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Myron Kriegman



 Myron Kriegman!  I had a moment recently in which I had been blocked looking for the name for a certain character in the John Updike novel ROGER'S VERSION (1986). 

Now I am determined not only to remember the name but to make it the subject of a blog post. So ... here it is!  

I no longer have the book around: I may have donated it to a library at some point in recent years. The novel turns largely on a three-way argument over God and the worshipper: whether there is a God and whether that question can be answered by reason or requires faith. Kriegman occupies the "no to God -- and yes to reason" position in the triangle. The titular Roger (last name Lambert, although we are supposed to connect this to Roger Chillingworth, from Hawthorne) occupies the "yes to God -- and no to reason" PoV. Roger sees himself as a follower of Karl Barth in believing in a hidden God, who cannot be reached by human ratiocinations. 

The third character in the triangle is Dale, a name reminiscent of Reverend Dimmesdale, also from the Hawthornian source material.  Dale is a computer scientist turned evangelist. He believes that the mathematical parameters of the Big Bang must have been "fine tuned" to make Earth, life, and intelligence possible. As scientists come to understand the fine tuning better, God is "breaking through" and cannot hide any more. So: yes and yes, on the above two questions.      

I'm quoting from distant memory here, but I'm sure that at some point Roger says something to Dale along the lines of: "If He is omnipotent, He can hide if He wants to." 

Anyway: Myron Kriegman!  I have created this post to implant that name in my neurons. Don't call him "Ron," please, he asks somewhere.

Aside from the explicit sex scenes (part of the Updike formula) and the Scarlett Letter call-backs, and as one might expect the characters named Esther and Pearl, aside from all this, the book may be said to be about a half-acknowledged alliance between Lambert and Kriegman to undermine Dale. 

So far as I understand the point of view of the novel, it is that this alliance is doing something valuable (Dale is trouble), yet it is best LEFT unacknowledged.  

Again: the face above is Updike's but the name I want to remember is Myron Kriegman.    

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  1. HenryAugust 13, 2024 at 8:08 AM

    "whether there is a God and whether that question can be answered by reason or requires faith."

    By definition, faith cannot answer the question whether God exists. Belief may require faith, but belief is not knowledge. People who wish to believe resort to faith because they lack knowledge.

    Reason cannot answer the question either, unless it is preceded by evidence or a lack of evidence. Evidence of God's existence may not be direct, but one may attempt to use reason to deduce it from indirect evidence. If no evidence is known to exist, then we can use reason to infer that God does not exist, but the conclusion that God does not exist is not knowledge, because it is provisional, since evidence might be discovered in the future.

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