What might await us in the endless future beyond the Millennial Kingdom age? Past the great white throne on Judgment Day? Could God have created many different peoples on other worlds? Might He have created other universes or inhabited dimensions entirely disconnected from this one?This book posits its answer to those questions as a concluded fact that is not debated (within the book, at least). However, this author studied and personally debated such questions before writing the book. Some readers may summarily dismiss the many different worlds described in The Chronicles of Narnia as mere fantasy in a children's series, having nothing to do with that author's Christian theology. That assessment would be too hasty. C.S. Lewis was a deep thinker, and he doubtless studied and reached a conclusion that "liberated" him to write that type of fiction. Our own study of such questions has certainly liberated us to write this type of fiction.
Consider that, according to the Holy Scriptures, God is perfect and has not ever changed in His fundamental nature or character. Indeed, He cannot ever change, for it would be a departure from perfection, and such would be against His own self revelation to us (it would be a deviation from what He has declared in His word). Since God does not change, then what is the fundamental nature or character from which He never departs? Is His basic nature that of a lazy being who is not very creative, who naturally tends to sit in total inactivity, creating nothing?
Look around. Countless life forms abound on this world alone. Modern science has not even discovered all of them yet. No, lazy and uncreative is not who He is. His creativity is boundless.
So, why did Moses, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, write that God "rested" on the seventh day after His having worked for six days to create all that we see around us? Scholars with linguistic skill have pointed out that the Hebrew context, and the word for "rest" shown there, give a connotation of Him having completed the work to perfection. He first envisioned what He wanted to do, and then, once He was done, He stopped working simply because it was perfect.
Bear in mind that the utter lack of perfection in the sin-cursed world we now inhabit is all due to the sin of humankind (of which the first sins were committed by Adam and Eve in the Garden that was eastward in Eden). God did not rest because He was lazy, or tired, or was basically a non-working, non-creative being. No, He stopped because the job was done. It does not mean He stopped all creative work elsewhere. If he simply stopped all creating (as a permanent cessation), then the massive burst of creating that caused this universe (and all the life we see here) would have represented a colossal departure from His character and nature.
God created this world as a perfect place which could have been enjoyed for eternity. Were it not for human sin, which "messed up" the place, no more work from God would have been needed here. He is now at work fixing it. Yet that does not even hint that He could not have, or would not have, continued to create elsewhere. He has to have done more. It is His nature. This author cannot imagine that God so creative as to have given us this massive display of life... just sitting on His laurels for all eternity. Not only is He creative, but He also has made us as creative beings as well. Thus, authors such as C.S. Lewis and yours truly imagine other realms. Check out the creation in this novel. The liberated reader will love it. The "literary Taliban" (as my friend, Roy H. Williams, once dubbed them) will no doubt send us out for the firing squad, as we've shown way too much creativity and had way too much fun. Which type of reader are you?
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