Postby Technomancer » Tue Sep 30, 2003 2:36 pm
This has come up before. The general consensus amongst theologians is that he can't. The general idea is the same as humans after death; like fallen angels, they are confirmed in their natures. The people who've best discussed this are St. Anselm of Cantebury and St. Thomas Aquinas. They aren't the originators of this line of thinking, but are the ones who've best developed it. I'd probably recommend Jeffery Burton Russell's discussions on the matter since he is more accessible (see his book "Lucifer", which discusses medievel thinking on the nature of the devil)
The scientific method," Thomas Henry Huxley once wrote, "is nothing but the normal working of the human mind." That is to say, when the mind is working; that is to say further, when it is engaged in corrrecting its mistakes. Taking this point of view, we may conclude that science is not physics, biology, or chemistry—is not even a "subject"—but a moral imperative drawn from a larger narrative whose purpose is to give perspective, balance, and humility to learning.
Neil Postman
(The End of Education)
Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge
Isaac Aasimov