Potterverse Destiny (was Re: C. S. Lewis and Potterverse Destiny)

[Renee]

No: HPFGUIDX 121295


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Vivamus" <Vivamus at T...> wrote:

> > Laurasia:
> > > In order to give us total freedom of choice we also need to 
> > be given a chance *not* to choose anything, ie to stick with 
> > >fate. 
> > > To choose, or not to choose, that is the question.

<snip>

> > SSSusan:

<snip>

> > JKR was asked flat out if she believed in fate, and she said
> > "No. I believe in hard work and luck and that the first often 
> > leads to the 
> > second" [The Scotsman, 10/04]. I think she may use elements that 
> > seem like fate in the books, such as the prophecies, but they'll 
> > be overshadowed by choice.

> Vivamus:

<snip> 

> It seems to me that most people, when they talk about fate, talk 
about it as
> if they lived in an impersonal universe, but as if the future were
> consciously controlled.  Sort of a blending of the three ways of 
looking at
> it.  As in, there is no One who determines what will happen, but 
somehow the
> future is irrevocably set, and we are unable to control it.  I 
suspect, when
> JKR was answering that question, she was addressing that 
understanding of "fate."
>
 
> Contrasted with that view of the universe, though, JKR is a 
Christian, from
> what I've read.  What makes that most interesting to me is that 
she is (from
> what I've heard) a member of a denomination that used to, at 
least, have the
> strongest view of predetermination of all the many branches of 
Christianity.
> So here is someone who is a member of a church that used to 
categorically
> deny free will, yet writes such magnificent illustrations in story 
of
> strength of free will that can move the stars, if I understand 
what the
> centaurs are saying.   
> 
> It does make me wonder if she ever gets picked on, in a friendly 
way, by the
> members or clergy of her church about her point of view.
> 

Renee:
In its strictest form, Calvinism does deny free will. But firstly, 
not all Calvinist churches and theologians adhere to the strictest 
form of Calvinism. Secondly, even though it has implications for 
everyday life, the denial of free will pertains to salvation, the 
state of the soul before God. 

As long as JKR avoids controversial references to God and Christian 
doctrine in the HP books, she's pretty safe. Authorial comments such 
as that about the "innate goodness" of the Trio ought to go down 
less well with Calvinist theologians, though. It's this kind of 
remark that makes me think that if JKR is a Calvinist, she can't be 
a strict one. Which is just as well with me, for otherwise the 
notion that our choices *show* who we are, would come uncomfortably 
close to the Calvinist predestination doctrine.  

Renee