “the concept trades on the idea that politics and religion are essentially separate, different or incommensurable” and the notion of political religion is based on the sanctifying of the politics while religion is secularized. (9) Political religions serve as substitutes for traditional religions such as Christianity and throughout history, it took the form of political regimes and ideologies such as Nazism, fascism and communism. It is characteristic that the supernatural is replaced by the cult of personality of political leaders, among them Stalin, Lenin, Hitler and others.
However, Philip Pullman does not include all forms of religion when criticizing aspects of religion in the His Dark Materials trilogy. He focuses on the concept of traditional religion; that means historic religion according to the Robert Bellah‟s classification of the evolutional stages of religion. As far as his criticism of religious aspects such as the belief in God and the dogmatism of scriptures is concerned, Pullman concentrates on only one form of religion in the trilogy – to be more specific, on
Christianity as the most widespread religion in the world.
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Dana L. Robert states in her book Christian Mission: How Christianity Became a World Religion that “today roughly one-third of the people on the earth are
Christians.” (12) But what does it mean to be a Christian? Christianity as multicultural religion is often nicknamed a “world” religion but in fact, it is a “mosaic of local beliefs and practices in creative tension with a universal framework shaped by belief in the God of the Bible, as handed down by Jesus and his followers.” (Robert 9) What is common to all of these local believers is a dogmatic nature which, according to the analytical philosopher Bertrand Russell includes “belief in God and immortality”, and “belief about Christ”. These features differentiate Christians from Buddhists, Muslims and other believers.
Like religion, atheism involves several forms. In its basic meaning, atheism includes everyone who does not believe in any gods. Nevertheless, taking a closer look at the issue, atheism can be divided into deism, pantheism, naturalism, agnosticism and evolutionism. Even though deists do believe in the existence of supernatural intelligence, they were called the atheists in the eighteenth century. In their view, God is the creator of the world but after setting the laws of the universe, he does not intervene in human affairs and therefore they do not believe in any supernatural events such as miracles and infailibility of scriptures – it is a form of religion based on reason.
Pantheists do not believe in God as a supernatural personal being or a creator at all – for them, God is the same as Nature and the Universe. As Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist and the author of The God Delusion, puts it: “Pantheism is sexed- up atheism. Deism is watered-down theism.” (18)
Other shades of meaning of atheism are agnosticism which stands for uncertainty about the existence of God resulting from lack of evidence, and naturalism which, in its philosophical sense, is distinguished from supernaturalism by the belief
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there is nothing like a supernatural creative intelligence beyond the physical world. And finally, evolutionism, stemming from Darwin‟s theory of natural selection, rejects the creationist‟s belief that the world was created by a supernatural being, and holds the opinion that evolution is the most probable explanation of the origin of the world.
Throughout history, many thinkers, philosophers and scientists have aimed to give reasons for the existence of God or disprove it. In spite of the great number of so- called proofs, none of them really prove anything being only arguments based on logical deduction of both believers and atheists. Unfortunately, argumentation of atheists is, in most cases, absolutely unacceptable to believers„ understanding, and vice versa. Philip Pullman has also contributed to this discussion. Although he does not aim to disprove the existence of God, calling himself an agnostic, he rails against religion and critisizes certain aspects of religous belief and some Christian views. In His Dark
Materials, he integrates these aspects into the story and earned both praise and fierce criticism.
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2. His Dark Materials
This chapter deals with the His Dark Materials trilogy in detail focusing on
Philip Pullman‟s attitude to religious aspects and, to be more precise, to Christian notions which are often subverted in the story to serve Pullman as the means of criticism. Theological ideas are then essential parts of His Dark Materials, though it is labelled as an atheistic fantasy trilogy. In order to comment on atheistic features in the story, which are frequently regarded as controversial and offensive by believers, the context of His Dark Materials will be outlined before individual subverted Christian concepts are dealt with.
In order to put the story into context, it is worth mentioning synpopses and settings of all three books. The Golden Compass takes place in a universe very similiar to ours with the exception of the fact that people‟s soul is situated outside their bodies in the form of an animal (the concept of so-called “daemon” will be dealt with in this chapter in detail) and that the Church has absolute power over every aspect of life. The
Magisterium, as the Church is called, is a “tangle of courts, colleges, and councils”
(TGC 30) which was established after the abolition of the Papacy. These Church‟s agencies grow up under the protection of the Magisterium and some of them ascend to power. One of the most radical and feared of agencies is the Consistorial Court of
Discipline.
Lyra Belacqua is a wild twelve-year old girl brought up by scholars in Jordan
College, Oxford which is the center of experimental theology. She and her daemon
Pantalaimon prevents the attempt of the college master to poinson her uncle Lord Asriel who arrives to Oxford to inform scholars about his discovery of new facts about mysterious Dust seen in Aurora Borealis and news about parallel universes theory.
Meanwhile, there are rumours about Gobblers, the members of the General Oblation
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Board – one of the Church‟s agency, who kidnap children and Lyra‟s friend Roger is taken away by them. Lyra vows to rescue him but instead she becomes an assistant of the charming Mrs Coulter and has to leave Oxford. Before she leaves, the master of the college gives her an alethiometer, a precious compass-like device which indicates the truth. Lyra finds out that Mrs Coulter is the head of the organization called the General
Oblation Board which is actually the abbreviation for Gobblers. Lyra escapes and is rescued by the Gyptians, nomadic people living on boats. They lead an expedition to rescue kidnapped children who are kept somewhere in the north in Bolvangar. Lyra learns that the Oblation Board carries out barbaric experiments on children and helps to save them. She thinks she is supposed to deliver an alethiometer to Lord Asriel who is kept imprisoned in the north but instead she causes the death of Roger and enables Lord
Asriel to tear a hole in a parallel universe.
The Subtle Knife is set not only in the universe of The Golden Compass, but in another universe and ours. Will Parry is a twelve-year old boy who lives in Oxford in our universe and takes care of his mentally ill mother. He accidently discovers a window that leads to a city in another world where he meets Lyra and Pantalaimon. It is rumoured that Lord Asriel plans to fight against the Magisterium. Lyra is determined to discover more about Dust and she and Will go back to our universe. In Oxford
University, she meets Dr. Mary Malone who researches “shadows”, the same as Dust and the Dark Matter. Meanwhile, Will gains the Subtle knife, a powerful weapon which enables him to create windows between worlds. Dr. Mary Malone is able to communicate with “shadows”, conscious particles, and discovers that she will play the role of the serpent while Lyra is fated to be the second Eve.
In The Amber Spyglass, the Magisterium plans to kill Lyra before she yields to the Fall. Lord Asriel gathers armies of witches, angels and other allies willing to fight
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against the Authority and the power of the Magisterium. Mary Malone leaves our universe and steps into another one where she studies the culture of mulefas, elephantine intelligent creatures, which leads her to get to know what Dust is and play her serpent role. The story leads Lyra and Will, among other universes, in the world of the dead. The final battle begins and the Authority dies of his own weakness. At the end, Will, Lyra and Mary Malone play their roles of Adam, Eve and the serpent, and the future of all universes depends on their decisions.
As far as Pullman‟s inspiration is concerned, he notes: “Blake said Milton was a true poet and of the Devil‟s party without knowing it. I am of the Devil‟s party and know it.4” He hints at the fact that he “shall never like God” (1) as he expressed himself in a lecture for The Blake Society “I must create a system”, and also at his inspiration which comes from the works of William Blake and John Milton‟s Paradise Lost.
Indeed, the whole series is named after a phrase in Paradise Lost:
Into this wild abyss,
The womb of nature and perhaps her grave,
Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,
But all these in their pregnant causes mixed
Confusedly, and which thus must ever fight,
Unless the almighty maker them ordain
His dark materials5 to create more worlds,
Into this wild abyss the wary fiend
Stood on the brink of hell and looked a while,
Pondering his voyage... (Milton 57-58)
4 See Helena de Bertodano: „I am of the Devil„s Party‟ in The Telegraph, 29 January 2002.
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Pullman builds up the story of his trilogy on Milton‟s phrase “his dark materials” refering to the dark matter, which is called Dust in the trilogy, that serves as a metaphor for a means of creating worlds. The idea of parallel universes is crucial for the story – it takes place in many universes which mingle with each other, some of them are hard to distinguish from our universe and some them are completely different. Pullman refers to
Everett‟s theory of the quantum mechanics interpretation of many worlds which denies the existence of only one separate universe and says that there is not just one world but a countless number of worlds in the Universe. The simplified definition of Everett‟s theory is provided in the trilogy: “[This] world, and every other universe, came about as a result of possibility. Take the example of tossing a coin: it can come down head or tails, and we don‟t know before it lands which was it‟s going to fall. If it comes down heads, it means that the possibility of its coming down tails has collapsed. Until that moment these possibilities were equal. But on another world, it does come down tails.
And when that happenes, the two words split apart.” (TGC 376-377)
The notion of parallel universes is not the only one which indicates the genre of fantasy. Philip Pullman has chosen the genre, though he says he is not a fantasy fan. He points out: “It is not that I don‟t like fantasy. I don‟t like what it does. Fantasy, and fiction in general, is failing to do what it might be doing. It has unlimited potential to explore all sorts of metaphysical and moral questions, but it is not.6” He made sure that his trilogy would not be the case. Vanessa Crosby in her essay “Innocence and
Experience: The Subversion of the Child Archetype in Philip Pullman‟s Speculative
Soteriology” labels the genre of His Dark Materials as “applied fantasy”, a genre in which its author “applies fantastic devices toward social or philosophical ends”. (260)
6 See Angelique Chrisafis: „Pullman lays down moral challenge for writers‟ in The Guardian, 12 August 2002.
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To be more specific, in His Dark Materials storytelling devices are specifically chosen in order to explore spiritual and religous issues.
Though employing an athestic approach, the story also, besides the genre of fantasy, makes use of using theological ideas. None of the characters doubts the existence of God as he truly exists in His Dark Materials but it turns out that he is a liar.
Furthermore, the plot is based on the biblical story about the Fall, the orginal sin of
Adam and Eve and their banishment from the Garden of Eden. On the other hand,
Pullman does not follow the biblical canon without questioning it, critisizing it and challenging established ideas.
In the article “The War on Words7”, Pullman deals with the danger theocracies pose to and describes the characteristics of religious power. Absolute majority of these is present in His Dark Materials while the world Lyra lives in presents itself as a theocracy.
These characteristics include: at first, each religion has a “holy book, a scripture whose word is inerrant, whose authority is above dispute.” (The War on Words) In the universes of the His Dark Materials world, there is the Bible, even though in each universe it has its own version, fundamental features are the same. Second, there are
“prophets and doctors of the church, who interpret the holy book and pronounce on its meaning.” (The War on Words) The Magisterium holds firm to the Bible‟s principles and every breach of the obligations is considered to be a sin.
Third, there is “a priesthood with special powers, which can confer blessings and privileges on the laity, or withdraw them.” (The War on Words) In His Dark Materials,
Pullman notes that blessings do not always represent noble gestures. In The Amber
Spyglass, a young priest Father Gomez is given a blessing by the Consistorial Court to
7 See Philip Pullman: „The War on Words‟ in The Guardian, 6 November 2004.
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kill Lyra, twelve-year old girl and the main character of the series, because of the rumour she might be the new Eve. Father Gomez is even “weeping with pride” for the
Court gives its blessing. (TAS 72)
The fourth, fifth and sixth points are closely connected with each other. They are
“the concept of heresy and its punisment”, “an inquisition with the powers of a secret police force”, and “a complex procedural apparatus of betrayal, denunciation, confession, trial and execution.” (The War on Words) To demonstrate, in the Golden
Compass, this is how the theory of existence of parallel universes is seen by the Church:
Barnard and Stokes were two - how shall I put it - renegade theologians
who postulated the existence of numerous other worlds like this one,
neither heaven nor hell, but material and sinful. They are there, close by,
but invisible and unreachable. The Holy Church naturally disapproved of
this abominable heresy, and Barnard and Stokes were silenced. (TGC 30)
Next, there is “a fear and hatred of external unbelievers” (The War on Words) and those who may pose a threat to the only unquestioned truth. To show disagreement with the Church„s policy is not a wise thing to do in the world where Lyra lives. The
Magisterium is stronger than anyone and powerful enough to excommunicate or even kill their enemies in secret.
In all universes in Pullman‟s fictional world, every human and other intelligent creatures have a soul though it has a different form in various worlds. In Lyra‟s world, everyone is born together with a seperate being which accounts for the physical manifestation of the soul in an animal form that is called a daemon. Daemons are not considered to be pets or mere animals. They are equal to their human partners because they are what make them humans. A human and his daemon forms a complete unit connected by a strong bond. They make up a whole with their human partners not only
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as parts of their physical bodies but also emotionally as their beloved companions through life. Whatever animal form daemons may take, they are capable of human speech.
Essentially, a daemon„s shape and behaviour reflect human personality, thoughts and feelings, having the same intelligence as his partner. For instance, Lord Asriel‟s daemon is a snow leopard reflecting his cold, pride and determined nature, and Mrs
Coulter‟s golden monkey reflects her beauty but also trickiness and two-facedness.
In Lyra‟s world, a rule not to touch one‟s daemon is respected because this act is considered to be rude and unspeakable. To touch another person‟s daemon is “the grossest breach of etiquette imaginable. (…) Daemons might touch each other, of course, or fight; but the prohibition against human-daemon contact went so deep that even in battle no warrior would touch an enemy‟s daemon.” (TGC 142)
Between daemons and humans there is an intimate relationship based on sharing not only all emotions but also pain. Although they are two separate creatures, they complement each other and establish an unseparable unit which coheres owing to mutual love and the invisible bond. A person and his daemon cannot move away from each other because of the bond – stretching it is very painful. If the bond tears, both daemon and human die. Lyra describes stretching the bond as a “strange tormenting feeling when your daemon was pulling at the link between you; part physical pain deep in the chest, part intense sadness and love. And she knew it was the same for
[Pantalaimon]. Everyone tested it when they were growing up: seeing how far they could pull apart, coming back with intense relief. (…) She knew she would rather die than let them be parted and face that sadness again; it would send her mad with grief and terror.” (TGC 196)
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Most often, a daemon is of opposite sex than his human companion representing a complementary feminine or masculine part of oneself. However, some people do have a daemon of the same sex which may indicate homosexuality or, as Philip Pullman points out, it “might indicate some other sort of gift or quality, such as second sight.8”
However, in The Amber Spyglass, Pullman notes that actually, there are three parts of human nature that is another aspect which is inspired by theology. Lyra observes: “I can think about my body and I can think about my daemon, so there must be another part, to do the thinking!” (TAS 166) Mary Malone adds that “St. Paul talks about spirit and soul and body.” (TAS 439)
Daemons of children can change their shape until the process of maturation is over. Then, when a daemon settles in one steady form it means that a young person is ready to become an adult and get to know what kind of person he or she is. Lyra explains it to Will in this way:
As you grow up you start thinking, well, [daemons] might be this or they
might be that... And usually they end up something that fits. I mean
something like your real nature. Like if your daemon's a dog, that means
you like doing what you're told, and knowing who's boss, and following
orders, and pleasing people who are in charge. A lot of servants are
people whose daemons are dogs. So it helps to know what you're like and
to find what you'd be good at. (TAS 457)
Christian critics of His Dark Materials often compare the relationship between people and their daemons to the relationship people have with God. Stephen Ross is one of a few Christian critics who gives His Dark Materials positive criticism in his essay
“Exposing His Dark Materials: Pullman Owes to God What He Gives to His Daemon”
8 See Philip Pullman: Interview at Lexicon, Oxford. August 2000. Full record available at:
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in which he provides a Christian view on the notion of daemons. He writes: “The subject/object relationship between the male and the female completes the autonomous self. Nature and Scripture , however, tell me plainly that I am male. It is the true living
God, moreover, who is my Other, and after Him, other people, not myself. I owe to God what Lyra gives to [Pantalaimon].” (2) Nevertheless, Pullman‟s attitude to religion in general and relationship to God as expressed in his statement: “If there is a God then he deserves to be put down and rebelled against9” indicates that he does not intend to describe a daemon as God within a human. More likely, he suggests that he does not need to believe in God in order to feel the intimacy and interconnection with the world surrounding him. People do not need a supernatural being who might not exist, and in spite of that they still can have this kind of relationship.
Science and religion are mostly considered to be separate and incongruous.
Whereas science seeks truth about the world relying on reason and empirical evidence, religions like Christianity adhere to a different approach based on accepting God‟s word by faith. In His Dark Materials, though, science and religion are interconnected.
Science disciplines depend on the Magisterium not only because of its approval but also of the focus on religious themes. One of the most significant branches of science in
Lyra‟s world is experimental theology.
Experimental theology focuses on elementary particles, fundamental forces and anbaromagnetism (a different name for electricity). Basically, experimental theology is similar to physics, but in Lyra‟s world, it is fully controled by the Magisterium which makes use of the scientific knowledge for its own aims. The Magisterium introduces censorship in secret: “Every philosophical research establishment (…) had to include on
9 See Helena de Bertodano: „I am of the Devil„s party‟ in The Telegraph, 29 January 2002.
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its staff a representative of the Magisterium, to act as a censor and suppress the news of any heretical discoveries.” (TSK 110)
One of the main specializations of experimental theology is Dust. The mystery of Dust is central not only to the action in the story but also to the expression of
Pullman‟s disagreement with some attitudes of the Church such as the attitude to
Original Sin. Most of the characters are involved in the pursuit to find out what Dust is and whether it should be destroyed or protected.
Dust is a kind of elementary particle which is different from electrons, photons, neutrinos and others, it is the dark materials of the trilogy title. Dust is described as elementary particles that are attracted to people and other intelligent beings. It cannot be seen by the human eye without the use of special devices, it falls down from the sky and looks like “the fountain of glowing particles.” (TGC 20) The name of Dust is taken from the Bible: “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”
(TGC 373)
Throughout the trilogy, Pullman focuses on Dust from various points of view. In
The Golden Compass, Dust is described as something mysterious and sinful, all from the point of view of the Magisterium. However, the end of The Golden Compass indicates the shift in the approach to the study of Dust. Lyra says to Pantalaimon:
“We've heard them all talk about Dust, and they're so afraid of it, and you know what?
We believed them, even though we could see that what they were doing was wicked and evil and wrong....We thought Dust must be bad too, because they were grown up and they said so. But what if it isn't?” (TGC 398)
In The Subtle Knife, Lyra finds out that Dust exists in all universes, though known under various names such as Dark Matter, shadow particles or Shadows,
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Rusakov particles or sraf, and unlike other particles, it is conscious of itself, makes
Lyra‟s alethiometer work and reacts on signs of intelligence. “Anything that was associated with human workmanship and human thought was surrounded by Shadows.”
(TSK 89)
Pullman changes “the inquiry itself: the first approach is focused more on what the particles are, while the second is concerned more with what they do.” (Owen 158) In
The Amber Spyglass, Mary Malone shifts this study in much detailed one relating to the fate of all universes. Her final revelation what Dust really does leads to the Temptation in which she plays the role of the serpent.
The Magisterium adopts a negative attitude toward Dust believing that Dust is
“something bad, something wrong, something evil and wicked” (TGC 282) because, according to the biblical story of the Fall, they consider Dust to be the manifestation of
Original Sin. According to the Bible in Lyra‟s world, sin came into the world as the result of the Fall. In The Golden Compass, Lord Asriel reads Lyra the story of Adam and Eve who could not resist the forbidden fruit of a tree in the Garden of Eden and because of them, a sin came into existence:
And the eyes of them both were opened, and they saw the true form of
their daemons, and spoke with them. But when the man and the woman
knew their own daemons, they knew that a great change had come upon
them, for until that moment it had seemed that they were at one with all
the creatures of the earth and the air, and there was no difference between
them: And they saw the difference, and they knew good and evil; and
they were ashamed, and they sewed fig leaves together to cover their
nakedness…(TGC 372)
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Dust clusters where human beings are. It is attracted to adults in particular whereas it is not attracted to children until their daemons take a fixed form – in other words, until they grow up and begin to attract Dust during puberty. Since Dust is considered by the Magisterium to be a metaphorical representation of Original Sin which entered the world the moment when daemons of Adam and Eve became fixed and no longer changed their forms, it serves as a metaphor of the underlying theme of
His Dark Materials: innocence versus experience. Dust symbolizes the idea that a human must lose innocence in order to grow up and gain experience and wisdom. In his essay “Dancing with the Dust”, James A. Owen points out: “It is a manifestation of sin that confers significance, wisdom, intelligence, and meaning.” (159)
In the far north, a research facility Bolvangar is established for the purpose of studying Dust as the manifestation of Original Sin. Run by Mrs Coulter as a head of the
General Oblation Board which is supported by the Magisterium, the cruel experiments are carried out on children in order to find out how people can get rid of the burden of sin. They cut off daemons from their young partners claiming that they have to carry out an operation to isolate them from the dark principle which is done for children„s good.
It is supposed to make children “more grown up.” (TGC 251) The General Oblation
Board justifies its actions by claiming that the children come to them voluntarily but in fact, the Gobblers mostly entice poor children to take sweets.
The isolation, how the process of cutting off daemons from their human companions is called, is Pullman‟s horryfying version of castration. But this time, souls are separated from the body. With the best of intentions, the Magisterium deprives children of the beloved parts of themselves and rather cause great damage instead of achieving their noble goal. A person without daemon somehow reminds a zombie.
When Lyra finds a boy whose daemon was cut off, he “[is] clutching a piece of fish to
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him as Lyra [is] clutching Pantalaimon, with her left hand, hard, against her heart; but it
[is] all he [has]; a piece of dried fish (…).” (TGC 213) In Lyra‟s world, “a human being with no daemon was like someone without a face, or with their ribs laid open and their heart torn out (…).” (TGC 214) The half-boy, as Lyra calls him, is bony and cold and in few days, he dies. It is no wonder that in his essay in which he reacts on the controversial issues in His Dark Materials, Christopher Hartney describes Bolvangar as
“the Mengele-inspired experimental death camps of the Nazis” which is linked to the
Church. (246)
Another element Pullman subverts is the traditional Christian concept of the Fall.
In the trilogy, the Fall is supposed to happen again according to the prophecy of witches, and Lyra, Will and Mary Malone should play their roles in it. To be more specific, they either put an end to predestination or fail and cause a disaster. But none of them must know about their destiny because only their freedom to make mistakes can save the world from being “nothing more than interlocking machines, blind and empty of thought, feeling, life.” (TGC 310)
In The Amber Spyglass, Mary Malone enters mulefa‟s world considered by
Christopher Hartney to be paradise, the only place reminding heaven in the trilogy.
(257) Mulefas are intelligent elephant-like creatures who are, exactly like people, surrounded by Dust as soon as they mature. Similarly, mulefa‟s version of the Fall explains how Dust occurred, but this time its occurrance is not regarded as a bad sign.
The serpent gives advice to a mulefa who accepted it and since that Dust has been attracted to mulefas. They ceased to be unexceptional animals and became conscious of themselves. In other words, they became intelligent beings. Since that, Dust is considered not only to be the origin of consciousness of all intelligent creatures, but also
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conscious particles which help to form and maintain wisdom and thinking and simultaneously are created by wisdom and thinking.
In the world of mulefa, Mary reveals the truth about Dust and this triggers off events leading to the Temptation. She realizes that Dust disappears, flowing away through openings (made by the subtle knife) between the worlds into nothingness. But it mustn‟t all disappear and the openings must be closed because “Dust is not a constant.
There's not a fixed quantity that has always been the same. Conscious beings make
Dust, they renew it all the time, by thinking and feeling and reflecting, by gaining wisdom and passing it on.” (TAS 491)
Mary‟s role of the serpent consists in her assistance of making Will and Lyra realize what they feel for each other. She tells them why she stopped being a nun and believing that “physics could be done to the glory of God, till [she] saw that there wasn‟t any God at all and that physics was more interesting anyway. The Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake.” (TAS 441) She remembered she fell in love at the age of twelve and came to realize that she did not want to waste the rest of her life and spend it without feeling that again.
The way Mary descirbes her first love makes Lyra become conscious that
“something strange happen[ed] to her body. (…) Lyra knew exactly what [Mary] meant, and half an hour earlier she would have had no idea at all. And inside her, that rich house with all its doors open and all its rooms lit stood waiting, quiet, expectant.” (TAS
444) The same change happens to Will either. Will and Lyra complete their mutual love and maturation by very intimate act - touching each other‟s daemon. They come of age as their daemons take permanent forms which reflect personalities of their human companions.
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Because of Mary‟s discovery about Dust and the fact daemons can live only in the world they come from, Lyra and Will have to make a decision whether they split up and save Dust or stay together. However, the Magisterium was wrong when expecting the worst scenario because Lyra and Will choose to help to close all windows between universes and go back to the universes where they were born. The Temptation does not lead to the biblical Fall this time.
By this story, Pullman indicates that the fall does not lie in the disobedience of
God but it is something which happens to all people. “Pullman‟s works do not yearn toward a higher form of innocence: rather, his works present the view that loss of innocence is that which makes us fully human.” (Crosby 268) According to Pullman‟s opinion, the fall should be celebrated, not despised as the source of sin as in Christian view, because it means the beginning of freedom and wisdom. Pullman notes: “I try to present the idea that the Fall, like any myth, is not something that has happened once in a historical sense but happens again and again in our lives. The Fall is something that happens to all of us when we move from childhood through adolescence to adulthood.10”
Pullman subverts the traditional view of childhood as an extraordinary and joyful state of human existence. Vanessa Crosby argues that the reason why Pullman narrates the story from the point of view of the child heroes is that the archetypal figure of The Child usually symbolizes paradisal innocence. In order to subvert this traditional notion, he “confounds the reader‟s expectations by placing the moment of salvation, the moment of Paradise Regained, in the instance of Will and Lyra‟s entry into adulthood and sexual maturation.” (263)
Pullman points out: “Traditionally, children are seen as beautiful, innocent
10 In an interview by Robert Butler: „The Dark Materials Debate: life, God, the universe…‟, 2004.
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beings; then comes adulthood and they become corrupt. That‟s the C.S.Lewis view. My view is that coming of experience and sexuality and self-consciousness is a thing to be welcomed, because it‟s the beginning of true understanding, of wisdom. My book tells children that you‟re going to grow up and it‟s going to be painful but it‟s going to be good too.11” Will and Lyra‟s metaphorical fall is then a fall in the good sense towards wisdom, not a fall meant as something sinful that leads to misery.
Pullman also subverts the traditional concept of the Tempter. Mary Malone represents Satan figure in the story but she is not an evil being but a character who represents wisdom and empirical knowledge. On the other hand, Lyra and Will may remind Eve and Adam because Eve symbolizes a feeling creature whereas Adam stands for a reasoning creature as John Milton pictures them in Paradise Lost as Fredson
Bowers observes in his essay “Adam, Eve and the Fall in 'Paradise Lost'”. (266) Again,
Pullman confutes another aspect of Christian teaching - this time reason does not fail to deal with the Temptation, suggesting that a woman represented by Eve is not of weak character controlled only by her emotions. On the contrary, Pullman admires her: “You have to wake up a bit and see what a beautiful world this is and how lucky we are to be conscious in it… That‟s why Eve is my great heroine, she wondered what it would be like if she did as the serpent suggested and ate the fruit. Good for her. What a pompous little prig she would have been if she had said, ‟No, I mustn‟t„.12”
Pullman does not even avoid expressing his radical opinion on God. His concept of God is considered by Christian critics of His Dark Materials to be the most controversial issue in the series. Not only does Pullman state: “I am all for the death of
God13” but he actually kills God in the story. However, the very interpretation of the
11 In Maddy Costa: „Kid‟s Stuff‟ in The Guardian, 22 August 2001. 12 See Helena de Bertodano: „I am of the Devil„s Party‟ in The Telegraph, 29 January 2002.
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character of God may be found insulting to believers because Pullman describes God as an very old mortal liar who is one of the angels.
God is called the Authority in the trilogy but has many other names such as the
Lord, Yahweh, El, Adonai or the Almighty. He is an angel, the first and most powerful one. Angels are described as beings of pure spirit in the trilogy and their bodies are not material but made of Dust. The first angel called himself the Authority and claimed that he was the Creator and since that he has ruled the others. Some of them at first believed that he was the Creator and some of them did not and rebelled against him. However, the Authority grows older and in the trilogy, he is depicted as indescribably old, a being of “terrifying decrepitude, of a face sunken in wrinkles, of trembling hands, and of mumbling mouth and rheumy eyes.” (TAS 396) He is no longer capable of running the affairs of the Kingdom of Heaven and an ambitious angel Metatron rules on his behalf.
The Authority thinks that some of the intelligent beings have become more independent of him and intends to intervene more actively in their concerns by establishing a permanent inquisition.
Anthony Horvath in his article “A Christian Response and Reaction to Philip
Pullman‟s His Dark Materials Series by Christian Apologist” notes that “by labeling
God as the Authority it is clear just what Pullman‟s issue is with Christianity.” (6)
Indeed, Pullman explores what the consequences of theocracy may look like but also he expands on the notion of dystheism. The idea that God might be evil is depicted clearly in the trilogy - the Authority lies about being the Creator and oppresses all living creatures. Nevertheless, the story remains agnostic about the existence of God. “There may have been a creator, or there may not: we don‟t know.” (TAS 210)
12 August 2002.
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Anthony Horvath also argues that “Pullman makes the same mistake that
Dawkins makes. The Christian God is a transcendent entity and also immanent. That means God is external to our reality but sustains it all by his own word.” (6) On the contrary, the character of God serves as a metaphor in the story, not as a picture of God imagined by Pullman. This comes to light in the scene in which God dies.
The death of the Authority is Pullman‟s metaphor for the existence of God. In
The Amber Spyglass, the old and senile Authority is so fragile that his existence is only symbolic. Pullman suggests that there is no longer a personal God and this notion is dead. God is finally released from his service to humankind and dies “as a result of an act of charity14”:
(…) he was as light as paper (…) having no will of his own, and
responding to simple kindness like a flower to the sun. But in the open air
there was nothing to stop the wind from damaging him, and to their
dismay his form began to loosen and dissolve. Only a few moments later
he had vanished completely, and their last impression was of those eyes,
blinking in wonder, and a sigh of the most profound and exhausted relief.
(TAS 410-411)
Christopher Hartney observes: “Therefore the death of Pullman‟s Yahweh is actually the demise of a self-deluding demiurge in the Gnostic mould while the ultimate creator is still a distant Gnostic possibility. Between the lines, God in Pullman‟s work isn‟t dead at all.” (250) Actually, the most probable candidate for God has already existed in the story. Dust creates knowledge, matter, spirit and wisdom, it is omnipresent, but unlike Christian God, it is not a being (or visualized as a being) but conscious particles. It is not passive supernatural substance but it requires to be
14 In an interview by Huw Spanner: „Heat and Dust‟, 13 February 2002.
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constantly renewed by the activity of intelligent creatures and simultaneously, it renews wisdom and knowledge. It does not say how to behave or what is wrong, it does not require any institutions and it does not have any servants. In this way, Pullman rejects the traditional concept of God and modifies it.
Nevertheless, Pullman is not the only one who kills God for the notion of dead
God appeared in the nineteenth century philosophy and even before. No one rocked the foundations of the Church as much as a German philospher and philologist Friedrich
Nietzsche. “Nietzsche‟s account is the tale of the madman who wanders about with a lamp lit in the middle of the day storming into a village to ask if anyone has seen God and concluding that He must be dead; that we killed him.” (251) Nietzsche elaborated his metaphor deeper than Pullman but the main idea remained the same – personal God is dead.
Eric von der Luft, a philosopher concentrating on religion, summarizes
Nietzsche‟s approach in his essay “Sources of Nietzsche's „God is dead!‟ and its
Meaning for Heidegger” in this way: “In a nutshell, the idea is that if someone feels alone, dejected, guilt-ridden, etc., then God has died, in effect, for him, i.e. he percieves no God.” (264) Nietzsche considered the belief in God to be self-deception that blinded people. When he claims that God is dead he means that the supernatural is purposefully done away with and people are those who abandon him by the refusal to believe in him.
In his view, this is the most significant act in the course of history because humankind which gets rid of God is now able to reach a new stage in its evolution – a strong-willed
Superman, a human who attains godlike power.
On a number of counts, Nietzsche is more radical than Pullman. While Pullman does not criticize faith itself but rather organized religion, Nietzsche more fully contrasted faith and freedom. In his view, belief in God is the characteristic of a weak-
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willed herd animal – a member of masses who loses his or her individuality and will.
Michael Lackey in his essay “Killing God, Liberating the „Subject‟: Nietzsche and Post-
God Freedom” discusses the consequences of the death of God. He notes that since “the herd animal accepts the lordly ruler‟s will to linguistic power as true” (752) the member of the herd is not free. To be free, people have to abolish belief in God and create their own rules and values. Therefore Nietzsche‟s Superman, the replacement for God, is both a destroyer and a creator at the same time for he must first destroy old and unsatisfactory norms and then he can create new ones from broken pieces.
In His Dark Materials, Nietzsche‟s Superman is embodied in the character of
Lord Asriel who is ambitious enough to try to bring the Authority down. Unlike
Nietzsche, Pullman does not elaborate who replaces God when he dies, and it is certainly not Lord Asriel though the role of both the creator and destroyer fits him perfectly. Hence the death of the Authority symbolizes not only the death of personal
God but also the end of the oppression of the Church.
Another concept which is subverted in His Dark Materials is the concept of afterlife. In the trilogy, there is no Heaven or Hell as the Church teaches it. Instead, there is God-imposter and the last of the worlds which is Pullman‟s gloomy version of
Hell. The Authority established the land of the dead in the early ages of his rule and that is the place all dead people go. Heaven is only promised by the Church which claims that Heaven is a place of joy and glory. Nevertheless, it is another of the Authority‟s lies because all people, no matter if the good or the wicked, eventually end up in the land of the dead. This lie leads people “to spend years in solitary prayer, while all the joy of life
[is wasted] around [them] and [they] never [know].” (TAS 320)
The land of the dead is described as “a great plain that extended far ahead into the mist. The light by which they saw was a dull self-luminescence that seemed to exist
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everywhere equally, so that there were no true shadows and no true light, and everything was the same dingy color.” (294) It is a world of nothing but mental torture in which Harpies, winged creatures from Greek mythology, whisper ghosts into their ears their worst memories and sins, feeding on the worst in every one, their miserable memories and remorse.
As in Greek mythology, Will and Lyra travel to the land of the dead, leaving one of three parts of themselves, their daemons, on the shore before the boatman ferries them like Charon. They decide to free all ghosts and make deal with harpies. Instead of feeding on sins of the dead, harpies promise that they will guide ghosts out of the world of the dead but in exchange they want to hear everyone‟s true life stories. At the highest point of the land, Will cutts off a window leading into another universe. Stepping through the window, ghosts dissolve as their daemons did after they died, and it seems that this is the most desirable end for them. One of the ghosts says: “We'll be alive again in a thousand blades of grass, and a million leaves; we'll be falling in the raindrops and blowing in the fresh breeze; we'll be glittering in the dew under the stars and the moon out there in the physical world, which is our true home and always was.” (320)
However, some of the ghosts consider Lyra to be Satan. This way, Pullman hints at zealotry of some believers and the dogmatic conviction which cannot be questioned even if the truth is obvious:
Can't you see the truth? This is not a child. This is an agent of the Evil
One himself! The world we lived in was a vale of corruption and tears.
Nothing there could satisfy us. But the Almighty has granted us this
blessed place for all eternity, this paradise, which to the fallen soul seems
bleak and barren, but which the eyes of faith see as it is, overflowing
with milk and honey and resounding with the sweet hymns of the angels.
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This is Heaven, truly! (…) My companions and I of the true faith will
remain here in our blessed paradise, and spend eternity singing the
praises of the Almighty, who has given us the judgment to tell the false
from the true. (TAS 320-321)
By their actions, Lyra and Will prove the fear of death false and because of this the Authority loses the significant part of his power. Pullman indicates that there is no evidence that Heaven or Hell exist even if the Church preaches it. Though Pullman„s land of the dead represents hell, in his conception it does not matter whether people behave badly or not. Basically, the promise of dwelling in beautiful Heaven after the death is one of the sources of morals whereas the fear of Hell prevents people from being sinful. This notion is subverted in the trilogy. Bertrand Russell provides another approach when he argues that religion is based on fear. “Fear is the basis of the whole thing – fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand.” Russell also suggests that the existence of Hell does not imply that God is necessarily good just as Pullman does.
By creating the land of the dead, Pullman also points at the importance of curiosity and search for knowledge in everyone‟s life. He notes: “I discovered as I wrote it that it was something I had always believed and something that many of my books in their different ways were already saying. Every one of us has to have a story: if you go through life without curiosity, it‟s a terrible sin.15” He points to the benefit of experience and encourages every one to enjoy the diversity of life whereas he stresses the importance of the present. Therefore there is no point in wasting anyone‟s life
15 See Helena de Bertodano: „I am of the Devil„s Party‟ in The Telegraph, 29 January 2002.
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pursuing to get to imaginary Heaven which is the reason why Pullman introdues his idea of the Republic of Heaven.
Though the notion of the Republic of Heaven is only outlined in the trilogy,
Pullman develops it in some of the interviews or his essays. Basically, the Republic of
Heaven is the opposite of the Kingdom of Heaven, it is an institution with “no kings, no bishops, no priests. The Kingdom of Heaven has been known by that name since the
Authority first set himself above the rest of the angels. And [Lord Asriel and his allies] want no part of it. (…) [They] intend to be free citizens of the Republic of Heaven.”
(TAS 210-211)
In the interview for Kidsreads.com, Pullman notes that in His Dark Materials he tries to search for the way how to look at theological issues (including big religious questions like: “Is there a God? What is our purpose?”) and his approach might be called republican. He adds: “My own belief is that God is dead, but that we need heaven nonetheless; and since it‟s no longer possible to believe in a Kingdom of Heaven, we shall have to create a republic.16”
Pullman realizes that myths are essential for human life and that eliminating the
Kingdom of Heaven creates a void that needs to be filled up with something. In spite of this fact, the Republic of Heaven which is supposed to replace the Kingdom exterminates God and the Church. Mark Ryan and Carole Haussman Ryan, contributors to the Christian Research Journal, argue that in the Republic of Heaven people “need to reject the promise of an afterlife. In the gospel according to Pullman we are stuck in this physical world as physical beings and there is nothing else. (…) The Republic of
Heaven is built on tolerance and hard work. Science, art, and spirituality (whatever that means in a purely physical world) develop with us in the here and now, and we need to
16 In an interview by Jennifer Abbots, 12 December 2001.
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use them to better the world in which we live. Pullman can make it sound good – humanity working for love, learning, connectedness, and consciousness – yet this gospel ultimately offers only a sort of quiet, sad resignation to a life where we find a few friends, do our duty here on earth, and hope for nothing else.” (6) This understanding of the Republic is exactly the one which Pullman does not intend.
Pullman believes that the Kingdom of Heaven promises people happiness and the certainty of having its own place and purpose in the universe so anyone could participate in noble goals of Christianity. But now God is dead, at least according to
Pullman. He claims: “I find that I still need these things that heaven promised, and I‟m not willing to live without them. I don‟t think I will continue to live after I‟m dead, so if
I am to achieve these things I must try to bring them about – and encourage other people to bring them about – on earth, in a republic in which we are all free and equal – and responsible – citizens.17” Broadly speaking, it means that the belief in imaginary
Heaven and other promises should be recreated by people and for themselves into something real and useful for the world we live in now.
To conclude, Pullman uses the devices of a fantasy genre and theological ideas to point to his ideas concerning religious belief, Christianity as an organized religion and its aspects. Though employing an atheistic approach, Pullman‟s trilogy is highly theological in its nature for his humanistic opinion on faith is demonstrated by showing the danger of theocracies which is represented by the Magisterium in the story. Another way Pullman employs involves the subversion of traditional Christian concepts. Souls are situated outside bodies and take forms of animals which reflect personalities of their human companions. This form of soul changes the Christian account of the Fall and the
Temptation in the trilogy considering Dust, mysterious elementary particles which
17 In an interview by Huw Spanner: „Heat and Dust‟, 13 February 2002.
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occured as the result of the sin of Adam and Eve. Nevertheless, Dust is not the manifestation of Original Sin, as the Magisterium believes but a symbol of wisdom and experience because it is attracted to all intelligent creatures after they mature and helps to create wisdom. Dust also represents the main theme of His Dark Materials – the contrast between innocence and experience. Pullman thinks that the fall should not be considered as something bad and regrettable but in his view, it happens to everyone when he or she mature. The fall means the end of childhood but also the beginning of wisdom and the freedom of choice. That is the reason why Pullman admires Eve – he regards her not as a weak character but as a courageous and wise one. The character of the Tempter is also subverted in the trilogy – Mary Malone is not an evil figure like
Satan but an intelligent scientist who stands for wisdom. Pullman‟s concept of God as depicted in the trilogy is very different from the Christian account as well because he is a mortal angel and lies about being a creator of all universes. His death at the end of the story symbolizes Pullman‟s conviction that the notion of a personal God is dead. The substitute for him can be found in the Republic of Heaven which involves an eradication of the Church and stresses the importance of present day issues. People should not waste their lifetimes hoping for getting in Heaven but concentrate on lives they live now and the ways they can contribute to making the world better for others.
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3. The debate about His Dark Materials
This chapter deals with the criticism of His Dark Materials and elements of the trilogy which are frequently considered to be inappropriate by Christian believers and parents. The diversity of the response to Pullman‟s His Dark Materials may be surprising when considering enthusiastic reactions and, on the other hand, fierce criticism and the invitation to boycott the books and the film. Christopher Hartney divides critics of His Dark Materials into two groups by their reactions to the trilogy.
“The first group of critics provide the initial religious knee-jerk reaction (…)” and usually “end up by warning people against reading a work in which God dies” (246-
247) whereas the second group of critics “most often seeking understand Pullman more profoundly, place him in a lineage back to Tolkien, Carroll and other with the most crucial link being to C.S. Lewis„ Narnia series.” (248)
With regard to the first group of critics, Pullman‟s trilogy is considered to be a direct attack on Christianity by many believers. Anthony Horvath is even convinced that
“His Dark Materials is Pullman at war” (15) and appeals to other Christians to rethink their approach to the world. He considers Pullman‟s story to be a serious threat to
Christianity, especially the notion of the Republic of Heaven which is supposed to obliterate the Church and its values. (15) Nevertheless, the story could be labelled as both atheistic and theological fantasy criticizing a lot of aspects of Christianity but standing for humanism – its purpose is not to eradicate faith completely but to indicate that some Christian aspects are not in accordance with humanistic principles.
In the trilogy, Pullman does not criticize the idea of religion in general. He admits that religion is “a universal human impulse, the sense of awe and transcendence.18” However, Pullman stopped believing in God as a teenager when he
18 In an interview by Robert Butler: „The Dark Materials Debate: life, God, the universe…‟, 2004.
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began questioning Christian teaching. He calls himself an atheist agnostic and believes that “those people who claim that they do know that there is a God have found this claim of theirs the most wonderful excuse for behaving extremely badly. So belief in a
God does not seem to [him] to result automatically in behaving very well.19”
What he criticizes is religious intolerance and the idea of organised religion which persecutes people who do not believe in it. Although he is aware of the value of organised religion refering to charity and its activities he points to the fact whenever there is a political structure “with ranks and hierarchies, you get corruption; you get people who are more interested in progressing through those ranks than in doing good.
Power corrupts.20” Refering to the history of the Church, he demonstrates his claim pointing to cruelty towards the homosexuals, the witches and unbelievers.
Pullman also disagrees with the conviction of believers that in fact atheism stands for nihilism. He disproves the belief about the meaninglessness in atheist‟s life:
“Well, that‟s nonsense, as Mary Malone discovers. Now that I‟m conscious, now that
I‟m responsible, there is a meaning, and it is to make things better and to work for greater good and greater wisdom. That‟s my meaning – and it comes from my understanding of my position. It‟s not nihilism at all.21” Vice versa, Pullman regards religious belief as an obstacle to living one‟s life fully and therefore, according to him, it is the reason of lacking meaning of life.
Pullman‟s criticism of religious dogmatic certainty is reflected in his concept of children„s literature and the role of a story. As he said in his Carnegie Medal
Acceptance Speech, themes too large for adult fiction “can only be dealt with
19 In an interview by Susan Roberts: „A Dark Agenda?‟, November 2002.
38
adequately in a children‟s book.” Pullman points to the fact that in adult fiction, style and technique are more important than the story itself but, according to him “there‟s more wisdom in a story than in volumes of philosophy. (…) All stories teach, whether the storyteller intends them or not. They teach the world we create. They teach the morality we live by. The teach it much more effectively than moral precepts and instructions.22”
That is why Pullman always gives priority to a story calling himself a servant of the story. He notes that he is supposed to write a story, not to waste his talent for showing his personality to a reader. The purspose of a story, especially of the children‟s story, is to demonstrate that actions have its corresponding consequences. He refuses the accusations that his trilogy deals with adult matters such as sex, drugs, violence, homosexuality or child abuse and argues that “taboos change over time (…). Children do know about these things (…). Shouldn‟t they be able to read about them in stories?23”
Pullman also criticizes the Church for presenting biblical stories as literal ones and considers it damaging: “Some parents do bring their children up to believe that bread can change into flesh and water into wine, and that they must believe this or they‟ll go to hell.” (Dawkins, fairy tales and evidence 11-12) He refers to the difference between literal and figurative meaning and regards it as a trouble “when the fundamentalists insist that there is no such thing as analogy or metaphor, or else that they are wicked or Satanic, and that there must only be a literal understanding of stories.” (The origin of the universe 4)
22 See Philip Pullman: „Carnegie Medal Acceptance Speech‟, available at:
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The second group of critics often compares His Dark Materials to C.S. Lewis„
The Chronicles of Narnia. Although similiar elements may be found in these two fantasy series, they actually have little in common and differ about their attitude to
Christianity in many ways. In his essay concerning contrasts between Lewis„ and
Pullman‟s stories, Ned Vizzini sums up features that both series employ: there are talking animals, the stories take place in multiverse, main characters are orphans and there are villainous adults. (146, 148-150) Moreover, at the beginning of both stories there is a wardrobe causing child heroes to travel to the another world. But in fact, these are only details – general impression of both seires stands for the opposite ends of the imaginary scale.
Christopher Hartney assumes that the reasons why His Dark Materials and
Narnia are compared are their success, propagandistic dimension and Pullman himself who makes no secret of his hostility towards Narnia. (248) Pullman argues: “I hate
Narnia books, and I hate them with deep and bitter passion, with their view of childhood as a golden age from which sexuality and adulthood are falling away.24” This very concept of the contrary between innocence and experience and anti-Christian propaganda of His Dark Materials are the arguments for calling Pullman anti-Lewis and presuming that he uses his writing to attack Lewis consciously. Nonetheless, Pullman denies the allegation of him being a conscious resistance against C.S. Lewis and his
Narnia books.
Lewis is a contradictory character for Pullman - although Pullman values Lewis as a critic, he certainly detests him as a fiction writer. His disgust at reading Narnia comes from Lewis subvertion of everything Pullman values and regards as essential in
His Dark Materials. According to Pullman, there is hatred of physical world and very
24 See Ed Vulliamy: „Author Puts Bible Belt to the Test‟ in The Guardian, 26 August 2001.
40
weird feelings about sexuality in Narnia books. He hints at the end of the Last Battle, the seventh and last book of the Narnia series, in which one of the child characters,
Susan, is excluded from the stable. Pullman argues: “The stable obviously represents salvation. (…) But Susan isn‟t allowed into the stable, and the reason given is that she‟s growing up. (…) Here‟s a child whose body is changing and who‟s naturally responding as everyone has ever done since the history of the world to the changes that are taking place in one‟s body and one‟s feelings. (…) But my point is that it‟s an inevitable, important, valuable and cherishable stage that we go through. This is what
I‟m getting at in [His Dark Materials]. To welcome and celebrate this passage, rather than to turn from it in fear and loathing.25” In this way, Lewis„ attitude contradicts
Pullman‟s message which he presents in the His Dark Materials trilogy.
25 In an interview by Susan Roberts: „A Dark Agenda?‟, November 2002.
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Conclusion
The thesis has considered atheistic elements in the His Dark Materials trilogy which is Philip Pullman‟s contribution to the debate between the defenders of theism or atheism. Pullman uses the genre of fantasy and theological concepts and writes a volumnious series marked as anti-Christian or even dangerous. However, His Dark
Materials is a multi-layered story which includes several levels it works on. The most obvious level is a fantasy adventure story which is what primarily children find desirable and enjoyable but the story also needs an adult audience. Its respond to present day issues and the effort to answer big existential questions make the trilogy remarkable for adult readers as well. Pullman is confronted with the hunger for excitement, thrilling action, plot and the genre of fantasy in his own way – he actually does not consider most of contemporary fantasy books to be worth reading and the genre itself is, in his view, used only to entertain instead of making use of its capacity and exploring moral and ethical issues. He addresses his wide audience with a story which benefits primarily from his vivid imagination and the ability to comment on serious metaphysical issues and simultaneously create an attractive plot.
As a supporter of humanism and democracy, Pullman criticizes an organized religion of the kind which is intolerant to non-believers and assumes that hierarchy in religion brings hunger for power and corruption. He points to the threat dogmatic certainty required of Christians poses to and warns against literal understanding of stories. Although he maintains the anti-religious stance, he does not deptict atheism as the only one truth – on the contrary, his characters question whether there is God or not, whether he is good or not and invite readers to discuss those issues. Pullman is not afraid of raising questions concerning adult themes in children‟s books and fully uses what the genre of fantasy is capable of.
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Pullman criticizes religion, religious intolerance, the oppression of awareness and counsciousness through employing imagination instead of reason and empirical evidence as many of other defenders of atheism do. Pullman„s cruel and corrupt fictional church, the Magisterium, and fictional oppressive God might not harm the real church but his contribution to atheism is immense. Not only does he demonstrate the danger of theocracies, religious hierarchy and justifying one‟s actions by the best of intentions based on literal understanding of the Bible but he also make atheism more attractive. As Gene Veith, the author of The Soul of the Lion, the Witch, & the
Wardrobe in which he discusses the concept of Christianity in fantasy literature, points out, the problem with atheism is that it is very depressing and Pullman achieves to
“make atheism appealing to the imagination.” (172) As far as atheism is concerned, there is only physical world and no heaven where the deceased could go and enjoy their blessed afterlife. This notion is too horrible for many people. Nevertheless, Pullman manages to make death enchanting and poetic in the trilogy – all particles that our bodies consist of dissolve and become parts of the air, trees, water and flowers which basically means that after we die we become the universe. In this way, Pullman transforms atheism into something desirable comparing to the intolerance and cruelty of
God.
Atheism as presented by Pullman has the power to stand for kindness, tolerance and wisdom. Pullman tells a story about growing up to his readers but this has two possible levels of meaning. On the one hand, growing up in the sense of coming of age is represented by Lyra and Will who gradually mature and give up their innocence in order to gain experience. Their daemons eventually take steady forms and transform themselves from children‟s playful and fluid forms into adult‟s rigid forms which tell a lot about their personality and basically mean that they know who they are and what
43
they want to. This is how Pullman views the Fall which he does not consider to be an event that happened only once in history. He argues that we all have to fall and lose innocence and this painful stage of everyone‟s life leads to experience and wisdom. The
His Dark Materials trilogy is then a story about what it means to be human, to suffer, to experience and to learn. Pullman subverts traditional Christian concepts of the
Temptation, the Fall, the characters of Eve and the Tempter in order to show his disapproval with the view of childhood as an amazing period of paradisal innocence preceding immoral and corrupt adulthood. According to him, the Fall should be celebrated as something that is painful but also beneficial. Pullman‟s attitude to the relation between innocence and experience is often contrasted to the one in C.S. Lewis‟
Chronicles of Narnia which Pullman does not consider to be the work expressing
Christian attitude and values.
On the other hand, growing up also has the different meaning in the trilogy – it relates to the achievement of a higher level of consciousness of humankind. This is evident in Pullman‟s attitude to the Christian notion of Heaven and Hell. Real Heaven does not exist in the trilogy. Instead of it, there is the land of the dead – the place where all people come after they die, no matter if they behave badly or not. Pullman attempts to answer the question what if Heaven does not actually exist and people who believe in it just waste their time for hoping in something unreal. Therefore he stresses the importance of the physical world we live in right now and suggests that since Heaven and Hell might not exist people rather do something useful for the world and other people existing at this particular moment. This is summarized in the notion of the
Republic of Heaven which is supposed to replace the Kingdom of Heaven.
Pullman creates his own myth in the trilogy and presents the idea of the
Republic of Heaven as an ideal to live by. The Kingdom of Heaven is, in his view, an
44
antiquated notion which he demonstrates in the story by the death of the Authority. This metaphor points to Pullman‟s conviction that the idea of personal god does no longer exist or meet the needs of the present day. Although Pullman calls himself an agnostic and leaves the question of god‟s existence open – and this is also relflected in the trilogy in the character of the Authority who is actually not a Creator but only impostor and therefore the question whether there is a Creator or not is still unanswered – he argues there is no place for him, at least not in the form he is known these days.
Pullman regards the belief in God, Heaven and Hell as an escapism which prevents people from achieving the higher level of consciousness. It is marked with an inability to deal with acute issues of the world here and now and simultaneously it ruins the joys and experience of the present moment. Pullman‟s dead god could be understood as the end of the old stage of concsiousness and the beginning of new creative way of being in the world and contributing to it. The trilogy then deals with the struggle between rigidness and awareness, creativity and aliveness. Pullman demonstrates this need to be fully conscious and awake by Dust which expands knowledge and wisdom and contributes to human‟s consciousness. The quest to save it at all costs as depicted in the trilogy is, in Pullman‟s view, the task that should be undertaken in our world as well.
45
Works Cited
Primary sources
Pullman, Philip. The Golden Compass. New York: Yearling Book, 1995. Print.
---. The Subtle Knife. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997. Print.
---. The Amber Spyglass. New York: Yearling Book, 2000. Print.
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15 Feb 2012. of-the-Devils-party.html> Bowers, Fredson. "Adam, Eve and the Fall in 'Paradise Lost'." PMLA. 84.2 (1969): 264-273. Web. 9 Nov. 2011. Chrisafis, Angelique. "Pullman lays down moral chalenge for writers." The Guardian. 12 Aug 2002. Web. 15 Feb. 2012. /aug/12/books.humanities>. Costa, Maddy. "Kid's Stuff." The Guardian. 22 Aug 2001. Web. 15 Feb. 2012. ookerprize2001> Crosby, Vanessa. "Innocence and Experience: The Subversion of the Child Archetype in Philip Pullman‟s Speculative Soteriology." The Buddha of Suburbia: Proceedings of the Eighth Australian and International Religion, Literature and the Arts Conference 2004. Ed. Cusack, Carole M., Hartney, Christopher, Di Lauro, Frances. Sydney: RLA Press: 2005. Print. Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. London: Black Swan, 2007. Print. Hartney, Christopher. "Imperial and Epic: Philip Pullman‟s Dead God." The Buddha of 46 Suburbia: Proceedings of the Eighth Australian and International Religion, Literature and the Arts Conference 2004. Ed. Cusack, Carole M., Hartney, Christopher, Di Lauro, Frances. Sydney: RLA Press: 2005. Print. Horvath, Anthony. "A Christian Response and Reaction to Philip Pullman‟s His Dark Materials Series by Christian Apologist." Athanatos Christian Apologetics Ministry., 7 Nov 2007. Web. 15 Feb. 2012. dark-materials-the-golden-compass-the-subtle-knife-the-amber- spyglass/126.html>. Lackey, Michael. "Killing God, Liberating the „Subject‟: Nietzsche and Post-God Freedom." Journal of the History of Ideas. 60.4 (1999): 737-754. Web. 15 Feb. 2012. Luft, Eric Von Der. "Sources of Nietzsche's „God is dead!‟ and its Meaning for Heidegger." Journal of the History of Ideas. 45.2 (1984): 263-2764. Web. 15 Feb. 2012. Mandelbaum, David G. "Transcendental and Pragmatic Aspects of Religion." American Anthropologist, New Series. 68.5 (1966): 1174-1191. Web. 7 Apr. 2012. Milton, John; Elledge, Scott ed. Paradise Lost: an authoritative text backgrounds and sources criticism. New York: W.W. Norton, 1993. Print. Owen, James A.. "Dancing with the Dust." The World of the Golden Compass: The Otherworldly Ride Continues. Ed. Scott Westerfeld. Borders Inc., 2007. 155- 163. Print. Pullman, Philip. "I Must Create a System...." Blake's Dark Materials. The Blake Society. St James's Church, London. 25 October 2005. Web. 8 Nov. 2011. ---. "Dawkins, Fairy Tales and Evidence." The Liverpool European Capital of Culture. 47 Liverpool University. 2008. Web. 9 Nov. 2011. pullman.com/assets_cm/files/PDF/fairy_tales_and_evidence.pdf>.. ---. "The Origin of the Universe." Oxford. 2006. Web. 9 Nov. 2011. e.pdf>. ---. "The Dark Materials debate: life, God, the universe...." Interview by Robert Butler. 2004. Web. debate-life-God-the-universe....html>. ---. "The War on Words." The Guardian. 6 Nov 2004. Web. 15 Feb. 2012. ---. "Voluntary Service." The Guardian. 28 Dec 2002: n. page. Web. 15 Feb. 2012. ---. "There has to be a lot of ignorance in me when I start a story". The Guardian. 18 Feb 2002. Web. 15 Feb 2012. childrenandteens/story/0,6000,650988,00.html> ---. "Heat and Dust." Interview by Huw Spanner. 13 Feb 2002. Web. 15 Feb 2012. ---. Interview by Jennifer Abbots. Kidsreads. 12 Dec 2001. Web. 15 Feb 2012. ---. "A Dark Agenda?" Interview by Susan Roberts. Surefish. Nov 2002. Web. 15 Feb 2012. ---. Interview. Lexicon, Oxford. Aug 2000. Web. 15 Feb 2012. /web/20040329190613/http://www.avnet.co.uk/amaranth/Critic/ivpullman.htm>. ---. "Carnegie Medal Acceptance Speech." Randomhouse. 15 Feb 2012. 48 Robert, Dana Lee. Chtistian Mission: How Christianity Became a World Religion. Singapore: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. Print. Ross, Stephen. "Exposing His Dark Materials: Pullman Owes to God What He Gives to His Daemon." Christian Research Journal. 30.6 (2007). Web. 8 Nov. 2011. Russell, Bertrand. "Why I am not a Christian." Bertrand Russel Society. Web. 15 Feb 2012. Ryan, Mark, Ryan, Carole Hausmann. "The Killing God: The Propaganda of His Dark Materials." Christian Research Journal. 26. 3 (2003). Web. 8 Nov. 2011. Southwold, Martin. "Buddhism and the Definition of Religion." Man, New Series. 13.3 (1978): 362-379. Web. 7 Apr. 2012. Stowers, Stanley. "The Concepts of 'Religion', 'Political Religion' and the Study of Nazism." Journal of Contemporary History. 42.1 (2007): 9-24. Web. 7 Apr. 2012. Veith, Gene Edward. The Soul of the Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe. Colorado Springs: David C Cook, 2005. Print. Vizzini, Ned. "God is in the Stories." The World of the Golden Compass: The Otherworldly Ride Continues. Ed. Scott Westerfeld. Borders Inc., 2007. 143-153. Print. Vulliamy, Ed. "Author Puts Bible Belt to the Test." The Guardian. 26 Aug 2001. Web. 15 Feb. 2012. Zacharias, Ravi. The Real Face of Atheism. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2009. Print. 49 Resumé (English) The thesis deals with atheistic elements in the His Dark Materials trilogy which is Philip Pullman‟s contribution to the debate between the defenders of theism or atheism. Pullman uses the genre of fantasy and theological concepts and writes a volumnious series marked as anti-Christian or even dangerous. As the supporter of humanism and democracy, Pullman criticizes an organized religion of the kind which is intolerant and hostile to non-believers and assumes that hierarchy in religion brings hunger for power and corruption. He points to the threat dogmatic certainty required of Christians poses to and warns against literal understanding of stories. All of these opinions are expressed in the trilogy. Through the concept of the Magisterium which has the absolute power in Lyra‟s world, Pullman demonstrates the danger of theocracies, religious hierarchy and justifying one‟s actions by the best of intentions based on literal understanding of the Bible. Pullman‟s agnosticism is also reflected in the story in the character of the Authority who is actually not a Creator but only impostor and therefore the question whether there is a Creator or not is still unanswered. Pullman subverts traditional Christian concepts of the Temptation, the Fall, the characters of Eve and the Tempter in order to show his disapproval with the view of childhood as an amazing period of paradisal innocence preceding immoral and corrupt adulthood. According to him, the Fall happens to all of us when we come of age and should be celebrated as something that is painful but also the beginning of wisdom. Pullman‟s attitude to the relation between innocence and experience is often contrasted to the one in C.S. Lewis‟ Chronicles of Narnia which Pullman does not consider to be the work expressing Christian attitude and values. 50 Real Heaven does not exist in the trilogy. Instead of it, there is the land of the dead – the place where all people come after they die, no matter if they behave badly or not. Pullman stresses the importance of the physical world we live in right now and suggests that since Heaven and Hell might not exist people should not waste their time to believe in it and rather do something useful for the world and other people existing at this particular moment. This is summarized in the notion of the Republic of Heaven which is supposed to replace the Kingdom of Heaven. 51 Resumé (Czech) Tato bakalářská práce se zabývá prvky ateismu v trilogii Jeho temné esence, kterou její autor Philip Pullman přispěl do diskuze mezi příznivci teismu a ateismu. Pullman s využitím žánru fantasy a teologických aspektů napsal objemnou sérii knih, která je často označována jako anti-křesťanská nebo dokonce nebezpečná. Pullman v ní jako zastánce humanismu a demokracie kritizuje organizované náboženství toho druhu, které je netolerantní a nepřátelské k nevěřícím, a domnívá se, že hierarchie v náboženství přináší korupci a touhu po moci. Poukazuje na hrozbu dogmatické jistoty, která je od křesťanů vyžadována, a varuje před doslovným chápáním příběhů. Všechny tyto názory jsou vyjádřeny v trilogii. Pomocí Magisteria, fiktivní církve, která má v Lyřině světě absolutní moc, Pullman názorně ukazuje nebezpečí teokracií, náboženské hierarchie a ospravedlňování činů dobrými úmysly vycházejícími z doslovného chápání Bible. Jeho agnosticismus se také odráží v příběhu, konkrétně v postavě Nejvyššího, který ve skutečnosti není stvořitelem světa, ale pouhým podvodníkem, takže otázka, jestli stvořitel existuje nebo ne, zůstává nezodpovězena. Pullman rozvrací tradiční křesťanské pojetí Pokušení, Pádu a také postav Evy a hada, aby dal najevo, že nesouhlasí s chápáním dětství jako úžasného období rajské nevinnosti, které předchází nemorální a zkažené dospělosti. Podle něj se Pád stává každému z nás, když dospíváme, a měl by být oslavován jako něco, co je sice bolestné, ale co také znamená počátek moudrosti. Pullmanův přístup ke vztahu mezi nevinností a zkušeností je často porovnáván s tím, který C. S. Lewis zastává v Letopisech Narnie. Pullman však nepovažuje Narnii za dílo, které vyjadřuje křesťanský postoj a hodnoty. Opravdové nebe v trilogii neexistuje. Místo něj Pullman popisuje zemi mrtvých, což je místo, kam všichni lidé po smrti přijdou – nezáleží na tom, jestli se za života chovali dobře nebo špatně. Pullman zdůrazňuje důležitost fyzického světa, ve kterém 52 právě teď žijeme, a domnívá se, že když nebe a peklo možná ani neexistují, lidé by neměli plýtvat svým časem a věřit v ně – raději by měli udělat něco užitečného pro tento svět a ostatní lidi, kteří žijí právě teď. Tato myšlenka je shrnuta v pojmu nebeská republika, která by měla nahradit nebeské království. 53