MDDM Ch. 5: "an act of Him"

[jbor]

on 4/10/01 10:18 AM, Terrance at lycidas2 at earthlink.net wrote:

> Even though Dixon's "I'm not sure which one tha mean" is to which "act"
> and not which "Him", Mason is still confused here. Isn't he? So the use
> of the pronoun "one"  confused Mason. It confused me as well.
> 
> Mason's reply (and I assume the narrowing eyes are an indication that he
> is confused) is, "*Who* else could--oh." He begins with *WHO*,  and so
> it seems that Mason  did not understand that Dixon was referring to the
> "acts", but rather to the possible agents ("who else").

Quite so. Their different perspectives about "God" and the "ways of the
world" are foregrounded in this brief snatch of conversation. Mason seems to
view "history", or rather, the present moment, as the culmination of a
predetermined series of events, and he doesn't appear to allow the
possibility (I'm tempted to say "fact", but will resist) that each "act" was
a separate and distinct event itself, and that there might have been
multiple possibilities and consequences which could have proceeded
therefrom, branching to Infinity perhaps, whereas Dixon seems much more
Sceptickal about things like predestination and fate. Of the two it is Dixon
who most often challenges Mason's way of looking at things I think, at least
in these early chapters.

If there is freedom of choice, freedom to "act", in the present, does it not
also follow that in each moment of the past similar opportunities prevailed?
Later on this very pertinent question will resurface in the reference to
"the Membrane that divides their Subjunctive World from our number'd and
dreamless Indicative". (677)

best