Solid reading of the novel, Johanna! I hadn’t worked out a free will subtext from it, if only because the Genesis echoes overwhelmed the rest when I last read it. But between Lee and Cathy, you’ve found that sound.
And to your earlier challenge: I do believe in demons, as I believe in angels. Demons don’t explain our own evil, but spur it on: beings different from us, they don’t face the choice of timshel, only a compulsion of their natures, limited by God. (This is what I get for reading Dante, among other things: a conviction that reality is richer and more richly ordered than perceived human reason.)
Solid reading of the novel, Johanna! I hadn’t worked out a free will subtext from it, if only because the Genesis echoes overwhelmed the rest when I last read it. But between Lee and Cathy, you’ve found that sound.
And to your earlier challenge: I do believe in demons, as I believe in angels. Demons don’t explain our own evil, but spur it on: beings different from us, they don’t face the choice of timshel, only a compulsion of their natures, limited by God. (This is what I get for reading Dante, among other things: a conviction that reality is richer and more richly ordered than perceived human reason.)