Starfarers, 34.
Brent:
"'Men, real men and women, they don't tamely whine, 'Thy will be done.' They fight back." (p.321)
Nice guy, that Brent. A real man!
However, my point in the present post is that by denigrating the prayer, "Thy will be done," Brent quotes from the Lord's Prayer which means that Poul Anderson yet again quotes from the Bible. To quote in order to disagree is still to quote. (In this case, it is the character, not the author, that is in disagreement.)
By contrast, James Blish's Robin Weinbaum concludes:
"'I may be addressing it to nothing but a sort of cosmic Dead Letter Office, but that can't be helped. The message itself is plain. It has got to read:
"'"To Whom it may concern:Thy will, not mine."'"
-James Blish, The Quincunx Of Time (New York, 1973), CHAPTER TEN, p. 119.
(All of my prayers go to that cosmic Dead Letter Office.)
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And I don't believe you HAVE to settle for that cosmic Dead Letter Office. But I agree faith cannot be compelled or forced if it is to be real.
The late Fr. Raymond Brown, SS wrote a very interesting essay about the Pater Noster which was included in a collection of his shorter works called NEW TESTAMENT ESSAYS. An article which I should reread soon.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But faith cannot be an act of will. I cannot decide to believe something.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I have to disagree. We can ASSENT or not to faith, which are acts of the will. Or we can at least leave ourselves open to faith. And that too is an act of the will.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I am getting a bit lost here. Evangelicals ask me to believe in Christ not because of any reasoning or evidence offered by them but simply by some kind of mental act on my part. I cannot do this. I believe that the Earth goes round the Sun, not vice versa, because I understand that there is evidence to support this proposition, not because I have decided to believe in heliocentricity as against geocentricity.
If assenting to faith means affirming my belief in something, then, yes, this assenting/affirming is done by an act of the will but the belief itself is not. I believe because I am persuaded by evidence or reason, not because I have decided to believe. How and why should I do such a thing?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I am a Catholic, not a Baptist or "Evangelical" Protestant. Which means I respect logic, reason, and the sciences. Nor do I believe the naive interpretations of the Bible held by many of these persons.
Faith can be informed by knowledge from other sources, but ultimately cannot depend on them solely. I am trying to say I believe that leaving one's self open to the possibility of belief in God is also an act of consent, of the will.
A real theologian could probably explain this better than I can!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But belief itself is not.
Paul.
Post a Comment