(urth) christ, already

[Jerry Friedman]

Interesting, Dan'l.  I was going to ask which Person the Outsider was.

Is it correct in Catholic theology to say that the Second Person or Logos has 
existed eternally but didn't become Jesus Christ till he incarnated?

If so, and taking Wolfe's word that Briah is a previous cycle, I think one could 
say that the Logos existed in (or in relation to) Briah, but Christ didn't.  
What that means for grace and salvation I don't know; I think it's been 
suggested that Jesus's incarnation had a retroactive effect and thus saved, for 
example, Abraham.

I assume that the Conciliator and the man who scourged the merchants are 
retroactive "echoes" of Jesus the way the scene at Baldanders's castle echoes 
/Frankenstein/.  I don't know whether these echoes happen by some kind of 
"automatic" process, like morphic resonance, or by divine intervention.  If the 
Outsider did possess the merchant-beater, that must have been a deliberate 
decision on His part.

(By the way, somebody, David Stockhoff I think, suggested that the man wouldn't 
have been "fortunate" if he'd been crucified later, but Silk is the one who 
calls hims fortunate.  I think Silk might have thought being enlightened or 
possessed outweighed being crucified, or even that martyrdom was also good 
fortune.)

David asked about the point of similar repeated universes.  One possibility 
that's been mentioned here is that the author might want to have a Flood without 
having God violate his promise to Noah.

Jerry Friedman




________________________________
From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
Sent: Wed, December 15, 2010 3:33:19 PM
Subject: Re: (urth) christ, already

I believe that the Outsider is the first Person of the Trinity, God
the Father, and thus distinct from Christ.

On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 2:25 PM, Son of Witz <Sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org> wrote:
> Yes, but the Trinity is a unity, and thus makes my statement true, no? We
> can equally say that the Outsider = Christ = God.  Am I wrong?
>
>
>
> On Dec 15, 2010, at 1:39 PM, Matthew Weber <palaeologos at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Christ is used exclusively in Christianity to refer to the second Person of
> the Trinity.  Nobody refers to the Father or the Holy Ghost as Christ.
>
> Here's a handy photographic mnemonic :
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/aozuas/2404074070/
>
> On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 1:35 PM, Son of Witz <Sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org>
> wrote:
>>
>> Are you forgetting the tripartite nature of Christ?
>> The Father, The son, and The Holy Ghost.  Christ is an aspect of God and
>> is used by Christians interchangeably with God.
>> On Dec 15, 2010, at 1:20 PM, DAVID STOCKHOFF <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>> I'd say Outsider=God was about as unambiguous as Gene Wolfe gets.
>>
>> --- On Wed, 12/15/10, Son of Witz <Sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org> wrote:
>>
>> From: Son of Witz <Sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org>
>> Subject: Re: (urth) christ, already
>> To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
>> Date: Wednesday, December 15, 2010, 4:12 PM
>> I don't know about Dionysus. I need to read those again, but I thought
>> that Outsider=Christ was about as unambiguous as Gene Wolfe gets.



      
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/attachments/20101215/1a7b5fbc/attachment-0004.htm>