Martin Schuster gives us one more page about the Kabbalah which makes even less sense. However, it is blog policy to leave no stone unturned in analyzing Poul Anderson's texts.
By focusing on just one creation from among the infinite possibilities, God limits Himself but He cannot be limited. Therefore, He must create (see the previous argument) but cannot create.
I counter-argue: can He not give His attention to everything simultaneously - Himself, a particular creation, any other creation(s) and every unrealized possibility?
The Ivanhoan, Herktaskor, too easily led by Schuster, like the auditor in a Platonic dialogue, merely asks how the latter resolves the paradox of God needing to create yet being unable to create. Schuster's answer comes out of nowhere:
"'...the actual creation must have been carried out by ten intelligences known as the Sephiroth -...'" (VI, p. 252)
Instead of asking how that follows, Herktaskor, a pure monotheist, merely objects that there are no other gods and that angels do not create. Schuster now explains the Sephiroth as manifestations of God, like facets of a jewel. He has already subdivided creation into:
the desire to create;
thought about whatever is to be created;
the decision to create;
the act of creation.
The first of these is the first Sephiroth which must be co-eternal with God. (It sounds like the Word.) Being eternal, it contains the nine others which are also attributes of the creation although we are not told why this should be so because, mercifully, the scene changes to Herktaskor leaving in a daze several hours later. He is too easily overawed by Schuster's glib exposition. Why should these Sephiroth be described as "intelligences"?
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I agree, this is perhaps a weak spot in "The Three-Cornered Wheel," Herktaskor being so easily bemused by Schuster's exposition of the Kabbalah. Even for someone from a long ossified cultured unused to new and strange ideas, Herktaskor was too easily befuddled. He should have been able to think of some of the objections you raised--esp. since Ivanhoans were described as being very intelligent. To be fair, I wonder how * I * would do in Herktaskor's place!
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment