Joy Laxton: Out of a Silent Planet and Truth

In the last chapter of “The Silent Planet,” by C.S. Lewis, Ransom publishes his story as fiction, to avoid being called a lunatic, but also in hopes that it will plant a seed of certain ideas, so that when it is time to reveal the truth, it will be easier to expect.  In some ways, this use of myth to plant a seed reveal what is truth under the disguise of a fiction book relates to our class discussions on the role of myth in revealing that which is true.  As C.S. Lewis reveals in “Myth Became Fact,” “When we translate we get abstraction -- or rather, dozens of abstractions. What flows into you from the myth is not truth but reality (truth is always about something, but reality is that about which truth is), and, therefore, every myth becomes the father of innumerable truths on the abstract level.” (Lewis, 1970).

References

Lewis, C. S., & In Hooper, W. (1970). God in the dock: Essays on theology and ethics.


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