A man like Gratillonius makes many enemies who come together to conspire against him. Will he survive a succession of challengers in the Wood? Nagon Demari, expelled from Ys, cooperates with Gratillonius' Roman detractors and even receives Christian instruction while calling the King a "'...brotherfucker...'" (p. 107) and wanting him dead! This clearly demonstrates that religious allegiance and moral goodness are two overlapping circles but in no way identical. CS Lewis' Aslan says that he and the Calormene god, Tash, really a demon, are so constituted that any bad deed done in Aslan's name is really done in Tash's name and any good deed done in Tash's name is really done in Aslan's.
In the previous volume, Gratillonius had told Corentinus, first, that eternal torment was not a proper punishment for an incorrect opinion and, secondly, that a God Who thought that it was was not righteous. Corentinus' reply was merely that mortals did not understand enough to judge the Almighty. We do. Whether by God or by evolution, we have been endowed with reason and moral judgement. One of my fellow Philosophy graduate students, called Alan Russell, had intended all along to follow University with theological training and to work in the Presbyterian ministry, which he did. Alan thought that it was both necessary and possible to mount a moral defence of the activities of the Biblical God.
Later in Dahut, Corentinus wishes that there was a kindly hereafter, neither Heaven nor Hell, for upright unbelievers like Gratillonius. Where does he think that Gratillonius will go then? Somewhere, I think although I will have to find it, Corentinus wonders why God consigns so many children to Hell. Don't worship such a God, Corentinus.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I object to your last paragraph. You seem to be attributing to the Church ideas, like the damnation of unbaptized or aborted infants, that were only that, "ideas," but were not binding and defined doctrines.
Gratillonius' contemporary, St. Augustine, thought unbaptized infants were damned. I repeat, that was never doctrine, merely a theological speculation. Other theologians, like St. Thomas Aquinas, disagreed and thought deceased unbaptized infants went to a "place" of perfect natural happiness called Limbo. What seems to be the current theologians is to hope God provides for their salvation.
Ad astra! Sean
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