Book Review #14 – “Proving the Unseen” by George MacDonald (A Truly Christ-Centered Author)
Book Review #14 – “Proving the Unseen” by George MacDonald (A Truly Christ-Centered Author); published in 1989 by Ballantine Books.
Brief Bio of George MacDonald (1824-1905). One wonders if a more Christ-centered author could be found. MacDonald was often called the Father of Modern Myth or the Father of Fantasy Literature. But he was so much more. He was born in the Scottish Highlands during the Industrial Revolution and raised in a devout Christian home. His father was a farmer, and so one could call George a farm kid. But this particular home broke the stereotype and was steeped in literature and imagination and intellect. Both parents highly prized education. Books were everywhere in the home, both dad and mom would initiate scholarly discussions, and the mother was raised in a home which spoke several languages and was well-versed in all the classics. So George’s home was a fascinating mixture of the intellectual and the spiritual. There is a story of visitors seeing young George lying on the back of his horse reading Milton, and of his parent often inviting adult friends over so they could all engage in learned discussions about literature, especially Scripture. Tragically, George’s beloved mother died of tuberculosis when George was only eight years old, which had a huge impact on young George’s life. His relationship with his father while growing up was in his words “nearly perfect.” Young George became convinced that if an earthly father could be so compassionate and loving, then the heavenly Father must be infinitely more so. George claimed that the forgiving and gracious character of his own father “bred in him the sense that fatherhood must be at the core of the universe.” So George went on to reject those doctrines in Christianity that implied eternal damnation or limited atonement or anything that painted God has an unforgiving judge. C. S. Lewis once described the relationship between George and his father as “the earthly root of all his wisdom.” George left home to successfully pursue a degree in chemistry and philosophy, intending to become a doctor. But the family could not afford the costs of a medical degree, so he turned to another of his loves… theology. After earning his divinity degree at 26 years old, he became a pastor of a Scottish church that at first looked promising. But after two years, he pressed his firm belief that all of creation, including mankind, will eventually be redeemed through Jesus. The church leaders decided to cut George’s salary in half, so he had no choice but to resign the pastorate there and look elsewhere for a living. His firm belief in an ultimate universal redemption was a fixed part of his Christian beliefs, and the topic came up time and again in his writings. After resigning at his first church, he pursued other careers such as becoming a university professor in literature, a magazine editor, a traveling lecturer and preacher, and author of various popular writings. In his prime writing career (1851-1897), he published thirty Scottish novels, many best-selling fairy tales, and two adult fantasies. His most famous fairy tales included At the Back of the North Wind, The Princess and the Goblin, The Princess and Curdie, and several shorter tales such as “The Light Princess,” “The Golden Key,” “The Wise Woman,” and “The Gifts of the Child Christ.” MacDonald was also an established poet, playwright, and essayist. He became quite famous at one point and spent considerable time in his international lecture tours. All this time, though, His private life was plagued by ill health, family tragedy, and near-poverty. He suffered from weak lungs that left him vulnerable to asthma, bronchitis and TB. He was devastated by the death of four of his eleven children with the same disease that took his mother all those years ago, tuberculosis. And then, TB also ended up taking his wife away soon after their 50th wedding anniversary. Somehow, despite all this tragedy and difficulty in his life, his imagination remained inspired and his profound faith in God only grew stronger and more central in his life. George was determined through all the suffering to remain a devoted father and husband and follower of Jesus. It is telling that much of his writing had to do with parenting, and children, and the joys and challenges of home life. “A parent must respect the spiritual person of his child, and approach it with reverence, for that too looks the Father in the face and has an audience with Him into which no earthly parent can enter even if he dared to desire it.” George MacDonald is truly a hero of the faith, and judging from the numerous published collections of his sermons and essays, his stories and poems, the word is out, loud and clear.
MacDonald had a monumental impact on many influential authors, including C. S. Lewis, JRR Tolkien, G.K. Chesterton, W. H. Auden, and Lewis Carroll. In fact, our old friend C. S. Lewis said once that George MacDonald “baptized my imagination” with his tales, and Lewis followed that powerful statement with, “I have never concealed the fact that I regarded him as my mentor and my master; indeed I fancy I have never written a book in which I did not quote from him. The quality which had enchanted me in his imaginative works turned out to be the quality of the real universe, the divine, the magical, terrifying and ecstatic reality in which we all live. To speak plainly, I know hardly any other writer who seems to be closer, or more continually close, to the Spirit of Christ Himself.”
After one of George’s cross-country lecture tours of the United States, a newspaper article reported this account of the tour… “A few days ago Dr. George MacDonald, the most spiritual and poetic novelist of the day, left these shores to return to his native country. His homely, stirring, beautifully simple words have left an echo in the hearts of every one who heard them, which will never quite die out. More than any living man we know of, Dr. MacDonald has the rare power of inspiring his readers and hearers with a personal affection for himself. They feel that in him they have a true man, with the brain of a poet and heart of a child; a man who could never be other than simple, and honest, and loveable; with a peculiarly refined and healthy nature, full of sweetness and warmth and light.” (from an American newspaper clipping, May, 1873).
Quotable Quotes from George MacDonald:
“My theology is Jesus Christ and nothing else. If I can understand Him, I shall need no other. Take your theology from Christ Himself. Learn from Christ Himself. That is the only theology that everyone must have.”
“People must believe what they can, and those who believe more must not be hard upon those who believe less.”
“The real man is the divine idea of him; the man God had in view when He began to send him forth out of thought into thinking; the man He is now working to perfect by casting out what is not he, and developing what is he. It is the original God-idea of the individual man that will at length be given, without spot or blemish, into the arms of love. The man who does not house self has room to be his real self – God’s eternal idea of him.” (Life Essential: The Hope of the Gospel).
“I am always finding out more meaning in Scripture which I did not see before, and which I now cannot see perfectly – for of course, till my heart is like Christ’s great heart, I cannot fully know what He meant.”
“I can only tell you I love you with true heart fervently… The whole universe is ‘tented’ with love, and you hold one of the corners of the great love-canopy for your mother and me… May I one day see that mould of God out of which you came.” (from a letter written to George’s dying daughter Lily).
“A good story should have an imaginative reach that arouses within the hearer a sense of wonder, so that he feels he has momentarily caught a glimpse of the eternal world… There ought to be a place for any story which, although founded in the marvelous, is true to human nature and itself.” (from a letter to his wife Luisa)
“The life thoughts, deeds, aims, beliefs of Jesus have to be fresh expounded every age, for all the depth of eternity lies in them, and they have to be seen into more profoundly every new year of the world’s spiritual history.” (from a letter to his father, May 1853, at 28 years old)
“Jesus would not keep her long. It was time that the terrible cloud that was over her should be blown away by the winds of heaven, and that the real facts of things should show themselves – namely, the eternal gladness of God. The well-being of the universe must come forth in her soul, and so He just said to her one word. And what other word could be so much to any of us as to be called by our name from His lips?” (from his sermon Knowing the Risen Lord, referring to Mary and Jesus in the Garden)
“Jesus lived a grand simple life in poverty and love. Why should not I?” (from a letter to his father, June, 1853)
“To trust in spite of the look of being forgotten; to keep crying out into the vast whence comes no voice, and where seems no hearing; to struggle after light, where is no glimmer to guide; at every turn to find a doorless wall, yet ever seek a door; to see the machinery of the world pauseless grinding on as if self-moved, caring for no life, nor shifting a hair’s-breadth for all entreaty, and yet believe that God is awake and utterly loving; to desire nothing but what comes meant for us from his hand; to wait patiently, willing to die of hunger, fearing only lest faith should fail- Such is the victory that overcometh the world, such is faith indeed.” (from his novel Warlock O’ Glenwarlock)
“To be one with Him is the only human perfection – to be becoming one with Him, the only true human history… May you ever seek to please Christ, and be anxious that God should honour you – This last is a wonderful saying – one of Christ’s. How absent are all excludings from His words – how near does He draw us to the Father’s heart! There is nothing to be learnt but from Him.” (from letter to sister-in-law)
“But, come what may of this, I look up, and see the fields of eternity stretching away and away in the sunlight of the Father’s presence: and in those fields I see us all playing like blessed little boys and girls of God’s kingdom, sometimes looking back with wondering smile that we could have cared so much down here about this and that trifle – only we hardly knew how trifling it was.” (from a letter to a disagreeable friend)
“So sure am I that many things which illness has led me to see are true, that I would endlessly rather never be well than lose sight of them.” (from his novel Paul Faber, Surgeon)
“Be willing to fail in what you have set before you, and let the Lord work His own success – His acceptable and perfect will.” (from his novel Salted with Fire)
A Brief Background of “Proving the Unseen.” This book is a collection of MacDonald’s sermons that were recorded verbatim as he preached them in various churches in England and Scotland. And so one gets the sense that his words were spoken directly from his heart and not as much from his polished and edited attention to detail. The editor states that these nine sermons in particular reflect more of MacDonald’s spoken thoughts as opposed to his written conclusions, and so afford the reader “a more personal feel into McDonald’s character,” that they “convey a little more of the heartbeat of this great man.”
Some Heavenly Highlights of Proving the Unseen‘s Nine Chapters:
(1.) “Faith, the Proof of the Unseen.” “Faith in its true sense does not belong to the intellect alone, nor to the intellect first, but to the conscience and to the will… Obedience is faith. It is doing that thing which you may only suppose to be the will of God. Faith is the turning of the eye to the light; it is the sending of the feet into the path that is required; it is the putting of the hands to the task of doing the things which the conscience says ought to be done… Whatever our doubts or difficulties, we must do the thing we know in order to learn the thing we do not know… What is your first thought in the morning? Is it ‘God is life’? or is it ‘What am I going to do first today at my work?’ Is it ‘God is very rich and I am His child and He will see to me’? or is it ‘How on earth shall I get through the problems lying ahead?’ Are you afraid? Are the cares of this world overwhelming you? Then your faith has plenty of room to grow.”
(2.) “The Family of Jesus.” “Most of us like to pare away the words of Christ instead of looking at them until they fill heaven and earth… Jesus is always talking about His Father in heaven. You would think He knew nothing else… Our mother does not make us; we come forth from her, but we come from the very soul of God. We are nearer, unspeakably nearer, infinitely and unintelligibly nearer to God than to the best, loveliest, dearest mother on the face f the earth… Take the will of God, eternal, pure, strong, living, and true, the only good thing; take that and Christ will be your brother… We can never love our own child aright until we have learned to love not the mildness of the child but the humanity of the child, the goodness, the thing that God meant that came out of His will.”
(3.) “Alone with God. “Sometimes we lie down and think, ‘Oh, how stupid I have been; I have been forgetting my high calling, I have been fretful and distrustful, I have been unkind, I was not fair to that man, I have been cross to my own flesh and blood; it has not been a good shiny day with me.’ We think like that, and lift up our cry to the heart of our being, to the living, pure, loving Father, who cannot bear to see a spot on His child and who has patience for a thousand years to get rid of that spot… The one eternal, original, infinite blessing of the human soul is when in stillness the Father comes and says, ‘My child, I am here.”
(4.) “The Only Freedom.” “You are not bad. God forbid! For God made us, and He made nothing bad, and if you will be bad that is fearful indeed. The lines of our being are laid, I will not even say by the hand of the living God, they were laid in His heart. The idea of every one of us was known and thought over in that heart; and out of His heart we have gone. He has set before us a way that we may turn and, of our own free will, run back to Him, embrace the Father’s knees, and be lifted to the Father’s heart… There is no liberty but in doing right. There is no freedom but in living out of the depths of our nature – not out of our surface, but out of the divine self, the deepest in us, for the deepest in us is God… The only true liberty lies in obedience… Suppose, for a moment, there is the Conqueror of all time driving in His chariot through the streets of the city. Amongst the enemy whom He has conquered, He has found children of His own, and He has said to those children, ‘Come up and ride with Me in My chariot.’ And they say, ‘No; We will not.’ But He cannot afford to lose His children, and He will not lose His children. Therefore, they are tied to the chariot and dragged along with ropes through the streets because they will not mount and ride with their conquering Father, and that is just the condition of thousands of thousands of so-called Christians. They are not free, and God will not let them go. They are tied to His chariot wheels, because of themselves they will not be children and ride hanging about the necks of their Father as He drives His conquering steeds.”
(5.) “Duty – Nothing.” ‘”This is the only place where our Lord uses the word ‘duty.’ ((‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done that which was our duty.’ – Luke 17:10) – You will not find ‘duty’ at any other time coming from the Lord’s mouth. For when we have done all our duty, we are still unprofitable servants. I believe the day will come when the word ‘duty’ will be forgotten except as a matter of history, when the heart will be so filled with love to do the right thing, not because it is a duty laid upon us to do it, but because it is what it is – the loveliness of God shining through us – that we shall never think of its being our duty, but we will make haste with our whole nature to do it with gladness and song… We must begin to obey if ever we can hope to understand the glory of the truth…. If a truth is a great one, we cannot see it at all without seeming contradictions. If our brains are not fit for these big things, still less is our language and our logic fit for them. It is only the childlike spirit that can see it. The wise and the prudent look over the top of it.”
(6.) “Knowing the Risen Lord.” “The secret of the whole story of humanity is the love between the Father and the Son. That is at the root of it all. Upon the love between the Son and Father hangs the whole universe. What can it mean exactly, you know, I cannot tell you. Why the Lord must go and ascend to His Father, though with Him all the time and with Him at the moment, I cannot tell you; but it means something, as if there were some center somewhere where this very body of His must be embraced by the arms of the Father before He was satisfied – as if He had to go back and tell His Father, ‘I have done it, Father, I have done it. It is over now and we shall have them all back by and by.” … The whole of the universe was nothing to Jesus without His Father. The day will come when the whole universe will be nothing to us without the Father, but with the Father an endless glory of delight.”
(7.) “To the Church of the Laodiceans.” “It is not the halfhearted, simmering kind of hearts that the Kingdom of God and His Christ is for. Had God been halfhearted you would never have had a chance of life eternal. It is because God is truehearted, unselfish, out and out devoted to His creatures that there is any world at all… Oh! you are quite wrong if you have the fancy that Jesus Christ is one who is always speaking soft words. He is indignant sometimes, He is angry sometimes, but there is not one atom in that indignation, in that anger, that is not love. But that is why He says the hard words, for hard words in the right places are the kindest thing… It is terrible to think how we shroud the Son of God in a cloud of our foolish, low, paltry ideas about Him. We have swathed Him in the doctrines of the Church and the traditions of men, and the Lord Christ, the Brother-man, we scarcely see… It is of Him of whom ‘all the families in heaven and earth are named.’ Why, the very notion of a family comes from the heart of God because He is the Father of all His creatures. He will rule just by loving, and the hearts of all will come to Him just because for very love they cannot help it.”
(8.) “Growth in Grace and Knowledge.” “In this age there is as much idolatry of intellect as there is of money. Rather than a king of science I would be an idiot with a heart. It is better to love a little than to know everything; and, more than that, the man that loves alone shall be the man who knows. The man that loves well, when the true time comes, will outstrip all the searchers in the knowledge of the very things that the intellect desires to understand… The Lord is very easy to please. He will be pleased with the smallest of growth; but He is very hard to satisfy. He will never be satisfied until you are one with Him in perfect purity and strength… Jesus Christ knew men. We do not try enough to know our fellow men. We are ready enough to judge them; but we do not try enough to understand them – to know what they are, to see what it is at the root that makes them do this or that. We should give ourselves an opportunity to understand humanity, to know those who are about us, and from them to know the individual, until we are a hiding place from the wind, a covert from the tempest, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. Every Christian ought to be a refuge.”
(9.) “Eternal Harmony.” “The glory of God is this, that He demands us to take a share with Him in our own creation; for I say we are not created yet, we are only in process of creation in the image of God, and He demands that we shall take a share in it. We must will the will of God, and so He sends His troubles to wake us up, and to make us choose to be on His side against ourselves. And for this purpose is the whole constitution of the world as it is. It grows clearer and plainer to me as I live longer that this is His way in working people, and going through history I see that the whole thing is made ever a means of compelling us who have come out from God to make our circle back to the bosom of the Father.”