Claw = Fang?

Lee Berman · 27 Nov 2012, 15:58 · from 2012-November.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2012 10:58:30 -0500
Subject: (urth) Claw = Fang?
Message-ID: <SNT123-W2296F4462ED496D43989FCCF5E0 at phx.gbl>

>Daniel Petersen: The freedom of creatures to bend with good's healing integration or,
>conversely (and perversely), to bend against that good in the direction of
>evil's disintegrating non-creative force seems plausible (and urgent) to me
>in Wolfe.  His characters are not just inert objects being shaped by
>opposing forces.  They are *imago Dei *creatures of inherent goodness
>(think of the way Silk views even the 'worst') being called to 'go with the
>flow' of that goodness rather than flowing in the opposite direction.
> That's libertarian freewill to me, not some pretend 'freedom' that must be
>what it is by eternal decree (hammer and tongs style) even though it can
>subjectively feel as if it's making it's own choices because that makes
>life psychologically bearable.

Eloquently stated, as always Daniel. Trying to reinterpret your words in my own
coarse fashion, I wonder if we can stretch the analogy to suggest that as metal
being blacksmithed, we do have the choice to either be molded as intended by an 
intelligent and benignly purposed Creator or to reject the molding and accept
existence as an errant, excised scrap of purposeless metal, perhaps useful only as
recycled material for some future project.

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