Archetypes: Good Dreams

Archetypes are story elements -- character types and symbolic images -- that recur across time and culture. Is their presence a clue about God???

Romans 1:20 says that "since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse." We can experience the grandeur of nature and study the complexity of creation to see God's eternal power. And, perhaps, God has also written his divine nature into the heart of man.

C.S. Lewis (author of the Narnia books) believed that God imprinted humans with a divine subconscious message. In Mere Christianity, he said: "And what did God do? First of all He left us conscience, the sense of right and wrong: and all through history there have been people trying (some of them very hard) to obey it. None of them ever quite succeeded. Secondly, He sent the human race what I call good dreams: I mean those queer stories scattered all through the heathen religions about a god who dies and comes to life again and, by his death, has somehow given new life to men."

So, in summary of Lewis, we could say that God revealed his divine nature into the subconscious mind of man by (1) giving us a natural sense of right and wrong and (2) imprinting us with certain expectations, desires and hopes. We could call these "good dreams" archetypes. Archetypes include the universal expectation of a hero, the desire for light in the darkness, and the hope for triumph over death. There are many archetypes.

But let us not stop there. Let us also joyfully acknowledge that he revealed himself most specifically through his son, Jesus, who fulfilled the archetypes. Where humanity had previously been dreaming, Jesus was the dream "come true."

ARCHETYPES YOU SHOULD RECOGNIZE: monomyth, hero cycle, journey/quest, maiden, wise old man, sidekick, crone, trickster, shadow, storyteller, light/dark, colors, numbers, forest, garden, desert, snakes, birds, water, fire, resurrection

Note about character archetypes: Many character archetypes were originally expressed out of a paternalistic framework (i.e. men are heroes and mentors, women are victims and witches). Modern expressions of archetype often swap gender. This is OK!