His Dark Materials: The Worldview

Pullman has stated his own personal worldview ranges from atheism to agnosticism. However, the worldview in his books are an interesting mix of Gnosticism, Atheism, scientific materialism, and a dash of moralism. I know that last one is controversial, but I will explain more later.

To start, I will discuss Pullman’s worldview in the books based on a creation, fall, and redemption structure. My reasons for doing this are many. First, his stated intention with the books is to present an inverted Paradise Lost, the poem by John Milton, which of course presents the creation, fall, and redemption story of Christianity. Now one might argue how orthodox Milton actually is, but that is discussion outside this post.

Second, the creation fall redemption structure is very good for helping someone understand a particular worldview. Every view of the world has them. For example, for a scientific materialist, they believe the world started with the Big Band, the fall is essentially human ignorance, so therefore science and education can fix what’s wrong with the world.

Creation: Why the worlds are here

Pullman’s cosmology in the series can really be described as a brand of Gnosticism. Gnosticism was a Christian heresy that took elements of Greek philosophy and mixed it with Christian theology. There were many different Gnostic groups, so it is difficult to pin down their exact beliefs. But, essentially, Gnosticism believed that a lesser god or angel created the world and claimed God status. The serpent in the garden was actually an agent of the real God who is ultimately unknowable, withdrawn from the world. When he was tempting Adam and Eve, he was actually doing a good thing. And even further, there is a weird and strange mix of what were termed “aeons” between us and the real god. The only way to liberate onself was through secret knowledge. Pullman agrees with key points of that worldview, especially the search for secret knowledge as a way of liberation. Even more, secret knowledge that comes from yourself. In fact, that is the point of Pullman's way of discovering truth. Whatever you make it to be, what's inside you.
However, to be fair, Pullman disagrees with certain aspects of Gnosticism in key points. He obviously does not have a hatred of the material world, as there are many instances in the book of people being love with their bodies and their worlds. This is especially true in the chapters that take place in the realm of the dead.
The other key disagreement he has would be in the nature of God. Pullman’s “Authority” which is in fact not God, but the “first angel” is the one who holds the world in slavery. And we find out, he doesn’t really hold the world in slavery either, its more the character Metatron and the church as His agent. Sound confusing? That’s because it is. To add more to my confusion, there is a hinted mystery behind all the worlds. Here is a quote from the book that describes it:
“It shocked us to learn the Authority is not the creator. There may have been a creator or there may not; we don’t know.”

That pretty much sums up the cosmology of Pullman’s universe. It is confused, random and hard to identify. He obviously desperately wants to create an atheistic fantasy, but he can’t do it. He has to leave room for mystery no matter how hard he wishes not to do so. The dust is mysterious. The Aleithometer is mysterious. They kill god in the story, but there is still mystery all over the place. Pullman tries to wrap it up at the end, to help us avoid the mysterious world he has just led us through.

So, essentially, Pullman is trying to kill the Christian idea of God, but not the concept of God. In fact, he cannot get away from it, no matter how hard he tries in the book to do so. In fact, he admits as much in some of the interviews I read of him.

And more, his perception of the Christian idea of God has many distortions, and strawmen that I do not recognize the god he thinks is described by Christianity. Rather, he describes a god of paganism, constantly wrathful, with no pity whatsoever, to living or dead alike. And more, he attributes the hatred of the natural world to god and the church. In doing so, he entirely ignores the first two chapters of Genesis. He leaves out a huge part of the Christian story. The god of Pullman is a horrible angel, but even in the end, he ends up as some sort of pitable figure.

It’s all very confusing. I struggled hard to pull the worldview in regards to god and creation in the series, but it was hard. Pullman is all over the place and it is difficult to pull in everything.

My next installment will be on Pullman’s view of the Fall and of Sin. It is really one of the most important points, because it shows that Pullman seems to know very little of what he is trying to tear down.