It's true that Bacchus, Silenus, and the river god defer to Aslan, but that can be seen as respect for a more powerful deity just as easily as it can been seen as respect for someone who grants them their power. In the absence of hard evidence, both interpretations are valid.
Yup, guess we'll have to agree to disagree. =D
if there is such a thing as fate, I can't think of any action Aslan takes that breaks any such foretold events.
And here we would get into the argument of who controls fate. In Zeus's case, he was subject to the Fates. Aslan, though, as Creator is also the creator of 'fate', so to speak. Therefore, it isn't so much that he is subject to what fate has determined, but that he created fate to determine such a thing happening. Of course, I'm not a complete determinist myself. I believe God/Christ wills for certain things to happen, but that we as humans determine how we reach those points. Bad explanation, I know. Believe me, this is yet another debate that hasn't been solved, even within the Christian community.
Also, my reading of LWW is that if Jadis had managed to kill Aslan in some other fashion, he would have stayed dead; he was only resurrected because his sacrifice met the terms of the Deeper Magic. So despite his power, I never saw Aslan as inherently indestructible.
Interesting. I always read it as Aslan was only able to be killed because he allowed himself to be killed. The White Witch was always portrayed as afraid of Aslan, and I felt that it was only his submission to Death that allowed the Witch to kill him.
So far as I can tell -- and I admit my knowledge on this subject is shallow -- every way to rationalize the essential nonsensicality of the Trinity has been declared a heresy; the only correct way to see it is to say that yes, it makes no sense, but it's beyond our comprehension and we must take it on faith. This, I confess, I flat-out can't do. From a Christian perspective, that's a failure on my part. From my perspective, that just means I have a different approach to religion.
I don't think it's a failure. I have a hard time taking things just on faith as well. But, if you think about it, we take a lot of things on faith in life. I have absolutely no idea how gravity works, despite years of schooling, but I have faith that it'll keep me on the ground and that it equals 9.8 m/s^2, because people smarter than me have it figured out. Faith in the trinity is having faith that God (who's a lot smarter than me) has it figured out.
And I don't think every way of explaining the Trinity has been declared a heresy, though it depends on who's saying which theory is a heresy. Probably everything in the history of the world has been declared a heresy by someone at sometime. But each denomination, I believe, has at least some sort of understanding on the Trinity, and Catholics and Orthodoxs have probably the fullest explanations (not that I can explain, or understand, some of it. That would involve more research than I have time to do during finals week).
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Re: on theology, ethics, and authorial intent, part 2
Date: 2009-05-12 04:53 am (UTC)Yup, guess we'll have to agree to disagree. =D
if there is such a thing as fate, I can't think of any action Aslan takes that breaks any such foretold events.
And here we would get into the argument of who controls fate. In Zeus's case, he was subject to the Fates. Aslan, though, as Creator is also the creator of 'fate', so to speak. Therefore, it isn't so much that he is subject to what fate has determined, but that he created fate to determine such a thing happening. Of course, I'm not a complete determinist myself. I believe God/Christ wills for certain things to happen, but that we as humans determine how we reach those points. Bad explanation, I know. Believe me, this is yet another debate that hasn't been solved, even within the Christian community.
Also, my reading of LWW is that if Jadis had managed to kill Aslan in some other fashion, he would have stayed dead; he was only resurrected because his sacrifice met the terms of the Deeper Magic. So despite his power, I never saw Aslan as inherently indestructible.
Interesting. I always read it as Aslan was only able to be killed because he allowed himself to be killed. The White Witch was always portrayed as afraid of Aslan, and I felt that it was only his submission to Death that allowed the Witch to kill him.
So far as I can tell -- and I admit my knowledge on this subject is shallow -- every way to rationalize the essential nonsensicality of the Trinity has been declared a heresy; the only correct way to see it is to say that yes, it makes no sense, but it's beyond our comprehension and we must take it on faith. This, I confess, I flat-out can't do. From a Christian perspective, that's a failure on my part. From my perspective, that just means I have a different approach to religion.
I don't think it's a failure. I have a hard time taking things just on faith as well. But, if you think about it, we take a lot of things on faith in life. I have absolutely no idea how gravity works, despite years of schooling, but I have faith that it'll keep me on the ground and that it equals 9.8 m/s^2, because people smarter than me have it figured out. Faith in the trinity is having faith that God (who's a lot smarter than me) has it figured out.
And I don't think every way of explaining the Trinity has been declared a heresy, though it depends on who's saying which theory is a heresy. Probably everything in the history of the world has been declared a heresy by someone at sometime. But each denomination, I believe, has at least some sort of understanding on the Trinity, and Catholics and Orthodoxs have probably the fullest explanations (not that I can explain, or understand, some of it. That would involve more research than I have time to do during finals week).