Monday, February 18, 2008

Notes on Tolstoy, On Truth in Art (1887)

(Originally Written February 18, 2008 in the Journal)

Part II On Truth in Art (1887)

Those who judge stories and fairy tales as untrue and mere fancy, judge them improperly.

"Truth will be known not by him who knows only what has been, is, and really happens, but by him who recognizes what should be according to the will of God" (Maude, 9) - a good theological/epistemological statement.

"Truth is a path" (Maude, 10).

Verbal compositions are good and necessary when they set value on what is good and evil. What is good conforms to what ought to be according to the will of God. What is evil is contrary to what ought to be according to the will of God.

A thought from me: Truth and fact are not synonyms. Fact can be truth, but truth is not necessarily factual as in correlation with the world as is.

In order to write on truth one must write on what ought to be, not what is.

Those men who do not know what is good or evil (what corresponds to what should or should not be according to the will of God) do not write on truth.

Fairy tales or fables in which events never happened or never could happen can be true because they describe the world as it ought to be according to the will of God.

If truth is lacking, no matter how factual a story can be, it is nonetheless false because it lacks the truth of the kingdom of God.

Christ spoke in parables and they have remained eternally true.

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