"'...just because something big falls on you doesn't mean there's an intention behind it. That's the pathetic fallacy, historical division. Mount St. Helen's didn't blow up because God was mad at the bears.'"
-SM Stirling, Island in The Sea Of Time (New York, 1998), p. 102.
As often as I have mentioned the pathetic fallacy in relation to Poul Anderson's works, it is good to see it referenced here. Martha develops the idea slightly:
the fallacy usually refers to nature, not to history;
it is usually an implied parallel between natural phenomena and human emotions, not an explicit intention behind external events.
Cofflin:
"God's not in time. God's outside time. He's eternal." (p. 103)
I used to believe that but what does it mean? The Biblical God definitely acts in time and even in history. Of course, He might be intervening from outside it. However, I suggest that a merely atemporal consciousness without any duration would be as impossible as a merely flat plane without any depth. But might the term "transtemporal" have some meaning? A solid incorporates planes so the transtemporal might incorporate times? The transcendent Hindu Brahman might be transtemporal in which case some lesser manifestation of His, or Its, might be acting in time? Fortunately, we can meditate and act while remaining agnostic on metaphysics.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
But I am not agnostic. I really do believe God is BOTH the Infinitely Transcendent Other AND a Being deeply concerned about His creation. So much so that He sent His Son to become incarnate as, die on the cross, and rise from the dead for our salvation. Compared to that, the Brahma of later Hindu speculation is an empty, bloodless abstraction.
Sean
I'm very disturbed by the recent news I read of Islamic State "soldiers" murdering a parish priest named Fr. Hamel in the town of St. Etienne du Rouvray. Every week comes with new atrocities by jihadist fanatics. And my anger grows, not only against fanatical Muslims, but at our weak, incompetent, and feckless leaders in the West!
Sean
IIRC from reading "Island in the Sea of Time" some years ago, Martha noted that the Pastor's idea is rather Manichean, something that was declared heresy at least as far back as St. Augustine.
Kaor, Jim!
I think it was the Catholic priest in Nantucket who talked about the Manichaean heresy.
Ad astra! Sean
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