Lesson 6 - Out of the Silent Planet

Question 1

What were the occasions and reasons for Lewis writing OSP?

Answer 1

1. ) Christian apologetic - need more everyday books written from a Christian worldview/perspective, not more Christian books
2. ) The cultural climate of realism - 19th, 20th c.
   - - contemporary literature was reductionistic in only focusing on the poverty of human existence and it’s problems
   - - Lewis said that myth was more realistic than realism
3. ) Lewis was interested in Science Fiction from HG Well and Jules Verne. Space gave you the tremendous ability to transcend yourself
4. ) Science fiction, especially space travel, facilitates self-transcendence.
   - - By getting outside of our planet, Lewis wants to ask questions about our own planet from the outside.
5. ) Build a critique against science, Lewis used myth for this
   - - Myth as an apologetic troubles our greatest certainities
   - - Apologetics of a new view of space (heavens)

Question 2

How does Ransom experience a new view of space? What is significant about this new view?

Answer 2

1. ) He looks along the universe and experiences it, rather than merely looking at space from the Earth.
2. ) Space seems cold, dark, and empty from Earth, but while traveling through it Ransom sees it as the heavens that is full of warmth, light, and full of life and beings and objects.
3. ) OSP - begins with a realistic view of earth (bland, gray, and very impoverished)
4. ) Ch 4 - Ransome’s new view of space
   - - Sehnsucht again: first experience of space is bright and life-giving (stabbings of longing and joy)
   - - Space is not cold, dark, and empty (must be renamed glories of God)
5. ) New view of space demands a new view of mankind

Question 3

What are the three species of hnau on Malacandra?

Answer 3

• • God has created beings with a position, nature, and function.
    1. ) Seroni/Sorn
• • Position - intellectuals
• • Nature - known for their wisdom
• • Function - philosophers of Malacandra
• • most human like - elongated

2. ) Hross/Hrossa
   - - Poets
   - - Nature: interpret the values
   - - Function: support the wisdom given by the Sorn
   - - Most like an animal
3. ) Pfifltrigga -
   - - Craftsmen - workers
   - - Nature: make things
   - - most like insects

Question 4

How does Lewis use the three species of hnau to illustrate a view of humanity and God?

Answer 4

What does it say about mankind?

Helps us ask the question, like Ransom, where are we at in this universe? What’s the hierarchy Is this how we act and respond? How has God made us? If we are in his image, what does that say about him?

Their environmnet, language, appearance, functions, and even humor is distinctive, yet they all get along and work together for the good of Malacandra because they know their place in the universe. They don’t treat anything like a hiearchy, but value their place and contribution to the world.

What does it say about God?

• • How can a species be so different and fall under the same overall category of hnau? The know that their very nature is to be ruled.
• • Despite the differences, there is value and dignity in each sphere and there is contentment in each place
• • When each person assumes the role in which they most fit, there is no competition and comparison, but equality and harmony.
• • Each species is unique, task is assigned to it, equal, etc.
• • Very nature of hnau is order (rule)
• -The very idea of being autonomous – trying to pull yourself up by your own hair (it’s impossible and leads to destruction)
• • Shows that Thulcandra is subject to the fall (“bent one”)

Question 5

What are the distinctives and similarities between Thulcandra and Malacandra?

Answer 5

Similiarities:

• • Both are planets in the universe
• • Both have different types of species in it
• • Both are ruled by Maleldil and have an Oyarsa placed over it

Differences

• • Thulcandra has become bent – fallen nature
• • Silent Planet, and now is cut off from the rest of the planets because the Oyarsa over the planet tried to reach too far and become God, and ended up bending the planet
• • Malacandra: Oyarsa recognizes his place within the hierachy. Can’t reach beyond his own world
• • Malacandra has different type of species without bentness; all get along and work with each other; enjoy the pleasures of the world, without worshipping them

Question 6

How does Lewis illustrate the presence of good and evil in Out of the Silent Planet?

Answer 6

1. ) Weston and Devine
   - - Weston – Scientism; Trying to preserve humanity; Abuses science for his own means
   - - Devine – trying to get gold; Use and kill for the sake of survival of humans

2 .Evil: bentness

• • Weston loves humanity, but not individual men
• • His philosophy is bent – new morality is a bent morality
• • Don’t hold moral obligation and moral absolutes consistently

3. Oyarsa: tries to show Weston what is good
   - - Morality
   - - The only thing feared is Maleldil
   - - When you fear death, insecurity creeps in and it makes you do evil
   - - Fear God because human beings and worlds all don’t last
4. Weston responds by saying defeatism/submission is weakness and refuses to submit/listen to Ransom or Oyarsa. The root of evil; the great sin is pride.

Question 7

How does Lewis criticize Scientism in Out of the Silent Planet?

Answer 7

1. Lewis brings Scientism to its presuppositions and it’s absurdity
2. He shows that Scientism and Weston’s worldview of naturalism cannot account for reason, morality, who is man, what we are, and our purpose in the world.
   - - Shows that it is only about the survival of humanity, not the flourishing or goodness of individual mankind.
   - - Doesn’t hold moral obligation and moral absolutes consistently.
   - - Only about human survival through scientific technique at the cost of everything else

Question 8

How is OSP a blending of myth, history, and apologetics?

Answer 8

1. Myth – grand story of going to space, to another planet to understand space (heavens) and mankind better
   - - Publish the story as fiction, the only way to convey the truth of a new view of space. If we reflect on the story of Malacandra the story becomes illuminating to the relationships we have with each other and all creation.
2. ) History - shows the history of realism, science (scientism), etc.
   - - 20th c. with the creation of science/technique/going to space

3.) Apologetics - – Lewis is trying to convert people to a new view of space (heavens) and a new view of mankind (bentness vs. human nature that’s not sinful, that fears God, and operates under his rule and submission to his will).

Lewis understands that History, Fact, and Meaning must go together to understand something fully