June 16, 2026
Why Can't You Fix Yourself? | The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
This week, we sail east through The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, an often overlooked book in the series, and the one where the villain isn’t “out there”, but inside the characters themselves. We dig into Eustace’s un-dragoning as one of the clearest picture of grace in the series, why the transformation has to hurt, Reepicheep as Lewis’s “argument from desire”, and more. Let’s get to it.
In this episode:
- (00:00) Can you fix yourself?
- (01:01) Why Dawn Treader gets underrated
- (05:15) The book with no villain
- (07:21) The “un-dragoning”
- (12:24) More Calvinist than Lewis realized
- (15:39) Does grace have to be painful?
- (17:37) Reepicheep and the argument from desire
- (21:12) Longing, not fear, as the engine
- (23:11) “By another name” and the Emeth problem
- (26:17) The hiddenness of Aslan: “Courage, dear heart”
- (28:09) The Lamb and the Lion: supposal, not pluralism
- (31:19) Favorite moments and Reepicheep’s exit
- (33:22) Looking ahead to The Silver Chair
Links
- C.S. Lewis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._S._Lewis
- The Chronicles of Narnia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Narnia
- The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Voyage_of_the_Dawn_Treader
- The Silver Chair: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silver_Chair
- Plato: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato
- J.R.R. Tolkien: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien
- Is God Really In Control? | The Horse and His Boy: https://www.thechristianskeptic.org/is-god-really-in-control-the-horse-and-his-boy/
- Have We Tamed Jesus? | The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: https://www.thechristianskeptic.org/have-we-tamed-jesus/
- Doug Wilson: https://dougwils.com/
- Mere Christianity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere_Christianity
- Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis: https://www.amazon.com/dp/019973870X
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Get full show notes and links at https://www.thechristianskeptic.org.
Watch the episode on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@thechristianskeptic.









