It is possible to enjoy reading and yet to come across a bunch of books in which you have no interest whatsoever. This would not be the case in the library of the Nomad ship, Peregrine:
"The walls were lined with shelves holding micro-books from civilized planets: references, philosophies, poetry, fiction, belles-lettres, an incredible jackdaw's nest of anything and everything. But there were also large-sized folios, written by the natives of a hundred worlds or by the Nomads themselves. It was the compendious history of the ships which [Trevelyan] took down and opened.
"It began with the memoirs of Thorkild Erling..." (pp. 92-93)
Thus, Trevelyan would read "Gypsy," just as, in Poul Anderson's Technic History, Flandry can read "The Star Plunderer" in John Reeves' memoirs.
Once, we stayed in a hostel at the Cathedral of the Isles, the smallest Cathedral in the British Isles. The library contained only theology, church history and the third volume of CS Lewis' Ransom Trilogy. I preferred to reread passages from that novel than to read anything else. I would appreciate visiting the Peregrine library.
8 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I have an amateur's interest in theology and Biblical commentary, and I have some books in those fields. A special favorite being Fr. Francis Clark's EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE AND THE REFORMATION, focusing on one of the hottest points of dispute between Catholics and the early Protestants, the nature of the Eucharist and the Church.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Christians could follow the instruction to "Do this in memory of me..." without formulating any doctrines about it. Any Christian could re-enact the blessing of the bread and wine if there was no doctrine about an ordained priest or minister having to do it.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
That is simply not possible. Because Christianity IS about doctrine, the correct interpretation of what all serious Christians believe to be divine revelation. And that includes coming to a correct understanding of the Eucharist.
Catholics and Orthodox take seriously, indeed literally, what Christ commanded and did at the Last Supper, the first Mass: "This is my body, ...my blood." At every Mass by a validly ordained priest the bread and wine is transubstantiated into the body and blood of Christ, under the "accidents" of that bread and wine. Every Mass is an unbloody re-presentation of the once and for all sacrifice of Christ to the Father.
So, for Protestants like Zwingli and his followers to deny the Real Presence would provoke special anger and passionate debates. Much of which Fr. Clark discussed in his book. And he wrote in firm but gentlemanly tones, summarizing Protestant beliefs fairly, even if he did not believe them to be right.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
"Accidents" is a contested philosophical concept. Any object is simply the sum total of all its properties/"accidents." It is not a substance underlying those properties. Such a substance would have no inherent properties and thus would not be body, blood or anything else. To have a body is to have/to consist in a certain set of properties and nothing else.
Blood sacrifice is surely a barbaric concept. Something is wrong in Christianity if doctrinal disagreements "...provoke special anger..."
Paul.
The problem with the Peregrine's library is that it's -physical-. Rather than stored information in digital or other form, which can be accessed as needed.
I can carry around thousands of books on my ipad, and access many, many more. Eventually, everything ever written.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: I disagree. Scholastic Catholic theologians, when taking over many terms and concepts from Aristotelianism, gave new meanings to some of them. Inevitably so when it came to discussing matters of divine revelation.
And the atoning sacrifice of Christ was STILL the means willed by the Father for opening salvation for mankind.
I also disagree about "anger." Considering how much the Mass MATTERS, I fully sympathize with the outrage felt by many Catholics at the attacks made by the Protestants on the Real Presence after 1517.
Mr. Stirling: Yes, but it's impossible to read every book one might like, want, could, or should read. So, if a book interests me enough to read it, I would prefer to read a hard copy of that book.
Mind you, I agree digital storing of many thousands of books in ebooks is a good thing. I also believe many serious readers will still want hard copies of some books.
Ad astra! Sean
I have a reservation about ebooks in that, they generally require some sort of elaborate technology to read them. So some sort of civilizational crash would leave information in them unavailable while paper books would retain the information for people to rebuild civilization.
However this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5D_optical_data_storage
sounds like it would store eg: the "Handbook of Physics & Chemistry", and many more technical books & be readable "with a combination of an optical microscope and a polarizer."
Kaor, Jim!
I thought of that as well! Assuming a massive crash of civilization, what good would ebooks do if you can't USE them??? Better to have something like the time vault in Anderson's VAULT OF AGES, which included many hard copy books.
Ad astra! Sean
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