Well, I am still struggling through my Renegade's Magic by Robin Hobb - and its still a bit slow and torturous - even though I am trying to savour the moment! Still, I cannot second guess the end, so I will soldier on.
One aspect that the book does bring out is the struggle we have in our minds in terms of the choices we make and who we are. In Renegade's Magic, the hero is trapped in his rather bloated magic fuelled body with his "other half" running things. The other half is part of him - but who is aligned to the "enemy" rather than his own country. The struggle between the two sides of self is a very interesting and thought provoking artefact in the book. It reflects our own struggle with our "shadow self" - our body seeming to make choices that are different from our mind. Think of addiction. Think of just poor daily choices in food, activity, responses, actions etc. In the Bible, Paul (I think) talks of ""the good that I would I can not" - or something to that effect. His solution is that Christ can help us to be true to ourselves and Him.
In the latest New Scientist (16th April 2011), there is another article on free will - an ongoing theme within the pages of the magazine - the science of free will. A key issue is how much our genes and past directly guide our choices beyond what is called free will - and how much our choices as individuals and society are fully predictable. The article (The Free Will Delusion) concludes that belief in free will doesn't depend on having a soul, but on feeling in control of "your actions" . All interesting grist for the mill!
Which leads me on to 2 books I have just downloaded onto my kindle: Love Wins: A book about Heaven, Hell and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, by Rob Bell and Whats the Least I can Believe and Still be a Christian by Martin Thielen. I haven't got into them yet - but the fact that there is a lot of vitreol about Rob Bell amongst conservatives, is probably a good sign for his book. He says in his introduction: I've written this book for all those everwhere, who have heard some version of the Jesus story that caused their pulse rate to rise, their stomach to churn, and their heart to utter those resolute words, "I would never be a part of that". So I will read on and see if I make it in at least one of the books!
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