We have read about Joshua Coffin praying that God's will be done. But there is another way to look at it.
Coffin's companion, Jan Svoboda:
"Defeat rose in Svoboda's throat like vomit. He told the knowledge over and over, a kind of litany to the malevolent God who had arranged matters in precisely this way." (p. 150)
SM Stirling has argued in earlier comboxes on this blog that we have been naturally selected to discern motives in each other - one man approaches with a smile, another with a frown - and, as an extension of this, we also attribute motives to non-human phenomena. Our ancestors tried to placate gods of the weather.
Many of us now think, on scientific and philosophical grounds, that the causes of natural events do not include any "will," whether benevolent, malevolent or inscrutable.
Coffin and Svoboda can, if they want, argue the matter after the event.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
No, God is the first cause of all things that exist. But He also acts thru or permits secondary causes, such as the natural laws discerned by science, reason, evolution, etc.
Of course we all have to respond to others with some wariness. A man might be smiling and still be dangerous; or a man might be frowning and not be a danger. Bona fides needs to be established before strangers can relax.
Ad astra! Sean
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