Thursday 25 August 2016

All Gods

The Bhagavad Gita
The Yoga Sutras Of Patanjali
The Middle Earth History by JRR Tolkien
The Chronicles Of Narnia by CS Lewis
The Ransom Trilogy by CS Lewis
The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson
Operation Luna by Poul Anderson

Seven works:

two Hindu scriptures
five modern fantasies
three written by Christians
two by Lewis
two by the agnostic Anderson
all incorporating the gods and God into a single framework

"...he did not know the future. Nor, he believed, did the gods. (Well, the branching universes are so many, and each so strange, that probably none but the One God can keep track of them.)"
-Operation Luna (New York, 2000), p. 283.

Even if these two levels of divinity were to be acknowledged in reality, I would also affirm a third level: the One Reality, everything that exists, is manifested through all things, including you, me and "...whatever gods may be..."

From too much love of living,
         From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
         Whatever gods may be
That no life lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
         Winds somewhere safe to sea.
-copied from here.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

But I do believe in God the Omnipotent and Omniscient! And Christianity teaches dead men HAVE risen from the dead, above all, Jesus Christ, who is God Incarnate as well as man. The story of Lazarus also comes to mind!

JRR Tolkien is best known for his Middle Earth mythos--but he also liked to read SF, as he said one or two times in his letters. But aside from some hasty notes about "The Valor of Cappen Varra," we don't know what he thought of any of the works of Poul Anderson.

Sean