Thursday, December 9, 2021

The synchronicity fairies comment on "The curious incident of the cock at dawn"

Yesterday, I posted "The curious incident of the cock at dawn," in which I wrote as if from an alternate timeline and used the story of Peter's three denials before cockcrow to explore questions of agency and fate and whether Peter could have acted otherwise than it had been prophesied that he would act. For reasons related to the "alternate timeline" conceit, I modified the biblical text to say that the cock would "call out" rather than "crow."

This morning, I checked Synlogos and clicked a few of the links. Both Dark Brightness and Vox Day had posted links to a long article called "How to Build a Small Town in Texas." I didn't read the whole article but skimmed it a bit and noticed this illustration: a map of a Belgian town, with a caption inviting the reader to imagine "the invigorating call of roosters in the morning."


Another of the links on Synlogos was to John C. Wright's "The Leviathan of Time, Chapter Six: Oedipus and Jonah." I have not been reading this series and had no intention of jumping in at Chapter 6, but the name Jonah (a favorite topic of the sync fairies of late) caught my eye. I clicked and searched for the name. It turns out that Wright uses Oedipus and Jonah as examples of differing views on fate an the inevitability of prophecies: The prophecy about Oedipus inevitably comes true, despite or rather because of the attempts to thwart it; but Jonah's prophecy about Ninevah fails when the Ninevites literally change the future by repenting. The whole story also apparently deals with different "timelines."


After looking at Synlogos, my next intended stop was the Babylon Bee. I visit that site often enough that I can just type a "ba" in the address bar and press enter, autocomplete doing the rest. This time I somehow accidentally typed "bi" instead and ended up at BibleGateway instead. The homepage there had the "verse of the day," John 14:6 -- "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."

Later I brought up the app I have been using to listen to the entire Bible read aloud. It was at the beginning of John 14 -- that is, just a few verses before the one highlighted by BibleGateway, and immediately after "The cock shall not crow, till thou hast denied me thrice." I wrote my "cock at dawn" post well before reaching this point in my Bible listening, and an earlier draft even included a reference to John 14:1: "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me."

5 comments:

Frank said...

I'm not sure how Wright can claim that Jonah's prophecy was a failure. Jonah attempted to flee to Tarshish in order to escape the LORD's command to cry out against the people of Ninevah. Jonah refused to go because he detested the Ninevites and knew very well they would repent in sackcloth and ashes; and thus escape destruction. Therefore, the future wasn't changed, because although no one knows the mind of the LORD, it sure seems like He wanted the Ninevites to repent; and through the unwilling Jonah, He got what He wanted.

Wm Jas Tychonievich said...

The prophecy “failed” only in the sense that it did not come true. Jonah had said unconditionally, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown” (Jonah 4:3), but the city was not overthrown. Either it was a false prophecy all along, or the Ninevites changed the future.

Of course in terms of the Lord’s presumed purpose in sending Jonah to Nineveh, the prophecy was a resounding success!

Anonymous said...

As I haven't read Wright's book, I thank you for the clarification.

Still, prophecy does not equal prediction. The OT prophets were not psychics. One of the major, if not the major point of prophecy was to call the people to sincere repentance. The prophets made dire prophecies, but the people of the Bible knew that the LORD could be swayed through true repentance. The LORD, being omniscient, knew the Ninevites would repent if He sent his (unwilling) servant Jonah. And in light of the severe penalties for false prophecies and false prophets, the fact that Jonah wasn't put to death and his story was included in the canon should also tell us something.

Wm Jas Tychonievich said...

I haven't read Wright's book, either; just searched for "Jonah" and read the paragraphs that mentioned him.

"The LORD, being omniscient, knew the Ninevites would repent if He sent his (unwilling) servant Jonah."

This is where we differ. The Ninevites had free will, and no one, not even God, could know for sure in advance what they would do.

Frank said...

No, no. I agree with you on free will and how God couldn't have know for sure what the Ninevites would have done. The LORD deals in probabilities. And I'm no Calvinist. The comparison of Jonah and Oedipus is an interesting one though.

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