Kerry - Page 2 - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

kerry · #16 02-17-2014, 11:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by martureo

Just wondering, have you read or are you familiar with the Great Divorce?

From that paradigm is seems rather odd to be talking about humanity/inhumanity when the will of man is the cause of those remaining in the "town."

It may be one cause but it's certainly not the First Cause.

I think I may have read it many decades ago. I don't recall its content.

martureo · #17 02-17-2014, 11:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kerry

It may be one cause but it's certainly not the First Cause.

I think I may have read it many decades ago. I don't recall its content.

It's an allegory. The narrator (Lewis) has a dream where he is in a gloomy town in an eternal twilight. He queues with others to board a "bus" because he doesn't know what else to do. This bus rises into the air and after some time arrives in a splendid country. He soon realizes that he and everyone else who arrived on the bus are actually dead. The country in which they arrive is a plain at the base of some mountains, sunny, teeming with life.

But since the dead are really just "dirty" ghosts they cannot effect anything in the country. The grass hurts the feet, apples cannot be picked and rain seems like a frightening affair.

Bright spirits talk to the ghosts about the affairs of their lives on earth and try to get them to journey into the mountains. Many turn around and refuse for various reasons, mostly because they cannot have things the way they wish to have them, and return to the "town." The observation is made by Lewis in the dream to a bright spirit escorting him that the choices made are not new choices but the sum of the choices already made in the life of the person

While this is a somewhat heterodox view in its presentation (especially to Fundamentalists) I have no problem whatsoever repeating that no one is in Hell that doesn't want to be.

MS Fowler · #18 02-17-2014, 12:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by martureo

It's an allegory. The narrator (Lewis) has a dream where he is in a gloomy town in an eternal twilight. He queues with others to board a "bus" because he doesn't know what else to do. This bus rises into the air and after some time arrives in a splendid country. He soon realizes that he and everyone else who arrived on the bus are actually dead. The country in which they arrive is a plain at the base of some mountains, sunny, teeming with life.

But since the dead are really just "dirty" ghosts they cannot effect anything in the country. The grass hurts the feet, apples cannot be picked and rain seems like a frightening affair.

Bright spirits talk to the ghosts about the affairs of their lives on earth and try to get them to journey into the mountains. Many turn around and refuse for various reasons, mostly because they cannot have things the way they wish to have them, and return to the "town." The observation is made by Lewis in the dream to a bright spirit escorting him that the choices made are not new choices but the sum of the choices already made in the life of the person

While this is a somewhat heterodox view in its presentation (especially to Fundamentalists) I have no problem whatsoever repeating that no one is in Hell that doesn't want to be.

Good summary. You did neglect to identify the bright spirit with who Lewis talked. His identity is important in understanding the heterodox aspect of Lewis' writing.

martureo · #19 02-17-2014, 01:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MS Fowler

Good summary. You did neglect to identify the bright spirit with who Lewis talked. His identity is important in understanding the heterodox aspect of Lewis' writing.

George MacDonald.

And I don't believe that his views are really that heterodox. They are quite objectionable to Fundamentalists, and thus to Reformed folks. But I'm a Wesleyan, so they're well within orthodoxy to me.

Medmech · #20 02-17-2014, 03:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kerry

Would you work for a company that specialized in creating torture instruments which inflicted unbearable pain yet kept the victim alive so the torture could continue?

Yes, that is not the reason I left ATT though.

elchivito · #21 02-17-2014, 03:44 PM

One man's orthodoxy is another man's heterodoxy.
Or something

Botnst · #22 02-17-2014, 05:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kerry

Would you work for a company that specialized in creating torture instruments which inflicted unbearable pain yet kept the victim alive so the torture could continue?

Considering employment with the IRS?