3. The Plot: Life as a Story

[John]

3. Kreeft relates ten stories in support of the idea that human life is a story. Did you appreciate one of the stories more than the others? Why?

[Manuel]

At the beginning of this chapter Kreeft says this: "they are signs of what used to be called Divine Providence and is now often called Intelligent Design."

I don't agree with this equivalence. Intelligent Design is a theory that asserts that God's Action can be detected scientifically by means of biology or physics. There are a lot of books and articles about this. I don't agree with the assertions by the defenders of Intelligent Design, as I have explained in this article http://arantxa.ii.uam.es/~alfonsec/do... and in my collaboration to the book Intelligible Design: A Realistic Approach to the Philosophy and History of Science.

Divine Providence on the other hand is the same as Special Divine Action, to be distinguished from General Divine Action (which could also be called Continuous Creation).

I think we shouldn't confuse terms, for then we are prone to unpredictable attacks by the opposite side.

[Frances]

Completely agree.

[Manuel]

Story #6, taken from Thornton Wilder's "The bridge of San Luis Rey," is very suggestive. I read Wilder's book three years ago in a Spanish translation, and liked it. The description of the arguments of Brother Juniper's opponent, an atheistic professor in the university, is quite convincing. As can be seen in this quote (which I have re-translated into English, so it may not be exactly equal to the original):

Imbued with all the bitterness that Brother Juniper lacked, our sage was pleased, and in a way consoled himself, with the idea that everything was wrong with this world, and he did not miss the opportunity to distill in the ear of the Franciscan all those thoughts and anecdotes that could contradict the notion of a governed universe. For an instant, a vague expression of discouragement, almost of defeat, appeared sometimes in the eyes of the monk, but immediately, and with indefatigable patience, he started explaining why such stories did not present the slightest difficulty for a believer.

[Manuel]

Reading this book by Kreeft has incited me to re-read "The bridge of San Luis Rey," which I had read for the first time over three years ago.

[Frances]

That is one of my favorite books, Manuel, and your translation is excellent. Here is the English, from an edition published by Harper and Row:

“He was possessed of all the bitterness that Brother Juniper lacked and derived a sort of joy from the conviction that all was wrong in the world. He whispered into the Franciscan’s ear such thoughts and anecdotes as belied the notion of a guided world. For a moment a look of distress, almost of defeat, would come into the Brother’s eyes; then he would begin patiently explaining why such stories held no difficulty for a believer.”

The last lines of the book are among the most memorable in all literature, and for anyone who hasn’t yet had the joy of reading them:

“Camila alone remembers her Uncle Pio and her son; this woman, her mother. But soon we shall die and all memory of those five will have left the earth, and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.”

[Mariangel]

This is a minor thing, but when talking about H.G. Wells he seems to attribute "The selfish giant" to him, or am I reading this wrong?

"The selfish giant" is by Oscar Wilde.

[Manuel]

Mariangel wrote: "This is a minor thing, but when talking about H.G. Wells he seems to attribute "The selfish giant" to him, or am I reading this wrong?

"The selfish giant" is by Oscar Wilde."

You are right, Kreeft made a mistake here. He says that "The selfish giant" was written by H.G. Wells. The author was, as you say, Oscar Wilde.

But "The door in the wall" was written by H.G. Wells, so almost all of this section is independent of the mistake.

[Manuel]

The quote from Mark Helprin's Perfect Painting (story #7) says this:

Time, however, can easily be overcome; not by chasing the light, but by standing back far enough to see it all at once. The universe is still and complete. Everything that ever was, is; everything that ever will be, is—and so on, in all possible combinations. Though in perceiving it we imagine that it is in motion and unfinished, it is quite finished and quite astonishingly beautiful.

There are two philosophical theories about time, called TIME A and TIME B. TIME A describes what we see: the past does no longer exist, the future does not exist yet, only flighty present exists. TIME B thinks the universe is a block, with all times existing at the same time, and our view of time is an illusion. For further information, see this post in my blog: Time A and Time B.

In this quote, Helprin seems to say that our time is actually TIME B, and that we have just to "stand back far enough" to see all of time as a block. Kreeft seems to agree with this view.

I, however, think that our time is TIME A, and that it is TIME B only from God's point of view. Therefore we cannot "stand back far enough" here, and won't be able to do it until we are in the next life. The future, for instance, is out of our reach, however much we stand back.

However, I do agree with the next sentence in Helprin's quote, which says:

In the end, or, rather, as things really are, any event, no matter how small, is intimately and sensibly tied to all others.

This is independent of time being TIME A or TIME B.

[Marcia]

Thanks for sharing those memorable passages from The Bridge of San Luis Rey. If I recall, each hapless individual had come to terms with God and his/her life. It would lead one to think that if one is not ready to enter the hereafter, best to keep the ledger book unreconciled. Marcia (in a cold, gray bankrupt Chicago.)

[Manuel]

Marcia wrote: "Thanks for sharing those memorable passages from The Bridge of San Luis Rey. If I recall, each hapless individual had come to terms with God and his/her life. It would lead one to think that if one is not ready to enter the hereafter, best to keep the ledger book unreconciled..."

That would be a dangerous conclusion...

But I'm not sure all of them had come to terms with God. Esteban, for instance, was saved by another person from committing suicide just before he fell down with the bridge. Yes, his death prevented him from repeating the attempt, but I'm not sure that means "coming to terms with God."

[John]

I am generating a list of books to read, including some that I intend to nominate for the group to consider. I've started by getting an anthology of Housman's work, which I've been dipping into.

[Marcia]

Manuel wrote: "Marcia wrote: "Thanks for sharing those memorable passages from The Bridge of San Luis Rey. If I recall, each hapless individual had come to terms with God and his/her life. It would lead one to th..."

Interesting point and ironic. Suicide -- taking one's own life -- or submitting to God's will, a natural death . . . If one embraces traditional Catholic teachings, it would mean that this soul was saved.

[Jill]

I love Bridge of San Luis Rey, but Brothers K, succinctly summarized here, is tops.
On the whole, I found this section disappointing. The reasoning seems circular, only adds up if you already believe there is a Creator who loves his creatures and interacts with them. It's equally plausible to believe the Creator is detached and indifferent, involved but cruel or that there is no intelligent design or providence, just random chance that only seems purposeful from our rationalizing perspective. I found his earlier stories unconvincing; it's a huge jump from the continental divide to heaven vs. hell, and the World War III story is super-convoluted. The Egyptian tailor is extra-biblical and the story could take place without supposing him at all (a conniving woman needs no evidence).

[Mariangel]

The WWIII story reminded me (because of the decision of one character to do an evil deed having consequences elsewhere) of a beautiful play by Alejandro Casona, "The boat without a fisherman".

[Frances]

Seeking to discover which of the two possibilities is true is the question at the heart of The Bridge of San Luis Rey: "Either we live by accident and die by accident, or we live by plan and die by plan." The characters' fates haunt the reader; Esteban's inner life is unknown to us, but from the text we can infer that he was still the despairing young man whom the Captain had saved from suicide. What did it mean then, that he "crossed by the bridge and fell with it?" Was death to be his fate that day, regardless of human intervention? Thorton Wilder answers: "Some say that we shall never know and that to the gods we are like the flies that the boys kill on a summer day, and some say, on the contrary, that the very sparrows do not lose a feather that has not been brushed away by the finger of God."

In the face of overwhelming loss Wilder posits that regardless of the cold hand of fate, we should be comforted by what endures: the love that binds us to one another. In the aftermath of September 11, then Prime Minister Tony Blair honored the British who had died that day by quoting from the last lines of The Bridge: "There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning."