Bartley Asprius Quotes

Bartley separates two claims that Cornelia is ready to collapse. He reports that the people planning to kill God believe their own words. That is not the same as proving their intended target exists. His caution lets him take their project seriously without first resolving the theology behind it. Cornelia dismisses belief in God, but her disbelief does not answer the warning he is giving. People can organize dangerous actions around convictions an observer rejects. V.V.'s arrival makes the encounter stranger still: Cornelia throws a knife into his forehead, and he rises again. That survival supplies a reason to reconsider the immediate danger, not a complete proof of the group's account of God. Bartley's modest qualification is useful precisely because it preserves that distinction. He can revise his earlier assumption that the language was metaphorical while stopping short of claiming that sincerity makes its content true.