(ii) Agnostic.
(iii) Literary.
(i) CS Lewis' theological response (see here) expresses and propagates that author's faith in the Biblical tradition.
(ii) The agnostic authors, Blish and Anderson, dramatically present characters sharing Lewis' faith.
(iii) Anderson's and Stirling's stories of magic swords preserve pagan traditions but from literary, not confessional, perspectives.
However:
human beings imagined gods;
without imagination, we would not be human beings;
therefore, without imagined gods, we would not be human beings.
Real human beings and imaginary divine beings are interdependent. The gods remain an indispensable part of us even when we no longer believe in their literal existence. I think that Poul Anderson's works show this clearly.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
It would have been to write in your last paragraph: "The gods remain an indispensable part of us even when SOME OF US no longer believe in their literal existence." I do believe God literally exists. And I'm sure the less philosophically minded Hindus believe their "gods" are real (I said "Hindus" because I find it hard to take neo-pagans all that seriously).
Sean
Paul:
I'm sorry, but I don't agree with the conclusion of your syllogism. We CAN have imagination without it leading to our imagining GODS, specifically. Humans have imagined many things, and I feel it's false to conclude that the existence of a god or gods is an ESSENTIAL thing to imagine.
David,
Maybe but I think that personifying natural forces was an inevitable early stage of development.
Paul.
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