Increate on trial

James Wynn · 31 Mar 2005, 10:43 · from 2005-March.txt.gz

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From: thewynns at earthlink.net (James Wynn)
Date: Thu Mar 31 10:43:22 2005
Subject: (urth) Re: Increate on trial
References: <000c01c535c9$19793680$a13ec6d8 at rclackey.stic.net>
Message-ID: <004201c53621$7abca050$60a3f63f@wynnhouse>

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Roy C. Lackey"
>my point in the above excerpt was to maintain that, from
>one end of the Judeo-Christian spectrum to the other, from the Old 
>Testament
>to the New, the world we live on is necessarily the most dear piece of real
>estate in Creation to the Increate. I don't see how either Jew or Christian
>could argue with that.

"And if there's life on other planets
  Then I'm sure that He must know,
And He's been there once already
  And has died to save their souls"

-- Larry Norman ("He's An Unidentified Flying Object")

>Maybe Wolfe placed the Sun cycle in a previous universe in an attempt to
>dodge the problem presented by the Incarnation that I mentioned. But both
>Newton and Einstein would frown on uncaused effects -- those Christian
>symbols.

I have understood Wolfe to be saying consistently and through multiple 
novels that that imagery is universal. That Christ did what he did because 
he was the Christ, not because circumstances shaped his history. That Christ 
being who he is, all creation and all saviors in myth and history tend to 
look like him.

And I don't see any more point in speculating on the eternal fate of the 
Urthlings than to question the eternal fate of Frodo. I could say, "well 
since these Urthers were before Adam, why they must have had no eternal 
souls" or "being in a different Universe, the current concepts of Heaven and 
Hell are not relevant". But what's the point? Those are hardly the only way 
to bring the Sun cycle into the Christian universe. But I don't think Wolfe 
intends any such thing. He wrote a new mythology here, not speculative 
fiction.

Personally, I've come to like the idea of a "futuristic novel" set in a vast 
distant future that occurs in the staggeringly distant "past" (if that's the 
proper word for something that occurs beyond multiple iterations of the 
collapse and rebirth of Time). Its just the sort of twisting Wolfe does all 
the time with his stories and characters. Maybe he didn't think of it until 
later but I don't find it especially undermined in the text (even the quote 
David Kirby mentioned since the Bang-Gnab theory Wolfe is playing with was 
similar to the parallel universe concept of String theory). I don't see it 
as a plot hole at all.

Stone Ox asks:
>Isn't there some dispute about what happened to those who died before
>Jesus was born?

There's a tradition (touched on in the Apostolic Creed) that Jesus went to 
Hell to free those like Abraham, Moses, and Elijah who were held because no 
permanent sacrifice had yet been offered.

~ Crush

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