No sooner do we comment on the wind, than we encounter it again. When Heidhin tells Everard that Edh:
"'...is the chosen of a goddess.'" (p. 575)
- Everard asks himself:
"Did the wind really blow keener all at once?" (ibid.)
So this time the wind did not really change but Everard felt something?
What can we say about this wind reference that we have not said about so many others? Well, first we can check whether we have posted about it before. (And we should have done.) Yes. See:
And that was worth checking because I just would not have thought of making any of those comments this time. The goddess is, in a sense, present. Heidhin has already seen her.
12 comments:
You have to remember that relgious belief in a culture still in 'mythological time' isn't like religious belief now.
It's like us believing that the world is round and orbits the sun. It's axiomatic.
Note that one of the Apostles got mistaken for Zeus in human form in the Greek part of Anatolia.
--That's- the sort of thing Heidin is saying.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Yes, but the Faith preached by St. Paul and the other Apostles would destroy that "mythological time,' making it impossible to believe the wind, sun, stars, other humans, etc., to be thought of as divine. Creatures of God, but not divine. And that demythologizing would, among other things, help make a true science possible.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: but conversely, actual atheism was virtually psychologically impossible in pre-Christian times. Christianity subtracted the divine/spiritual from the physical world, albeit gradually. It became possible to imagine the physical world -without- animating spirit.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And I believe that "subtracting" of the "divine/spiritual from the physical world" was a good and necessary thing. Albeit I now wonder if some neo-pagans are again trying to re-mythologzize the world?
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
According to monotheism as opposed to Deism, God is omnipresent and immanent in the world. Pagans who sense the divine in nature are intuiting correctly. Their conception of the divine is different, of course.
Paul.
Kaor, Paui!
I cannot agree, the universe is not divine in any sense.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Deism: God is outside the world.
Pantheism: God is the world.
Theism/monotheism (has also been called panentheism): God is both outside and within the world.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Then I will correct my previous comment a bit, everything created by God, such as the universe, is good.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
What do you make of the doctrines of divine immanence and omnipresence?
They imply that someone must be able to apprehend God as within (not as identical with) sunsets and other natural phenomena.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
What I am trying to insist on is that the universe is distinct from God, a creation of God. And I believe natural reason can enable us to think reasonably about what God is or is likely to be.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I understand that the theistic doctrine is that God created the world and also that He is discernible in and through it as St. Paul said when he preached to Greek philosophers.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Which is the standard Catholic belief.
Ad astra! Sean
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