The Co-Director of the Wade Center returns to talk about his early work on the Ransom Trilogy in his book, “Planets in Peril”.
S6E12: “Planets in Peril” (Download)
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Show Notes
Introduction
Drop-In
Quote-of-the-week
“That part of the line where I thought I could serve best was also the part that seemed to be thinnest. And to it I naturally went.”
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Preface)
Biographical Information
Dr. David C. Downing is a graduate from Westmont College and earned his PhD from UCLA. He is co-director with his wife, Crystal, of the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College in Illinois, and is co-host of their podcast.
He has written several books on Lewis, including a biography (Most Reluctant Convert), a novel about the Inklings (Looking for the King), a study of Lewis’s reading in Christian mysticism (Into the Region of Awe), as well as the book which we’ll be talking about today, Planets in Peril: A Critical Study of C.S. Lewis’s Ransom Trilogy.
Guest Biographical Information
Chit-Chat
- Alexander mistook Dr. Downing for lion!
Toast
- David was drinking a latte.
- Dr. Downing was drinking a frappuccino.
- They toasted Patreon supporter, Matt Nash:
Matt, we pray that you would draw closer to the Lord in 2023. We pray that you would not be a Most Reluctant Convert, but by Looking for the King that you would enter Into the Region of Awe!
Patreon Toast
Discussion
1. “Genesis”
Q. In 1992 you released your book book, Planets In Peril, was released. Would you mind telling us the story of how that came about?
–
2. “Dedication”
Q. The book is dedicated to Crystal – was this before she became Mrs. Dr. Downing?
For Crystal, who blends the love of wisdom with the wisdom of love.
Dr. David C. Downing, Into the Region of Awe (Dedication)
3. “Ransom and Lewis”
Q. In our first episode this season, we mentioned the parallels between Ransom and Tolkien. However, in your book you point out that there are many parallels between Ransom and Lewis. What are they?
- Bachelor
- Anti-visectionist
- Handy in the kitchen
- When Lewis’ mother died a calendar on the wall had the following quotation on the calendar for that day which was retained by his father:
Men must endure Their going hence
William Shakespeare, King Lear
‘Let it go hence,’ they sang. ‘Let it go hence, dissolve and be no body...’
C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 19)
4. “Lewis’ Life”
Q. In the first chapter of your book, you spend some time talking about Lewis’ life. How does this affect our reading of Out of the Silent Planet and, in doing this, are we committing The Personal Heresy?
- The Lewis Lexicon: Childhood vs Boyhood
That is why I often find myself at such cross-purposes with the modern world: I have been a converted Pagan living among apostate Puritans.
C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life (Chapter 4)
Paganism had been only the childhood of religion, or only a prophetic dream.
C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life (Chapter 15)
5. “The Christian Vision of the Trilogy”
Q. In our inaugural episode this season, I read Jack’s letter about smuggling theology past watchful dragons, and you devote the second chapter of your book to “The Christian Vision of the Trilogy”. What do you see as the chief theological ideas Lewis wants to communicate?
You will be both grieved and amused to learn that out of about 60 reviews, only 2 showed any knowledge that my idea of a fall of the Bent One was anything but a private invention of my own? But if only there were someone with a richer talent and more leisure, I believe this great ignorance might be a help to the evangelisation of England: any amount of theology can now be smuggled into people’s minds under cover of romance without their knowing it.
C.S. Lewis, Letter to Sister Penelope (July [August] 9th, 1939)
There doubtless he lies to this hour, and we know no more of that planet: it is silent. We think that Maleldil would not give it up utterly to the Bent One, and there are stories among us that He has taken strange counsel and dared terrible things, wrestling with the Bent One in Thulcandra. But of this we know less than you; it is a thing we desire to look into.’
C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 18)
It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things which have now been announced to you by those who preached the good news to you through the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.
1 Peter 1:12
6. “Elements of Classicism and Medievalism”
Q. Chapter 3 of Planets in Peril focuses on the elements of classicalism and medievalism in the trilogy. What are some of these elements and, more importantly, why do they matter?
Why is God landing in this enemy-occupied world in disguise and starting a sort of secret society to undermine the devil? Why is He not landing in force, invading it? Is it dial He is not strong enough? Well, Christians think He is going to land in force; we do not know when. But we can guess why He is delaying. He wants to give us the chance of joining His side freely. I do not suppose you and I would have thought much of a Frenchman who waited till the Allies were marching into Germany and then announced he was on our side
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book II, Chapter 5)
. You can get the idea plain if you think of us as a fleet of ships sailing in formation. The voyage will be a success only, in the first place, if the ships do not collide and get in one another’s way; and, secondly, if each ship is seaworthy and has her engines in good order. As a matter of fact, you cannot have either of these two things without the other.
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book III, Chapter 1)
7. “Portraits of Evil”
Q. You devote a chapter looking at “Portraits of Evil”. How does Lewis paint Weston and Divine?
- A possible reference to Tartarus (2 Peter 2:4):
‘You mean we should have a dog if you hadn’t insisted on using Tartar for an experiment,’
C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 1)
Between ourselves, I am putting a little money into some experiments he has on hand. It’s all straight stuff—the march of progress and the good of humanity and all that, but it has an industrial side.’
C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 2)
I will tell you. He has left you this one because a bent hnau can do more evil than a broken one. He has only bent you; but this Thin One who sits on the ground he has broken, for he has left him nothing but greed.
C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 20)
- Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton
- The Abolition of Man
- Dr. Michael Ward
Naturally his conversations with the hrossa did not all turn on Malacandra. He had to repay them with information about Earth. He was hampered in this both by the humiliating discoveries which he was constantly making of his own ignorance about his native planet, and partly by his determination to conceal some of the truth. He did not want to tell them too much of our human wars and industrialisms.
C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 11)
8. “Models, Influences, and Echos”
Q. One of my favourite things on the Wade Center podcast is when you unpack all the influences on Lewis’ work and you devote a chapter to this in your book. What would you say are the more important “models, influences, and echos”?
If it makes you happy to repeat words that don’t mean anything—which is, in fact, what unscientific people want when they ask for an explanation—you may say we work by exploiting the less observed properties of solar radiation.
C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 4)
9. “The Dream”
Q. At the time of recording, we’ve just recorded our discussion of Chapter 2 of Out of the Silent Planet where Ransom has his dream of the walled garden and we had a bit of a back-and-forth as to its meaning. What do you make of it?
10. “Parting Advice”
Q. What’s your parting advice for us and our listeners as we read through Out of the Silent Planet? What should we be attentive to as we read? What’s the most important thing to remember?
- View the book and the series as Ransom’s spiritual journey.
He opened his eyes and saw a strange heraldically coloured tree loaded with yellow fruits and silver leaves. Round the base of the indigo stem was coiled a small dragon covered with scales of red gold.
C.S. Lewis, Perelandra (Chapter 4)
So what with one thing and another the queue had reduced itself to manageable proportions long before the bus appeared. It was a wonderful vehicle, blazing with golden light, heraldically coloured.
C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (Chapter 1)
Wrap-Up
More Information
- Planets in Peril: A Critical Study of C.S. Lewis’s Ransom Trilogy
- The Wade Center Podcast
- There is an upcoming annotated edition of Surprised By Joy
- Wyvern carvings
- It should be out sometime in 2024
