The Sense of Wonder, Original Justice and Fallen Man...
Our reading group is doing Chesterton now, which can be a bit of a frustration since (a) Chesterton's perspective on economics predates both Keynes and Friedman, which means that a lot of his ideas are now obviously bunk (but he didn't know that at the time) and (b) he has a tendency to shamelessly straw man his opponents. But today he sparked an interesting discussion about the sense of wonder. His basic opinion of "machinery" is that it leads to monotony and the loss of a sense of wonder (that the same argument can be applied to any tool man has ever developed down to the simplest plow or chisel was evidently lost on Chesterton, but I digress). This sparked an interesting tangent which is what I'd like to solicit thoughts on...
Question: How does the sense of wonder relate to the state of original justice (aka pre-fall)?
Position #1: In the state of original justice man always had a sense of wonder about everything. The loss of that sense is a direct product of original sin. (This is directly inspired by Chesterton's position on machinery).
Position #2: Even in the state of original justice, man's finite nature was too small to allow for a sense of wonder at everything he experienced. After all it would be impossible to tend the Garden of Eden (as he was tasked by God) if man were constantly fascinated by how his hand worked or the shape of every leaf he could see. But in the state of original justice man could easily engage his sense of wonder about any particular object (or small set of objects) he so choose, though could not, being finite, wonder about everything at once. Original sin distorted this ability to choose to wonder, making it harder to wonder and giving him a tendency not to do so (This was my counter-speculation).
Thoughts?
Question: How does the sense of wonder relate to the state of original justice (aka pre-fall)?
Position #1: In the state of original justice man always had a sense of wonder about everything. The loss of that sense is a direct product of original sin. (This is directly inspired by Chesterton's position on machinery).
Position #2: Even in the state of original justice, man's finite nature was too small to allow for a sense of wonder at everything he experienced. After all it would be impossible to tend the Garden of Eden (as he was tasked by God) if man were constantly fascinated by how his hand worked or the shape of every leaf he could see. But in the state of original justice man could easily engage his sense of wonder about any particular object (or small set of objects) he so choose, though could not, being finite, wonder about everything at once. Original sin distorted this ability to choose to wonder, making it harder to wonder and giving him a tendency not to do so (This was my counter-speculation).
Thoughts?