# Digest urth.v025.n001 *The Urth list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 06 Apr 1999* > Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright > in each message remains with the person who wrote it. > Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original > archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than > retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact. --- ### Kieran Mullen *06 Apr 1999, 12:51* > --------------- MESSAGE urth.v025.n001.7 --------------- > From: "Roy C. Lackey" > Subject: Ex-lurker > Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1999 04:02:26 -0500 > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > As for the logic of what came when; in a circular, time-travel story, > one point on the circumference is about as good as another. If the circle is > broken at any point, the whole thing collapses. I don't have a better answer > than that; I don't know that there is one. If there is one, it may be > related to Wolfe's views on predestination. I don't know whether or not the > views expressed by Silk could be taken as Wolfe's, but on the second page of > chapter V of _Nightside_ he has Silk thinking: > "...the Outsider had assured him that his regard for him was eternal and > perfect, never to be changed by any act of his, no matter how iniquitous or > how meritorious." > Now _that_ is predestination, pure and simple. FWIW > Roy No, absolutely not. That is unconditional love. It is *not* predestination. Predestination would be "the Outsider had assured him that the future was crystalline, never to be changed by any act of his, no matter how iniquitous or how meritorious," which Wolfe did not say. Universalism (the doctrine or belief that all men will be saved, or made happy, in the future state) is also not considered a form of predestination save in a trivial sense. Kieran "not a theologian, but I play one on TV" Mullen Kieran Mullen email: kieran at mail.nhn.ou.edu Dept. of Physics and Astronomy phone: (405) 325-3961 The University of Oklahoma FAX: (405) 325-7557 Norman, OK 73019, USA http://www.nhn.ou.edu/~kieran/ ---