Pathocracy /kieselguhr, jeshimon,

[Robert Mahnke]

I thought that there were three categories of people: The elect, the
preterite, and the damned.  The elect will receive eternal salvation, and
the damned won't.  The preterite don't whether they're elect or damned, so
they act like elect and hope for the best.  Really, no one knows whether
they're elect or preterite, but the damned aren't acting like the elect so
it's clear who they are.

A few minutes of Googling doesn't reveal confirm this, so I may just be
making it up.  OTOH, here are a couple of paragraphs from Wikipedia's
discussion of Calvinism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinism):

Within scholastic Calvinist theology, there are two schools of thought over
when and whom God predestined: supralapsarianism (from the Latin: supra,
before + lapsare, to fall) and infralapsarianism (from the Latin: infra,
after). The former view, sometimes called "high Calvinism," argues that the
Fall occurred partly to facilitate God's purpose to choose some individuals
for salvation and some for damnation. Infralapsarianism, sometimes called
"low Calvinism," is the position that, while the Fall was indeed planned, it
was not planned with reference to who would be saved.

Supralapsarians believe that God chose which individuals to save before he
decided to allow the race to fall and that the Fall serves as the means of
realization of that prior decision to send some individuals to hell and
others to heaven (that is, it provides the grounds of condemnation in the
reprobate and the need for salvation in the elect). In contrast,
infralapsarians hold that God planned the race to fall logically prior to
the decision to save or damn any individuals because, it is argued, in order
to be "saved," one must first need to be saved from something and therefore
the Fall must precede predestination to salvation or damnation.

These two views vied with each other at the Synod of Dort (1618), an
international body representing Calvinist Christian churches from around
Europe, and the judgments that came out of that council sided with
infralapsarianism (Canons of Dort, First Point of Doctrine, Article 7). The
influential Westminster Confession of Faith also teaches the infralapsarian
view but is sensitive to those holding to supralapsarianism.[2] The
Lapsarian controversy has a few vocal proponents on each side today, but
overall it doesn't get much attention among modern Calvinists.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf
Of Paul Mackin
Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2007 11:15 AM
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: Re: Pathocracy /kieselguhr, jeshimon,


the noun Preterite  started being use by Pynchon (or somebody) as a  
take off on the religious doctrine of Preterition (Late 17th Century)

under this doctrine the non-elect are passed over for eternal  
salvation regardless of where they stand on the socio-economic scale