GRGR (2) "great bright hand"

[Bernier, Jeannie]

Back in my youth, when I was a member of that large denomination known as
the Southern Baptist Convention, this was paradox was always explained
thus, with the implication that it was easy as pie to understand and the
explainer would brook no disagreement:

1.)  People hear the word of the Lord, and choose whether or not Jesus is
the enter their hearts.  We have total control over this choice.
2.)  Everyone in the world will have at least one opportunity to hear of the
word of the Lord (seriously!)
3.)  God knows how everyone will choose.

'Course, this argument always gave me the same feeling I get when I'm
watching those time travel movies where the star goes back in time and
fathers himself, but I was never a very good Southern Baptist.

Jean


> -----Original Message-----
> From:	MalignD at aol.com [SMTP:MalignD at aol.com]
> Sent:	Thursday, June 10, 1999 8:10 AM
> To:	pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject:	Re: GRGR (2)  "great bright hand"
> 
> mwaia:
> 
> <<Isn't P's crochet the concept of Preterition?  That the Elect and the 
> Damned are not statistically determined but fore-ordained on an individual
> 
> basis?  It seems that a good Calvinist would say that there is "very
> little 
> room for hope", indeed, for anyone who is not a Calvinist Christian.  It 
> seems to humble heretical me that this runs counter to the whole concept
> of a 
> Final Judgement. It would seem one's love of Christ is not so much to be 
> weighed and rewarded, but that one's label (tattooed on your forearm at
> the 
> Inception of time) is to be read out at the last....>>
> 
> One can clearly push the wobbly statistical analogy too far (says he who 
> raised it).  For the Calvinist, the Elect and Damned are not statistically
> 
> determined; that's true.  The nub issue in Calvinist thought is that one
> may 
> not imagine a limit to the knowledge of God.  It can't be the case that
> God 
> live in a state of unknowing re the fate of humanity or of individual
> humans. 
>  Thus, HE knows who's going to fuck up, and how, right out of the chute.
> The 
> problem for the theologian who finds this persuasive is squaring it with 
> notions of free will.  For the would-be believer, hopelessness and
> pessimism 
> are lurking bugbears.