Thursday, February 27, 2014

     Have you seen the Hollywood classic (1930s) Frankenstein?  If you've read the book, you know that the movie is somewhat different, but no matter:  the point is the same.  If we are to suppose that we are creators, we must be prepared to deal with the consequences.
     At one point in the movie, which is of course in black and white, Dr. Frankenstein remarks about the monster he has made that, “It is not dead; it has never lived.”  His point is that he's not raising the creature from the dead.  He's not bringing something dead back to life.  He’s creating something new, something that has never existed before.  In a word, he has become God.  He’s made life where there once was none). 
     So what is it like to be God?   What would we do, really, if we were God?  Would we create the world as it is, or would we do something entirely different?  And how would we know either way?
     It's exceedingly difficult to imagine being the only one in the universe where there wasn't a universe to behold.  To make life where there had been none, to create existence when existence didn't exist (as most theologians would say, for God, existence, as we humans conceive it, never began, for he is eternal), these are indeed weighty things.
     Can we bear the burden?

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