Re: Betreft: Re: Steg's wonderful .sig (and a question)

At 12:29 pm -0500 6/11/99, Nik Taylor wrote:
>Boudewijn Rempt wrote:
>> According to Dorothy L. Sayers (The Mind of the Maker), it's
>> also the Christian orthodoxy, although not many people know
>> that, so I'm not surprised Tolkien believed it, too.
>
>"Christian Orthodoxy"?  Unless you're referring to the Orthodox churches
>(of which I know little), orthodoxy for most protestants is purely
>Biblical, and a combination of Bible and the Pope for Catholics,
Well, not really - it's the 'magesterium' of the Church for Catholics, of
which the scriptures & the Pope form a part.  The magesterium is rather
larger than both.

>and in
>neither of those sources can I find any hint that subcreation is the
>purpose of Humanity.
Except, of course, that God is proclaimed as creator & human are created in
his image.  True, the prime purpose of the creation of humanity is not
subscreation.  But in the Catechism I find....

"283  The question about the origins of the world and of man has been the
object of many scientific studies which have splendidly enriched our
knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos, the development of life
forms and the appearance of man...........
"284  The great interest accorded to these studies is strongly stimulated
by a question of another order, which goes beyond the proper domain of the
natural sciences.  It is not only a question of knowing when and how the
universe arose physically, or when man appeared, but rather of discovering
the meaning of such an origin.."

It seems to me that conscious subcreation is one way in which certain
creative minds (created in the Creator's image) could rightly go about
discovering the meaning of such an origin.  Questions of good & evil & the
origin of evil certainly figure large in Tolkien's works.

Ray.


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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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