Subject: (urth) The poor dragons

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2007 19:46:40 +0000

Thinking about the amoral Aelf and the problems attendant on their
problematic position in a hierarchical cosmology between men and dragons
leads logically to some other difficulties. It stands to reason that
dragons, native to an even lower level, are also amoral and without an
eternal spirit. Otherwise, how could beings with souls be expected to
worship amoral, soulless, animated debris? What benefit could they possibly
derive from such worship, intrinsic or otherwise? What could the Aelf, given
their nature, possibly do in their capacity as gods to or for the dragons
that the dragons would find beneficial?

What of Setr, who was somehow half human? Was he morally culpable for
anything? If No, then the epic struggle against him is diminished to the
level of a struggle against a particularly dangerous snake or rabid animal,
neither of which bear any responsibility for any harm done by them to men.
If he is morally neutral, then he is just a bogeyman, a cardboard embodiment
of something that can't really be called Evil because it lacks the moral
component associated with Lucifer. If Yes, if he had a human soul, what
reasonable hope had he for salvation, apart from divine grace, a concept I
see no provision for in Wolfe's Seven Worlds cosmology? Did he owe reverence
to the Overcyn or to the Aelf?

-Roy

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From: thalassocrat at nym.hush.com <thalassocrat at nym.hush.com>
Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2007 21:20:08 +0000

On Wed, 03 Oct 2007 05:46:40 +1000 "Roy C. Lackey" 
<rclackey at stic.net> wrote, inter alia:
>... divine grace, a concept I
>see no provision for in Wolfe's Seven Worlds cosmology

I disagree with that. When Able transforms Dsiri, he does it in the 
presence of a Valfather whom the magic helmet reveals to be "bright 
shadow". I'm sure that the one true God is present behind the 
Valfather aspect, and Able here is acting as the agent of divine 
grace. 

Anyway, I think it'd be pretty amazing for Wolfe to construct a 
cosmos with absolutely no provision for divine grace, especially 
one which appears to share the same Heaven with ours.

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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Wed, 03 Oct 2007 05:22:12 +0000

>Valfather aspect, and Able here is acting as the agent of divine

My whole sentence was: "If Yes, if he [Setr] had a human soul, what
reasonable hope had he for salvation, apart from divine grace, a concept I
see no provision for in Wolfe's Seven Worlds cosmology?"

I was speaking of salvation, the salvation of a being with a soul, by divine
grace. I didn't say that God could not act in the world(s). In consequence
of Able giving her his blood, Disiri became a human woman and thereby gained
a soul. With a soul, she then had a *chance* at salvation, like any other
human. Merely having a soul does not guarantee entry to Heaven.

Able may have been God's agent for making Disiri human, but Able was not the
agent for her salvation, if that should turn out to be her lot. That is the
job of a redeemer. As you wrote a few days ago, "Why Jesus hasn't impinged
on Mythgathr so far - dunno!" I don't know either, which is why I said it
was "a concept I see no provision for in Wolfe's Seven Worlds cosmology."

If Wolfe believes that salvation is by grace alone (RC Church doctrine), and
that men cannot influence the outcome (Pelagian heresy), then what is a body
in the middle worlds supposed to do?

Even if Setr did have a human soul, he was set up to fail. If he had a human
soul and worshipped the Aelf, he was guilty of violating the religious
dictum to worship upward. As a dragon, he was compelled to worship the Aelf.
Either way, he was in violation of the First Commandment, if there was such
a thing in the Seven Worlds.

If TWK had been written by someone other than Wolfe, I could write all these
religious issues off as just background for a rip-roaring fantasy story. But
it isn't a rip-roaring story and it *was* written by Wolfe. What was his
religious message?

-Roy

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From: Stanislaus <sbocian at poczta.fm>
Date: Wed, 03 Oct 2007 20:46:13 +0000

Hello Roy,

> anything?

A few points:
1) The original inhabitant of the Aelfs' world was Kulili, and she should be worshipped by the inhabitants of the dragon's world.
2) Are we certain that the dragons were originally inhabitants of that world? We know that the Lowest God came from above. In addition, beings from so low level should be weak. Dragons are not weak, nor stupid. They have too many human characteristics.

I wonder whether they are not similar to Osterlings, only more so?

  -- 
Best regards,
 Stanislaus                        

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From: Stanislaus <sbocian at poczta.fm>
Date: Wed, 03 Oct 2007 21:00:03 +0000

Hello Roy,

Wednesday, October 3, 2007, 7:22:12 AM, you wrote:
....
> in the middle worlds supposed to do?
...

This is in fact the Calvinist doctrine, which is quite different from Catholic one. BTW, "sola gratia" is quite well known as the shibboleth of Protestantism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sola_gratia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11604a.htm

Pelagians taught that men DO NOT need grace at all, and that they can save themselves by their own effort. 

-- 
Best regards,
 Stanislaus                           mailto:sbocian at poczta.fm

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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Thu, 04 Oct 2007 05:46:40 +0000

Stanislaus wrote:
>Pelagians taught that men DO NOT need grace at all, and that they can save
themselves by their own effort.<<

I know that. That's why (partly) the RC Church declared it was heresy. The
other part was that the Pelagians denied the idea of Original Sin. I'll
state the basic idea of the heresy, because I want to use it as a possible
logical explanation of the religious problems I've been harping about in
TWK. (There is also a NEW SUN angle, but I'll save that for another time.)

The Pelagians held that Adam's progeny were not contaminated by his sin.
Without Original Sin, there was no need for a universal redeemer. Jesus was
seen as a good role model, but was not necessary for individual salvation.
(It's easy to see why the Church frowned on these ideas.) Man could put
himself in good standing with God by leading a good life, leading to
salvation.

Didn't Wolfe say, somewhere, that in TWK he wanted to show a society where
knights existed but where that society was not underpinned by Christianity?
Anyway, that seems to be the de facto situation in TWK. If the description
of the origins of the Seven Worlds given in the fourth chapter of WIZARD is
valid, then there was no Creation (at least not the Genesis variety; we are
told that men were raised up from animals), no Garden, no Adam, no Original
Sin. There is no evidence that Jesus ever existed in Mythgarthr, or ever
would. It's the Pelagian heresy brought to life in fiction.

Everything and everyone below Elysion has something wrong with it, in
varying degrees, simply because they are something apart from God. Beings
are bad, evil, wrong or whatever because they are imperfect. Beings are
judged on the basis of their own actions, not what someone else did.

My problem, and I think many other readers have the same problem, is reading
the book with certain Judeo-Christian preconceptions getting in the way of
comprehending what Wolfe actually wrote. If you look at it this way, if you
can dismiss those preconceptions and accept Wolfe's Seven Worlds at face
value, then a lot of the religious questions simply go away.

I don't know why he wrote the story this way, but I think he did.

-Roy