From: Carl Fink (carlf@panix.com)
Date: Fri 05 Jan 1996 - 05:09:47 EET
Someone (sorry, no insult meant, I deleted the mail too soon)
commented that if Sandy and I are right, and the Invisible God is a
philosophical principle and doesn't intervene, that contradicts the
fact that Malkioni pray for divine intervention.
(Boy, that's a terrible drawn-out sentence, isn't it?)
No, it doesn't contradict. You're assuming that the Malkioni *know
what they're doing*. Even in Glorantha, it's possible to have a
deeply felt *incorrect* belief. Maybe for millenia the Malkioni have
been praying to the Invisible God *and it has all been useless and
futile*.
(Now, that paragraph has too many pseudo-italics.)
Another alternative, familiar to theologians, philosophers,
Kabbalists, and Sufis: emanations. As I mentioned when I brought
this whole thing up, lots of other people (again, starting in ancient
Greece) were dissatisfied with the sort of disinterested, impersonal
God proposed by Aristotle. Not that It didn't make sense, just that
it wasn't interesting or useful to anyone but an intellectual or
mystic.
So, the solution was that this perfect but inaccessible non-Being, in
order to act in a world it wasn't part of (or closely connected to)
emitted "emanations", and each emanation then emitted more emanations.
Each "generation" of emanation was less perfect, more removed from the
Ultimate, but by the same token more like us material beings, and thus
more able and willing to act in the world.
The Gnostics believed, for instance, that the world had been made, not
by God Itself, but by the "demiurge", an emanation of God which was
much grosser and cruder, and thus could intervene in history.
(Okay, that part was obnoxiously and falsely intellectual, while
simultaneously probably distorting and oversimplifying complex
concepts.)
So, getting back to Glorantha, perhaps sophisticated Malkioni think
This would lead to the Stygian Heresy, of course, since the pagan gods
that the Invisible God (an excellent description of the Aristotelean
Prime Mover, or the god of the Islamic Faylasufs) emitted emanations,
which do in fact answer prayers, while the IG wouldn't and couldn't.
could be seen as these emanations or agents of the IG by
less-sophisticated or less intellectual people.
Meanwhile, less educated Malkioni just pray to "God", never even
hearing of these ideas. Perhaps raising questions like, "I thought
the Invisible God didn't ever let Himself be seen. Why do you tell us
to pray to Him?" would be tipoffs of a potential Wizard child?
Coming up next: the odd similarity between very "primitive" beliefs
about creation, and those of the most "civilized" folks.
- --
Carl Fink carlf@panix.com madscientist@genie.com
Assistant Sysop, GEnie's First and Fourth Science Fiction RoundTables
The SFRT page has moved AGAIN, to http://www.sfrt.com/sfrt1
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