Katelyn Joyce- Logic and Faith in Narnia

  In my Senior Seminar class, I am studying doubt and faith. Several articles I have come across address the relationship between faith and logic and this concept has greatly piqued my interest. In chapter 5 of the Chronicles of Narnia, I couldn’t help but notice the way they are addressing faith and doubt. This chapter lays out what occurs once Lucy exits the wardrobe and her interaction with Susan and Peter. Susan and Peter reach out to the Professor for help when they being to notice that Lucy may be going crazy. He logically walks them through how she was never known to lie while Peter has been known to in the past. He also walks through how they are being too closed minded to the possibility of what can be possible and impossible in terms of another world. He explains this through explanations that seem perfectly logical. Even though he walked them through the logical steps, one still must possess a lot of faith to accept this conclusion.  Logic is not something many people think of initially when pondering faith. They often see faith and logic as being mutually exclusive, but it not only exists together, but in many cases have become a means to help individuals make the decision on if they want to place their faith in something. This can be found through the example of Pascal's wager. Pascal’s wager explores a method of handling doubts. It is within this that he finds a way to mix reason, logic, and faith together. He states four options in his wager and concludes that one is the safest option. His options are as follows. If you wager for God and he exists you gain everything and have an infinite reward. If you wager that there is no God, but he does exist, you lose everything. If you wager that there is no God and you were correct, you received no reward and it was a meaningless win. If you wager that God exists, but there is no God you’ve experienced no loss. Through these options many people have been able to decide what to do.