From: "James Wynn" 
Subject: RE: (urth) God in the Machine
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2002 16:33:07 -0500

First Roy drew a rather oppugnant comparison between the Lord's
participation in events of the Fall of Man and those of Pas in the Whorl,
then Patera Nutria (Coypu) opined:
Now, this is all a bit off the point, since Wolfe is not a practicing
theologian, and probably has not studied out this phrase. But as an orthodox
Catholic, Wolfe is not going to believe that it was necessary for Adam to
eat the forbidden fruit in order to acquire a knowledge of right and wrong.
Whatever he might do with Genesis 2, it won't be that.
------------------------------------

I'll set aside Roy's summary of God's motivations in Genesis 2 except to say
it is about the worst spin I could imagine.

Speaking of which, the thing not to forget about Pas of the Long Sun is that
he is similar to God (the Outsider) only in the sense of that he is a
blasphemy of Him. The same is true with the similarity between the Garden
and the Whorl. The Whorl is no paradise - especially by the time they leave.
Pas doesn't remove the people from the Whorl because they broke his seal. In
fact, the chems (who broke the seal with impunity) are the one group who
seems not to leave the Whorl (although I admit I'm still not completely
versed in the Short Sun books so maybe they do). Actually, in leaving, the
people are fulfilling Pas' plan! It's Echidna and her brood who want to keep
them there. Quetzal (who definitely does parallel the Serpent) is a booster
of Pas' plan because he wants to lead everyone to Green (yikes!). So in this
Genesis story God and the Devil are hand-in-hand.

I'm not saying that the there aren't parallels between Genesis 2 and the
BotLS, but the parallels are always turned upside down or (worse) sideways.
This is a blasphemy of Genesis 2. I can't begin to derive from this story
Wolfe's personal theories on the Fall.

Still, whatever he thinks of it, I don't think it's ever safe to say what
Wolfe would or would not believe. Wolfe's perspective has always seemed to
place him in the "free-thinking" category (in my mind anyway). I personally
nominate him as the
most-likely-believing-Christian-to-have-a-flakey-theological-theory.

-- Crush




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