Yesterday, I wrote on the subject of theodicy. For those who do not remember, it is the defense of God, particularly with respect to the suffering in the world. That is, it appears that, given the suffering in the world, God must either not be a good god or must not really be all-powerful. In the comic above, Watterson does not tackle the claim that God must not be omnipotent (all-powerful) given the evil in the world. But, what he does do very effectively is tackle the notion that God must be evil, given the suffering in the world. And, he does this by picturing what it might be like if God were truly evil and omnipotent.
Look at the comic above again. A small subtlety is that Watterson does not picture an eternal god, but he certainly pictures a very long-lived god. Notice that “first there was nothing” then there was Calvin. This is not the God pictured in the Old and New Testament, a God without beginning. But, like the Biblical God, this god also creates by the pure decision of his will, ex nihilo (out of nothing). At this point, Watterson departs from the script, “Calvin is no kind and loving god!” And, he proceeds to destroy the evil god argument simply by pointing out that if god were truly evil and omnipotent, the suffering on this earth would be significantly worse than anything we have experienced thus far. In fact, the presence of the large amount of goodness there is in the world–aptly pictured by Calvin’s mom and dad–points against an evil god and towards something else. That is, Watterson does the reverse argument to the “good” god argument and shows that an “evil” omnipotent god can also be shown to be incompatible with the current existence of goodness in the world. It is the reverse of yesterday’s argument against God.
But, catch a second subtlety. The comic says that Calvin is one of the “old gods.” During the time that Watterson wrote, there was a very strong interest in this country in the old gods. This was the time when Wicca was waxing strong. People were dabbling in crystals and ancient Egyptian wisdom. This was a follow-up from the 60’s, when the Beatles, and others, were dabbling in Hindu and other Eastern religions. Here is the problem. The people trying to follow the old gods had carefully edited much of what the old gods did. And what the old gods did was to demand sacrifice. Most often the sacrifice was animal, but whether in Greek mythology, or in Carthage, or in Egypt, or in those countries that worshipped a mother goddess, human sacrifice was also present. At least one cemetery filled with the bones of sacrificed babies has been found in old Carthage. Greek mythology preserves hints of the older human sacrifice present at the start of Greek civilization. Bacchus could both please you and tear you apart. His women followers could kill in an ecstatic frenzy. But, one way to put it is that Wicca–and other “old god” revivals–carefully edit out the bloody parts of the old gods in order to present fairly benevolent old gods that a modern person can safely worship. But, Watterson points out that this is not what the old gods were like. They were capricious, violent, and–in reality–quite evil, but not in the least omnipotent. Had they been omnipotent, the world would have been a lot worse.
And, so, Watterson takes on in this comic both those who argue that God is evil and those who somehow claim that the old gods were better. He shows that both are mistaken.
Humankind is very good at creating god or gods in their own image–or what they would be if they were a god or what they would like a god to be or are afraid a god might be. When science and knowledge were young, some saw the havoc wrecked by storms, floods, tornadoes and earthquakes and posited that since those things were so overwhelming there must be SOMETHING BEHIND THEM that wasn’t very nice and if one could just appease them, the world would be a safer place. Of course, the flood recedes, the storm passes and you could choose to believe that your sacrifice was what made that happen. When we of the flower child generation were young and foolish, we tried to create gods that were what we wanted the world and ourselves to be–kind, loving, peaceful–and we found that neither the gods we created or indeed ourselves could live up to our impossible standards. They and we were only human after all. These humanly created gods are as finite as our own thoughts, feelings and human minds are. We cannot imagine true eternity, true infinity, true everlasting not to mention true justice or true mercy and so the gods we create are of necessity finite and all too human. I pray that the Lord preserves us from deities of our own making.
Too often even the Christian God is created in our own image. Part of growing in holiness is learning to be shaped by God rather than trying to shape God.
Really like this post! I just did a paper, “Themes and Theologies from Primeval Myths of the Ancient Near East”, for my Old Testament class and observed a lot of the same things you point out about the pagan religions and cultures – i.e., belief in human sacrifice, malevolent or erratic gods, etc.
How would you express the difference between the new “benevolent old gods” of neo-paganism/humanism and the “benevolent God” of Judeo-Christianity who similarly demanded animal sacrifice of his people? Have we simply edited our own God in a same or similar manner? (I’m not asserting this, just asking.)
The gods of paganism always followed through on their human sacrifice. They also were capricious and did not always keep their promises, or phrased them in such a way that the answer would be different than what one expected. The Delphic Oracles were always more unclear than any Biblical prophecy and the fulfillment of the prophecy was often the opposite of what one would expect.
God, in the Old Testament, always found reasons to not do human sacrifice. Think of the Abraham and Isaac story. While there were unexpected fulfillments of Old Testament prophecy, particularly in the New Testament, the prophecies were never fulfilled in such a way that one would charge God with deception. The theme of mercy and forgiveness was actually constantly present in the Old Testament. If one reads the Talmud, one can see that the Jews actually saw that. It was only the later “Christian” heretics that interpreted the god of the Old Testament as being punishment-minded.
What the pagan gods did was mimic many of the qualities of God, but with a wicked twist to them.
yeah, in reading through the Old Testament, it’s obvious that one of the important, if not the main message is the cyclical story of man’s sin and God’s mercy and forgiveness. though I don’t think that punishment was the central theme of the OT, I also wouldn’t downplay its own importance in the cycle of God’s relationship with Israel and mankind.
I have to admit I was sorta fishing for something specific – some explanation about reading the Old Testament through the lens of The Human Sacrifice. (That coincidentally(?) occurred around the same time that even the Jewish people ended their own practices of animal sacrifice; admittedly for different theological reasons.)
for us Christians though, I feel comfortable emphasizing that God was the one who carefully edited his relationship with mankind, and our theology, when He came among us.
Hmm, you have a quite good point. After all, the Christian point of the Abraham and Isaac story was that Isaac was not the correct human sacrifice. I will have to remember that.
I was thinking about this strip and another possible interpretation is that this is actually the Calvinistic view of God! (Or, to be generous to the Calvinists, how non-Calvinists view the Calvinist view of God).
I mean, isn’t it funny that this god (who is Calvin), despite being the creator of the world, seems only displeased by it and demands sacrifice?