All is Shadow and dust

Chris · 10 Apr 2005, 02:08 · from 2005-April.txt.gz

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From: rasputin_ at hotmail.com (Chris)
Date: Sun Apr 10 02:08:33 2005
Subject: (urth) All is Shadow and dust
In-Reply-To: <4255F0CE.3020208 at gmail.com>
Message-ID: <BAY102-F3576684BB0B86AFAFEB62586310 at phx.gbl>

Maru said:
>Just a minor point- Are you sure about that definition of the 'theological 
>move'?

>human logic is essentially guaranteed to be wrong, simply because we lack 
>the necessary data or heuristics.  Which is not a normative claim, but more 
>a pratical one, like a monkey trying to understand calculus, 'don't even 
>bother trying'.

Well, yes, more or less. I think you have the idea here - 'don't even bother 
trying' being normative, not descriptive.

To put it in context, the whole reason Aquinas was addressing this subject 
was the "Problem of Evil", ie "If God is all-powerful and all-knowing, how 
could he be good and still allow evil in the world?" Aquinas is pointing out 
that when you ask that question, you're presuming to judge God (and so it's 
obviously not *impossible* to judge God). But the inadequacy of your 
knowledge and reason in this case give you no way of knowing what would be 
an accurate judgment for a being like God. As such he can't try to *answer* 
the question without making the same mistake, so he points out that we 
shouldn't ask it.

>if not well or completely, and the Hs do not act utterly superior; they go 
>so far as to repeatedly test Autarchs and get some semblance of permission 
>from Urthians (the battle), so they definitely don't believe in the 
>normative claim, and if the Hs don't accept it, who could have the right? 
>The Increate? But the Increate never intervenes.

If I remember correctly I wasn't suggesting that the Hierogrammates make 
such a claim. I was saying that it was one reason a person might give for 
why they don't judge Severian harshly.

The way you're interpreting the battle as a sort of "consent test" for the 
population of Urth is possible, I suppose, but I don't know that it's to be 
taken for granted. There is something a little paradoxical about the trial 
on almost any explanation of it.

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