{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2098",
    "note": "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.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 2098,
    "subject": "Wolfe's Theology",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2000-01-28T10:05:17+00:00",
    "last": "2000-01-28T10:05:17+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0028-0741@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Jim Jordan",
        "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net"
      },
      "date": "2000-01-28T10:05:17+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Wolfe's Theology",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "At 06:39 PM 1/24/00 -0500, you wrote:\n\nBLUE seems to deal with this in a central way, as well.  I think I've said\nbefore that Wolfe seems to have a strong similarity with Dante's exploration\nin The Divine Comedy (adopted from St. Thomas, of course)--that only where \nthere is love can there be real moral pain or evil--at the root of the worst\nthings lies a perversion or erroneous hierarchy of loves--for Dante, and, I\nsuspect Wolfe, a hierarchy that mistakes some lesser object for God and\ninverts\nthe ladder of love into a parodic downward spiral.  Thus the insistence that\nalthough Abaia/Erebus etc. can thwart the Increate to the extent that they\nviolate, presumably, the inherent good of their own natures, they cannot fail\nto serve also as unwilling and angry agents of Providence--another theme\nin the\nphilosophies I'm guessing Wolfe is most comfortable with (anyway, the ones\nChesterton's POV is based upon*)."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "\tThere's no need to guess about this. It is very clear in \"The Detective of\nDreams\" that the Dreammaster has \"other servants\" who don't like Him but\nwho do His bidding by being allowed to do what they want to do. But none of\nthis thwarts the Increate; Emery's statement to his stepdaughter about why\nit is important not to lie gives Wolfe's opinion (which of course is just\nplain old orthodox, non-manichaean Christianity): Lies can't hurt God; they\ncan only hurt us, which is why God does not want us to do it. Abaia et al.\nultimately only \"thwart\" themselves when they \"kick against the pricks\"\n(which is how Jesus explained Saul-Paul's attacks against Him)."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "* for a (very Christian-biased, of course) treatment of the parts of Aquinas/\nAugustine/Anselm/Aristotle and other \"A\"-list philosophers who seem to\nhave an\ninfluence on Wolfe, I suggest Etienne Gilson's _The Spirit of Medieval \nPhilosophy_, especially as Wolfe doesn't claim to have read them all in the\noriginal Latin/Greek or anything."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "\tWolfe told me that when he married and took classes to become a Roman\nCatholic, he read Aquinas. Given how he does not seem to forget anything, I\nthink it is a safe bet that his religious thinking is largely shaped by\nThomas, who of course mediates Augustine and Anselm. Then there's\nChesterton, of course. But for straight theology, looking at Aquinas is a\nsafe bet as regards Wolfe.\n\nNutria"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}