(urth) started my second read of New Sun

[brunians at brunians.org]

He's orthodox.

.


>
>
> In regard to Gene Wolfe as heretic, I'm not sure he'd reject that label.
> Perhaps he'd embrace it.  From the Larry McCaffery interview:
>
>>GW- "I am a practicing Catholic, although I don't think that
>>designation would give people much of an idea about what my beliefs
>>are. People tend to have a very limited, stereotyped view of what it
>>means to be a Catholic....I certainly don't dismiss religious or other
>>mystical forms of speculation out of hand. I read it and try to make my
>>own judgments about it. And in The Book of the New Sun I tried to work
>>out some of the implications of my beliefs.
>
> Moving beyond established religious dogma seems to be an important part
> of both Severian's and Silk's journeys.
>
> I too liked Lane Haygood's post and perhaps Wolfe does view spiritual
> evolution
> as an assymptotic spiral, approaching but never reaching ultimate
> divinity. I
> certainly didn't mean to suggest the Sun series implies Man would replace
> God.
>
> Still, I'm willing to consider circularity as a possibility. I think the
> section which describes the attachment to the person of the monarch as
> both
> the lowest and highest basis for governance is a partial inspiration. It
> reminds
> me of God declaring he is Alpha and Omega. This always struck me as a
> circular
> rather than linear alphabetic statement. The most elegant way to be both
> the
> beginning and the end is to be a circle. So Man is God, just at an earlier
> point
> in spiritual evolution.
>
> Part of Tzadkiel's semi-divine nature is the ability to traverse a
> universe and
> perceive multiple points in time simultaneously. I think the natural
> progression
> from that would be the ability to traverse multiple universes and perceive
> all
> points in time simultaneously. As Lane posits, a way to accomplish this
> would be to exist outside all time and space.
>
> But perhaps what David Stockhoff hints at is another path to ultimate
> divinity.
> Instead of being outside the whole shebang, a being could gain
> multi-universal
> presence and perception by becoming one with all the substance of all
> universes.
> Thus God would not be outside creation and evolution but the very essence
> of it,
> simultaneously the beginning and end and everything in between. To me,
> that
> feels more like Wolfe's Increate than a remote, external entity does.
>
> But I qualified as being out on a limb from the beginning on this and I
> freely
> admit it could be a projection of my own spiritual leanings rather than
> those of Gene Wolfe's.
>
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