[littlemanpoet]

I had a post up early yesterday but being on an unfamiliar computer at a certain conference I was attending, I was unsuccessful in posting it.

Originally Posted by Formendacil

...the Christian group (or just LMP, since he has comprised most of it, to date) has been a lot more willing to give and take, to say "you have a point".

I'm not saying that one group has been, or ought to be, accepting the other group as right. I'm not even saying the Christian group is right (although as a card-carrying member, I obviously feel that way). What I am saying is that the Christian group has thus far been more willing to say "you have a point" whereas the non-Christian group hasn't been willing to say that.

As noted, however, that is simply things as I am seeing them- on this thread. Possibly my vision is being coloured by the side of the fence that I'm on.

I think this last sentence is apt. I used to get on the defensive when such astute questions were put to me, but that has changed. I understand why I did get on the defensive: I was afraid that I wasn't up to defending the Faith, that I had to be the next C.S. Lewis in order to do what I felt needed doing. At the conference I attended I heard a lot of useful stuff, and here's one quote, from Marilynne Robinson of the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the U. of Iowa.:

Nothing true can be said about God in a posture of defense.

The reason is that defense is all about setting borders, confining oneself into a small area so as to protect oneself or one's beliefs. But God is bigger than our beliefs. God exceeds defense, proof, et cetera.

Originally Posted by Betberry

Well, this is a bit of a sticking point, I would think, as I doubt if there is general concensus about where it is literal, where symbolic, where metaphorical. I rather liked the explanation of the Catholic sense of letter and meaning (the article used the terms sign[ifier (sic)] and signified) in the article I referred to above.

Originally Posted by [i

THE GIFT OF ILÙVATAR: TOLKIEN'S THEOLOGICAL VISION[/i] by Damien Casey]Tolkien has a strong dislike of allegory with its one dimensional correspondence of sign and signified. [12] Tolkien's imagination is thoroughly Catholic in this regards. Whereas C.S. Lewis thought allegorically, Tolkien thought symbolically. The Catholic understanding of symbol is not simply something that stands for or points to something else. This is no more than a sign, or in its narrative form, an allegory. Rather, the symbol both points beyond itself and makes present that to which it points. It is the nature of sacrament and symbol to bear within themselves the objects to which they refer. Hence Tolkien's imaginary world hopes in some sense to bear the true world within itself.

I like this. However.... literal versus symbolic versus metaphorical. First off, symbolic seems to be an umbrella term under which metaphor finds itself, no? "Literal" would be the histories and stories, unless the text itself indicates a figurative reading such as the parables. If the Bible calls them histories, so I read them, even if many scholars disagree.

More later.