The doorway

I think one of the most enduring literary symbols is the doorway into another world. The doorway represents an exit from our world and an entrance into a better world.

1. I suppose that's been in evidence since at least Plato's cave. More recently consider Alice's tumble down the rabbit-hole. Likewise the Wizard of Oz. Perhaps the most famous in the modern era is C.S. Lewis' wardrobe into Narnia. Or Harry Potter's platform 9 ¾.

2. At the same time, there have been (shall we say) more sinister doorways. Doorways into places we wouldn't wish to go. The ancient Egyptian gates. The Greeks and the river Styx. Virgil's ghostly realms across Acheron, ferried by Charon. The Inferno's "way" into eternal sorrow: Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate. Stephen King's door on a beach in The Dark Tower series.

3. Indeed, an entire subgenre of fiction has developed around this idea: portal fantasy.

4. Faster than light travel and wormholes serve the same purpose in science fiction (e.g. hyperspace, stargates, Abaddon's gate, farcasters, Heinlein's tunnel in the sky, Rick's portal gun).

5. Not to mention video games such as MMORPGs (e.g. World of Warcraft, RuneScape). Of course, Portal as well as "tears" in BioShock.

6. The idea of doorways exists in modern Asian literature too. Simply consider Studio Ghibli's films. Like Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle.

7. Perhaps it goes without saying a key difference between "doorways" in fantasy and science fiction is entrance by magic vs. entrance by technology.

8. In any case, I think these literary doorways are so enduring in part because the notion taps into many people's longings. Longings such as this world is not enough. We were made for another world. There is a better world. And so on.

9. It's difficult to account for such longings on the confluence of naturalism and neo-Darwinism, for it would not seem to be evolutionarily advantageous and arguably it would be disadvantageous to have such longings.

   At best, such longings might be side effects of a beneficial trait, but it's murky to discern precisely what that might be.

   One might as well say the human proclivity toward abstract mathematics and musical theory is a side effect of our larger craniums, but (among other issues) that would seem to denigrate the objective value of math and music. I suppose the consistent atheist-evolutionist would bite the bullet and argue there's no objective value in such things.

10. I won't attempt to make a reasoned argument for it at this point, but I sometimes wonder if our longings, in turn, reflect the fact that we know there is something wrong in ourselves and in this world. Perhaps even some sort of collective human memory about this. From a Christian perspective, perhaps a collective human memory about being cast out and barred from paradise.

11. If so, we might consider another enduring literary symbol. The symbol or metaphor of the journey home. That's replete in ancient and modern literature. From Gilgemsh to Homer to Virgil to Dante to Bunyan. On a related note, Joseph Campbell popularized the hero's journey as well.

12. We might further consider a third enduring literary symbol or motif. The search for the fountain of youth. The desire to return to one's youth coupled with the desire to live forever. The desire for eternity (cf. Ecc 3:11).

13. Three literary symbols: the doorway, the journey home, the fountain of youth. I think all three come together in the Bible's message. All three are echoes from Eden which will be fulfilled in the new Jerusalem. However, that's something I'd have to develop and flesh out in biblical theology.

14. However, short of working out a biblical theology, perhaps I can offer some brief musings - and that's all they are at this point, nothing more.

    Perhaps the doorway reflects the fact that we know this world as it is isn't home. It's beautiful but imperfect. Like a once magnificent cathedral lying in ruins.

    Maybe not everyone feels this way. Indeed many people are perfectly content in this world and don't desire anything more. In this respect, I'd say they're more akin to brute beasts.

    However, at least for the Christian, we know the whole of creation, and we ourselves, "groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies" (Rom 8:23b).

    Perhaps the journey home reflects the fact that we "desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one" (Heb 11:16), that is, "the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God" (Heb 11:10). We long to return to Eden. Return to God. As Augustine put it: "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you."

    Perhaps the fountain of youth reflects the tree of life. To live better than ever forever. Yet we lost the tree of life when we rebelled against God.

    In sum, we wish to turn the door knob, walk through the doorway, and find home sweet home. Find ourselves, our loved ones, our home, better than ever. Forever.

15. By contrast, on atheism, there's no doorway. One might travel around the universe, perhaps through higher dimensions, but ultimately it's a closed universe (or multiverse). This universe is all that is or was or ever will be. At the end of the day, we're still stuck in the fish bowl. Stuck inside as the water becomes increasingly dirty, as the waterline lowers, and as we realize we can't transcend our goldfishness to become a bird or something else to escape the fishbowl. Jean-Paul Sartre would have concluded there's no exit.

    Similarly on Eastern religions like Buddhism, the only escape from the universe is to end oneself, but that's not escape but suicide. That's the nuclear option. Human existence and this world as a whole are fraught with tremendous suffering. Hence let's destroy it all. Finally let's destroy ourselves too. Make sure it's all good and dead.

    The journey "home" is a closed circuit. Like a goldfish taking a lap around the goldfish bowl. We can search far and wide, but in the end it wouldn't have mattered had we stayed home, because there's nothing valuable to find. No great lesson. No higher purpose. No real meaning. The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know it's all the same. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. That’s life in a strictly material universe.

    On atheism, as well as on pantheistic religions, animistic religions, and pagan religions in general, there's no journey home either, for this life, this world, is our terminus.

    At best, one might continue to persist as shades in Hades or the modern equivalent. Perhaps uploaded in a virtual or simulated reality. However if anyone should ever pull the plug, then that will be it for us as well.

    On atheism, no one lives forever. Nothing lasts. Everyone dies. Everyone will be forgotten. Just as happened to countless species before us and will happen to countless species after us. We're just an accident that arrived. Someday another accident will spell our doom. It's all a cosmic absurdity.

    We can try to make the best of things, have a few laughs, but our last laugh will eventually fade away in the black, when all life, light, and the universe itself end.

    Camus put it well in the Myth of Sisyphus:

    What, then, is that incalculable feeling that deprives the mind of the sleep necessary to life? A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. All healthy men having thought of their own suicide, it can be seen, without further explanation, that there is a direct connection between this feeling and the longing for death.