There’s a scene in CS Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew depicting Aslan singing Narnia into existence. Of the five earthlings and one otherworlder witnessing the Creation Song, four take it in in all of its beauty. Of these are the two main characters, Digory and Polly, as well as a London cabby the cabby’s horse. The two who cannot accept the Song’s beauty, despising it due to the lives they’ve led in their own respective worlds, are Digory’s uncle Andrew, and the former empress of the now-dead world of Charn as well as future White Witch of Narnia.
As the Creation Song escalates the two do eventually find things to take consolation in. Uncle Andrew sees that Narnia’s soil is much more fertile than the Earth’s, realizing the opportunity for wealth to be gained. The future Witch, still lamenting the death of her old world, sees opportunity in taking over a new one, something she will eventually accomplish but not for many years. It is in these strict focuses on wealth and power, along with their initial dereliction of beauty, that made it so they could not enjoy the fullness of the Creation Song, as it was happening as well as after its completion.
Later in the story, after the Witch has fled, Aslan approaches Uncle Andrew and attempts to speak to him, proving to be unsuccessful because Andrew had already rejected the beauty of Aslan’s Song. Before this, many of the other talking animals of Narnia had tried to do the same, also to no avail. To Uncle Andrew, Aslan and the other animals simply made the typical sounds of non-talking beasts. He was not privy to this aspect of Narnia. His contempt toward the trueness of the Creation Song made him unable to fully experience all that the Creation had wrought.
Many refuse to believe that our own world was also brought into existence by One Creator. Instead, “There has to be some scientific and naturalistic explanation” has become the prevailing narrative, resulting in the belief that chaos organized itself into the existence of Earth as well as humans—a belief shared by Believers and Non-Believers alike. Like with Uncle Andrew, I wonder if this lack of respect toward our Author, as well as the choosing of “explanation” over Truth, also results in certain inabilities regarding our existence and the Creation around us?