Notes

          Yesterday morning you were reading the N.Y. Times and your eye caught the “Freakonomics” column in the Opinion section. You are reluctant to quote it here because it is a short column and has to be read in its entirety. The title is “Game Strategy in Biblical Times,” by Daniel Hamermesh and it focuses on Genesis 20:1-18 with “Abraham visiting Avimelech and offering him Sarah . . . .” The point being “Avimelech does not have a dominant strategy [in his choices], nor does G-d. G-d doesn’t play strategies – he gets what he wants from people . . . .”

         The reason you find this a delightful article is that you think: ‘of course G---D gets what SheanHe wants from people because when people are actually confronted by G---D they lose their Free Will and thus have no choice. You have conjured this up within the writing of the Merlyn series and believe it to be a fact, an aspect of ‘natural [human] spiritual law’.

         I do not deny this I am sure this is true – I make it a ‘fact of natural law’ because as a transcendental existentialist this makes sense. The gift of Free Will creates a ‘natural wall’ between G---D and humanity. To break this wall would cause humankind to lose its freedom and the dignity that comes with it. It does not change G---D but the condition makes humankind less than what it is. That’s how I see it. This is not evidence, but if I remain within my own reasoning system with free will intact, this is my conclusion. It is also subject to many of the pitfalls associated with ‘opinion’ as separate from ‘knowledge’.

         Time to finish the Sunday paper, orndorff. Post.

         I feel reluctant to post this because I do not see its purpose in the Merlyn’s Mind series.

         You have to understand where you are coming from to see where you are going, orndorff. Just post, and let it go. – Amorella.