(urth) The Wizard

[Daniel Petersen]

I think maybe this is the classic interview where Wolfe talks directly
about some of his Christian beliefs in relation to his fiction.  The
interview's conveniently broken into links, one labelled 'religion'.

http://mysite.verizon.net/~vze2tmhh/gwjbj.html

Or you can go straight to the religion bit here:

http://mysite.verizon.net/~vze2tmhh/gwjbj1.html#relig

 I would just point out that the Most High God seems quite absent from the
lower worlds and that "he" struck me as a remarkably deist being,
especially considering how active the "gods" of other realms interact with
the worlds below them.  It seems that it is easy to go a world "up" or
"down", but going farther than that is rarer (perhaps a "two-world jump" is
even impossible), so perhaps the Most High God's influence is mainly in the
world second from the top.

Yeah, I noticed this too.  In that sense, this work seemed more nearly
Gnostic than any other.  I wondered if he was being even more obliquely
ironic and subversive than usual (a world without Christ keeps us distant
from the Most High).  But some have pointed out that potentially
eucharistic symbolism is brought in right at the end - so maybe Christian
redemption is hinted at.

-DOJP

On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 8:15 PM, Antonin Scriabin
<kierkegaurdian at gmail.com>wrote:

> Haha, a valiant attempt, Daniel. [?] Can anyone link to an interview(s) in
> which Wolfe talks about his faith in relation to his writing?  I have read
> a fair number of his interviews but they were mostly focused on his
> philosophies of writing, etc.  Also, if I can bring it back to *The Wizard
> * for a minute, I would just point out that the Most High God seems quite
> absent from the lower worlds and that "he" struck me as a remarkably deist
> being, especially considering how active the "gods" of other realms
> interact with the worlds below them.  It seems that it is easy to go a
> world "up" or "down", but going farther than that is rarer (perhaps a
> "two-world jump" is even impossible), so perhaps the Most High God's
> influence is mainly in the world second from the top.  Can anyone refresh
> my memory of where Parka is from?  Was she an entity of Elysion, or Kleos?
>
> On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 3:07 PM, Daniel Petersen <
> danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hey, I thought you didn't want to discuss this! :)
>>
>> The *larger* summary of the doctrine of God from the entire OT could not
>> possibly be accurately represented by a summary of the (alleged) doctrine
>> of God one garners merely from the orders to exterminate the Canaanites.
>>  Wolfe, in Long Sun for example, is surely drawing on a doctrine of a
>> merciful, enlightening, liberating God culled partly from themes in Genesis
>> and Exodus in terms of God's grace toward Abraham 'lost' in idolatry and
>> then the Israelites in slavery.  Sure, Wolfe needs the NT development of
>> the doctrine of God in addition - but humanly understandable divine
>> revelation and the provision of a leader to lead an oppressed people out of
>> idolatry and slavery are already powerfully embodied in the Torah.  Thus,
>> the God in the fiction of Gene Wolfe echoes the God who is progressively
>> revealed from Old into New Testaments (on the orthodox Christian
>> understanding.)  That's my thesis.  Seeing the God of the OT merely as a
>> genocidal tryant does violence to the theology found in Wolfe's fiction, I
>> think.  Maybe Wolfe's wrong in his understanding.  I, at least, do not
>> think he is.  (Trying to keep us *slightly* on topic here, heh.)
>>
>> -DOJP
>>
>>
>> 2012/3/8 António Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>
>>
>>> Daniel Petersen wrote (08-03-2012 16:30):
>>>
>>>> Your summary of the OT God as genocidal and
>>>> whatnot just is unsophisticated in its reading of the library of texts
>>>> (...)
>>>>
>>>
>>> The key word is *summary*. Otherwise there's just no way to go around
>>> all the clear, insistent and absolute *orders* to fully exterminate the
>>> Canaanites.
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