I get the impression of a ferment of ideas in the Terran Empire period of Poul Anderson's Technic History. Human, Ythrian and Merseian monotheisms are incompatible but there can be partial syntheses like Djana's vision of a Merseian Christ. Magnusson combines his Neosufism with the Merseian idea of "the God." Axor combines his Jerusalem Catholicism and his quest for the Universal Incarnation with the occult-sounding idea that the Builders:
"'...abandoned their achievements, as we, growing up, put away childish things, and went on to a higher plane of existence.'"
-Poul Anderson, The Game Of Empire IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, June 2012), pp. 189-453 AT CHAPTER TWO, p. 210.
("...put away childish things..." is yet another partial Biblical quotation that I have not noted before.)
Axor's companion, Targovi, is a pagan if he is anything.
Small wonder then that, to be as inclusive as possible, the Magnusson Rebellion proclaims:
"'Stand by. The Divine, in whatever form It manifests Itself to you, the Divine is with us.'"
-CHAPTER FIVE, p. 261.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
What we see in both the New Testament and the writings of the Apostolic Fathers* were orthodox Christians, the first Catholics, striving to make sense of the revelation granted to them, searching for the best ways of expressing what had been revealed to them. That is why readers of the NT see that "ferment" of ideas, as the authors of the Gospels and other books strove to make sense of what they had learned.
And Fr. Axor's comments reminds me of what was seen many years before in THE DAY OF THEIR RETURN, where Aycharaych tried to stir up trouble for the Empire using a millennarian cult called Cosmenosism. Fr. Axor's "Builders" were called "Elders" or "Ancients" on Aeneas. The Cosmenosists Also talked about "enlightened" Elders putting aside childish things and moving "...on to a higher plane of existence."
And we know that was a fraud conjured up by Aycharaych as part of his scheme to foment a jihad resulting in the Empire being "convulsed and shattered." Easy prey for Merseia!
I think of Targovi as being a Tigery agnostic.
Ad astra! Sean
*The Apostolic Fathers belonged to the first generation of Christian writers who came after the Apostles. Examples of some of their works being the "Didache," Clement of Rome's "Letter to the Corinthians," the seven letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch, etc.
It's important to note that in Christian theology, Christ did not exist "before" the Incarnation.
Like the other three Persons of the Trinity, he was -outside time altogether-.
God in that tradition exists in eternity; He experiences all of existence simultaneously, rather than in a duration of one moment succeeding another.
Incidentally, this solves the 'problem' of predestination and free will, usually expressed as 'how can we have free will, if God knows everything in advance?"
The answer is that He doesn't; 'in advance' is meaningless for a being not bound by time and duration.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Many thanks for offering comments on topics I usually express more clumsily and awkwardly. I should have remembered how God exists in an eternal "now" where He experiences everything simultaneously.
Yes, Christ, as CHRIST, did not exist before the Incarnation. But the eternal Logos, the Second Person of the Trinity, He existed outside time, from all eternity.
Ad astra! Sean
I agree that eternal omniscience is not prescience. Also, even prescience of how someone was going to act freely would not negate freedom. However, I think that there are multiple other philosophical problems with monotheism.
If "eternal" means "atemporal," then I think that atemporal consciousness is as impossible as a mathematically flat plane. However, "eternal" should mean "transtemporal" but I am not sure what that would be.
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