Percy-L: Literary, Religious, Scientific, and Philosophical Discussion of Walker Percy

[Michael Larson <larsonovic AT gmail.com>]

Debt forgiveness is for the ignorant (those who know not what they do) and for the repentant, those who are sorry for their wrongs and aim to amend their lives. This latter implies a belief in an objective moral order.

In Lancelot, three ways are proposed (p. 255-57): 1) Sodom: the way of the modern world (i.e. rejection of an objective moral order), 2) Lance's way (i.e. a return to an objective moral order, enforced with an iron fist: a new version of the Old Law), 3) Percival's way: the way of the Church (i.e. acceptance of an objective moral order, but mercy for the penitent: a return to the New Law, a.k.a. Christendom).

The world at present is in the final throes of the first way, but Lancelot and Percival agree that the future of humanity cannot continue in this way. They agree beyond any doubt that it will be either the second or the third way, but not both. And we know which of the two Percy, the author, is asserting by the final words of the novel, when Lancelot asks Percival, "Is there anything you wish to tell me before I leave?" and Percival, who has been the silent hearer of Lance's 255-page confession, responds, "Yes."

Probably he will tell Lance that without sorrow for his sins, the new beginning he envisions is as doomed as the modern world.

Mike Larson