MDDM Ch. 75 Job, 26:5 through 7

[jbor]

on 13/9/02 12:43 PM, Terrance at lycidas2 at earthlink.net wrote:

> 
> Yup. It's that old battle of reason and faith again. I guess we could
> talk about Thomistic Man too, but that would not be very useful. Silly
> me. 
> 
> Wonder why P had Dixon drop the book and read it as it lies.

Thanks for the correction. Dixon indeed tells Mason: "I sought my Bible,
which I let fall open, and read ... " I think it's yet another irony that
Dixon resorts to this type of quasi-superstitious or pagan-derived
"Christian" ritual (like a soothsayer or fortune-teller sticking a pin in
the Bible as a method of divination, relying on chance rather than *either*
reason or faith, searching after an omen or "divine guidance" from the Book
etc) to seek consolation after the kidnapping. It's still an interesting and
accurate point of characterisation in having these consummate men of science
seeing no contradiction whatsoever between their Christian and empirical
faith/s. (Same deal with Charles Darwin, of course.)

Dixon says the Bible fell open at that exact page and he read those lines.
It raises any number of possibilities ... coincidence, fate, divine
intervention, Dixon fabulating. I guess there is also the possibility that
Jere is simply providing this moral to his tale out of consideration for
Mason, who seems to be quite unnerved by the apparent refutation of Hell's
existence (742.1), if not also the Hollow Earthers' critique of empiricism.

best



> What's also interesting is the fact that Wicks turns not so much to
> scripture but to all sorts of other books. Like in Chapter 4 where he
> turns another Greek--Epictetus.
> 
> Very Apt and full of irony as well.