I'm responding here to Disputations comment on my previous posting:

What makes Aslan's death an allegory of Christ's death? One sentence, pulled from nowhere and headed nowhere.

There are a large number of ways in which Lewis's account of Aslan's death has consciously been designed by him to allegorically match some of the details of Christ's death. For example:

• Aslan is willing to suffer for the guilty;
• Aslan knows, though his killer doesn't, that his death will not be permanent;
• Aslan understands creation better than the Witch/Satan;
• Aslan does not use his power to break the rules (the Law), but keeps them;
• Aslan knows his death will bring victory;
• Aslan's blood is required, else Narnia will be destroyed;
• Aslan suffers in prior anticipation of his death;
• Aslan offers no resistance to his death;
• Aslan is mocked prior to his death;
• Aslan is killed on a hilltop;
• Aslan is killed on an altar;
• Aslan's death destroys the altar.

It's possible that Disputations does not as much have in mind the allegorical details of the story, but rather the function that Aslan's death serves in changing Narnia. Well, Edmund is saved (as we are saved), no traitor need die on the stone table (as we need not die), the Witch's winter is completely negated (as we are given life), and stone statues are restored to life (just as sin is negated). Are these not all allegorical ways of seeing what Christ's death did for us?

But that one sentence — to the extent it actually means anything; "Death itself would start working backwards"? tell that to the White Witch — is not specifically Christian.

If it's compared with something like Romans 8:12-13, or Hebrews 2:14-15, I see a related theme expressed differently. And shouldn't we expect that the reversal of death is going to work on Aslan's supporters (as it does later with the stone statues), and not the others?

The problem with Aslan, I think, is that it ruins the Incarnation. God is Aslan in his glorified Lion nature from the very moment Narnia is created, through to the very moment Narnia ceases to be.

But must books that have Christian allegorical features necessarily match original Christian doctrine in every way? Whyever? An exact allegory, with every feature in the fiction having a matching feature in the Christian story, would almost certainly be tedious to read — the allegory would be constantly intruding, and in the end the story could provide no illumination of the Christian story. (The closest work I can think of with this one-to-one matching is Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress — but that escapes the trap by having the allegory done in episodic pieces.) Extra illumination is provided by shining a light from a different direction, or from a different place, rather than sticking with the existing light.

A near allegory, with enough variations to maintain the reader's curiosity and interest, is surely more likely to appeal to the reader — and every author has to please the reader. Lewis chose an always-incarnate lion; that's not an exact match, though it is not far off (Colossians 1:15). Narnia was explicitly created as an alternate universe, related to ours, but not ours. If the allegory matched everywhere, how would the alternateness be made evident? Where would the interest be? Where the extra illumination?

Does what Aslan does give glory to His Father, does it call anyone to holiness?

The author owes making a call to holiness primarily to his readers, not to the fictional characters. And "a call to holiness" takes many forms. Something as simple as an enjoyable story with some Christian themes can make that call. Whereas, making the fictional characters show too much holiness can all too easily backfire.

Is the Deeper Magic from Before the Beginning of Time consistent with the Gospel? I think the answers to all these questions can be shown to be, "No, not really."

I pointed out elsewhere that that theme surely comes from 1st Colossians 2:7-8. Lewis has taken 'secret and hidden wisdom' and fictionalized it as "Deeper Magic". He has taken 'before the ages' and turned it to "Before the Beginning of Time". Hence, it is really compatible.