Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2002 19:43:33 -0500 (EST)
From: Michael Straight 
Subject: Re: (urth) Re: The irrigation of Lune

On Mon, 4 Mar 2002, Roy C. Lackey wrote:

> As for Abaia & Co. being responsible for the black hole: if they were, then
> it was only a symbolic gesture. 

Yet they continue to act against the Autarchy and to try to prevent
Severian from bringing the New Sun.

> If Abaia & Co. were responsible for the wounding of
> the sun, then they were unwitting agents of the Increate, who were doing His
> bidding, whether they would or no. The entire purpose, in Wolfe's universe,
> of the wounding of the sun, of Sev's sham trial, and the coming of the New
> Sun, was to satisfy the whims of the Increate. 

Here we get into deep philosophical/theological waters.  This is like
saying that the Romans didn't really crucify Jesus, or if they did they
were the unwitting agents of God, who were doing his will whether they
would or no.  The entire purpose, on this reading, of the crucifixion and
the resurrection was to satisfy the whims of God.

And there are certainly people who read the New Testament that way.

But there is also the reading that the crucifixion was an evil act
committed by the Romans et. al. for which they bear guilt and
responsibility, yet God twisted and turned that evil thing and brought
good out of it.  I submit this is probably the closer to the sense Wolfe
intends, that the dying sun is a bad thing, caused by the evil of Abaia
et. al., and probably also in some sense the result of humanity's own sins
coming home to roost, yet the Increate takes this and turns it to his own
purposes.

How much all this ultimately boils down to satisfying the whims of the
Increate depends on one's views of divine foreknowledge, omnipotence,
predestination, determinism, free will, etc.

-Rostrum


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