The Irresponsible Reader

The White Door

by Pierce Taylor Hibbs

DETAILS:
Publisher: Truth Ablaze
Publication Date: August 15, 2024
Format: eARC
Length: 484 pg.
Read Date: July 7-20, 2024

Obviously, this will make more sense if you’ve read my original post about The White Door. And I should add that these are just thoughts that’ve come to mind as I’ve continued to chew on this book. I’m not making a full argument here, or anything like that. Some ruminations is all. (the conclusion is particularly weak, if you ask me, because I am just ruminating. )

One thing readers really like to do is to try to determine what they can about a novelist’s beliefs, points of view, and whatnot from the way things in their novel(s) are depicted. Frequently, some of the theories are pretty out there—and even those that are closer to reality are limited and have some noteworthy flaws.

That’s not the case with this book—Hibbs has already written a good number of non-fiction books showing his views on a number of ideas and topics. So readers of this novel have a different task before them (if they’re of a mind to wonder about these things)—how are Hibbs’ ideas depicted and brought to “life” in this novel? Are they at all? I haven’t read all of Hibbs’ previous work (yet), but I’ve read a number of his books and thought about them while reading the novel.

An obvious point here is that the protagonist, Seth, has an anxiety disorder, not unlike the one that Hibbs talked about in Struck Down but Not Destroyed: Living Faithfully with Anxiety. But there are plenty of other places you can see Hibbes’ previous writing.

In my original post, I said a couple of things that I want to return to. The first is:

…there are two doors (in places that have no business having doors, see McGuire’s Wayward Children series for examples). A white one and a black one—those who walk through them are changed. What, and how, they see is altered in ways that say a lot more about the doors than anything else.

The second thing is:

First of all, anyone who’s read much of Hibbs is going to recognize his thinking here. Narnia, Seth, and Cleft sound like they’ve studied Hibbs’ work (ignoring the anachronism there)—which is good. If only so you know that you’re supposed to think they’re on the right path. Other characters largely sound ilke they’re on their way to sounding that way, too.

Two of Hibbs’ books that came to mind were Finding God in the Ordinary and In Divine Company: Growing Closer to the God Who Speaks.

The part of In Divine Company* that came to mind in The White Door was:

We live in what I have called a worded world, a world that everywhere reveals something about the God who made it, a world that, in a sense, “speaks” about God.

* He also has a book called The Speaking Trinity and His Worded World that probably does a better job of explaining this point and expanding on it, but I haven’t read that one yet.

In Finding God in the Ordinary, Hibbs quotes John Calvin:

Whichever way we turn our eyes, there is no part of the world, however small, in which at least some spark of God’s glory does not shine. In particular, we cannot gaze upon this beautiful masterpiece of the world, in all its length and breadth, without being completely dazzled, as it were, by an endless flood of light. Accordingly, in Hebrews, the apostle aptly calls the world the mirror of things invisible, because the structure of the world serves as a mirror in which we behold God, who otherwise can not be seen (Heb 11:3).

Calvin influenced Hibbs on this point, and you can see it in the rest of that book. Let me bring up a few other short quotations from the book along those lines:

if we do not search for God in the ordinary, we do not perceive the world as it truly is. God has revealed that his entire creation manifests his character.

The whole earth, every crevice of creation, has been endowed by God himself with a revelatory component. We can choose to ignore this component if we wish, but then we will not be seeing the world as it truly is. We will be seeing a world of our own making.

if we do not search for God in the ordinary, we will miss very precious parts of life.

The tagline on the cover of The White Door is: “To enter is to see.” This is part of what I meant by “What, and how, they see is altered.” Both Roland (Cleft’s steward dog) and Cleft call those who’ve gone through the White Door “gazers”*

* I called them “seekers” in my original post. Oops. Why do I take notes, if I’m not going to look at them while writing?

These people gaze upon the world in a clearer fashion than they have before as if a film had been cleared off what they see. They see things in a new way—able to seek God in the ordinary, perceiving the world as it truly is. Not completely—and not necessarily all in the same way. Yet, their vision is better. They see things that others do not/cannot.

Now, walking through this door is in some way analogous of or is an allegory of regeneration. I have questions about it (as I talked about before), and I’m not sure if that’s because I misunderstood something or if Hibbs was unclear (I fully expect the former, but I think it’s the latter).* Regardless, that’s the case. Given “eyes to see and ears to hear,” these gazers see things that others don’t. In our world, it’s because darkened eyes don’t think of it, and renewed eyes need to be taught it (so we get books like Finding God in the Ordinary and teaching along those lines)—but when we know we can see the world, the skies, and nature in general declaring the glory of God—we, like those gazers, do see things others don’t.

* To paraphrase Mr. Simon, when I get something wrong, I’m the first to admit it, the last one to know-ow-ow-ow.

On the other hand, those who walk through the Black Door also have their sight altered. As you might imagine, it’s not as beneficial—but that’s all I’m going to say about that.

I really appreciate the way that Hibbs put “flesh” on his arguments from other books in this novel—not just for a good way to solidify it in the minds of his non-fiction readers, but to provoke his novel’s readers to consider how that piece of fiction might apply to their lives.

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