Subject: I dunno about that.
Author:
Posted on: 2012-01-10 21:19:00 UTC
Although when we say 'omnipotent,' we mean all-powerful throughout the multiverse, I think it's conceivable that there could be an alternate definition of the word that includes only one universe. After all, we say 'omnipotent' without knowing if there even are other universes.
Inspired by (but not related to) the religious-badfic thread a couple down...
In the fandoms the PPC deals with there are a fair few Single Omnipotent Deities. A lot of them go by 'the One' (not counting Neo - but including of course Eru Iluvatar), but there's also Aslan, and probably a bunch of unnamed ones. At least one of these (Aslan - probably the most interactive of the lot) knows about the PPC.
So, question: are these guys all the same being? Is there a whole skein of universes created by the same entity under slightly different names, or are there a plethora of Gods with a universe apiece? (And is Aslan part of the set? He's the creator of Narnia, but doesn't he talk about the Emperor over the Sea?).
hS, pondering
My thinking is that each deity is an entity unto itself, unless there is good reason to believe otherwise. These deities may have the ability to do anything within their continuum, but are not outside of it.
I'm put in mind of the Chronicles of Amber in which there is one 'real world' of which the others are all shadows that have been distorted to varying degrees. So perhaps the gods are shadows of the Ultimate God, as filtered through the lens of the Author of each universe.
A while back, before deciding that I'm not cut out to write PPC missions, I thought about creating an agent with Deity given Healing Powers and that he would have access to them only in continuums where there was a deity willing to grant them to him.
I actually apply the backstory of the Kingdom Hearts cosmology to the fictional multiverse. It essentially says that there was originally only one World, which was only light, no darkness. People started to get greedy, and wanted to hoard as much light to themselves as possible. This cast a shadow in those people's hearts, and the light started to break apart. After the light seemed completely torn up, some of it still survived in the hearts of children. From that light, Kingdom Hearts, or God, or whatever, recreated fragments of the original World, but separate from each other. The assumption in KH is that someday, all the disparate worlds will come together again recreate the greater World, but only after darkness has disappeared from every heart, and all the people of the multiverse can live together peacefully in the light.
I take Kingdom Hearts to be a metaphor for God. So here, we have God splitting existence into many worlds, each one slightly different due to each being a different part of the original World. Hence, they all "see" God, or Kingdom Hearts, as being a little different. Narnia is filled with talking animals, so for them, He is a great speaking lion. The Stephen King universe is full of strange creatures and occurrences, and there, He is a giant intergalactic turtle spirit. The Pokémon world is filled with Pokémon, and its residents see Him as—well, a Pokémon.
So this was a long way of saying, "I believe they are all the same being." (Still not sure I actually swallow Arceus being God, though. It should not be possible for God to be captured in a Pokéball and forced to fight for a ten-year-old.)
"Omnipotent" would mean omnipotent throughout the entire multiverse; and unless all omnipotent people were in exact agreement at all times (which would make them functionally one being), there would be disagreements with one person trying to do one thing, and another doing another; and how do you pit one omnipotent deity against another? They both, by definition, can do anything.
So, yeah, they would have to be all the same, because the multiverse is connected; or else they could not be omnipotent. They could be able to influence everything within their own continuum, but that wouldn't be "omnipotent", only very powerful.
Thankfully, there are very few of them, and they are all alternate-universe representations of the God of the Bible, from either the Christian, Jewish, or occasionally Muslim viewpoint; so their authors likely thought they were the same thing too.
So, yeah, they're all the same thing. Otherwise you run into logical contradictions. As for different writers giving their versions of God different personalities, different opinions, etc.: Two possibilities. Either the Authors are seeing the same person from many perspectives, so there aren't any contradictions; or else the logical contradictions exist, God is different in different continua, and it's better not to think too hard about it, much the way one shouldn't think too hard about the mechanism by which Bleeprin erases badfic headaches. The PPC runs on plot holes--this would be just one more to add to the collection.
Although when we say 'omnipotent,' we mean all-powerful throughout the multiverse, I think it's conceivable that there could be an alternate definition of the word that includes only one universe. After all, we say 'omnipotent' without knowing if there even are other universes.
"Omnipotent" could conceivably just mean all-powerful over us. To us, a god is all-powerful in the same way we humans are all-powerful over ants: there is nothing within their limited scope we cannot do; there is nothing within our limited scope that a god cannot do. However, there's nothing stopping something else from being all-powerful over them, too.
This comment courtesy of discussion with Phobos.
~Neshomeh
I'm personally a fan of (though not an adherent to) the theology in Young Wizards, so there's the One, who made everything, and then there are the Powers That Be, who helped (or didn't, in the case of the Lone Power) and actually run around doing things and interacting with people when necessary. The Powers That Be are finite in number, but they exist outside of time and have infinite capacity to create avatars of themselves in the world(s). Thus, from just one of the PTBs we have the One's Champion, Michael the Archangel, Prometheus, Athena, Lugh, etc. And a pet parrot, which just goes to show that an avatar can be whatever the PTB needs it to be, not necessarily a god-like being. Each avatar is separate and autonomous, even though they're all technically the same being.
I figure, this easily extends to other continua. The One is the One, but any potent personalities that actually get involved in-universe (Aslan, the Valar, etc.) could be avatars of the various PTBs. So, yes, some of them are the same being—but then again, some aren't, and either way it doesn't matter, because they aren't just puppets, they are unique fully-functional incarnations imbued with some of the Power in question's essence.
That being the case, you bet they know about the PPC, but it's pretty much Multiversal that the local deities/PTBs usually don't get involved with the affairs of mortals unless it's absolutely vital. So there you go. {= )
~Neshomeh
And now feel like I should read YW... even though I know next to nothing about it other than from Neshomeh's post.
*goes off to read up*
And the best part is? The series is ongoing. B)
Alright, adding Young Wizards to the nigh-infinite list of To Be Read.
I like this angle of things. It makes sense, it fits things together, and even while simplifying, it follows the number one rule of all theology discussions: It's More Complicated Than That.
I'm vaguely surprised you haven't read it at all.
It's essentially religion meets fantasy meets magic meets programming code meets science fiction meets general awesome.
Is rather utterly fantastically layered for a YA series.
I didn't feel like counting how many people had already agreed.
I've always assumed that any deities/supernatural entities are 'contained' as it were to one continua unless canon suggests otherwise.
At any rate that would make more sense from a writing point of view, otherwise we could get into a big mess very quickly. :P
I like to think that every 'verse is separate from the others: there is no link between them aside from the portal network used by HQ. Therefore, the three Goddesses from Zelda aren't related to the Discworld Gods, who aren't related to Aslan, and so on so forth. A universe apiece, as you put it.
It's pretty explicitly stated in Narnia that Aslan is our God too, so in at least one case, yes. Beyond Him, though, I don't know. I certainly wouldn't bet against Eru knowing about the PPC, but I would bet against him intervening in PPC affairs on anything short of the most dire of circumstances - and even then, he seems to be a fan of the indirect (and often Wizardly) approach.
(To be precise, Aslan and the Emperor over the Sea mirror the God the Son / God the Father parts of the Trinity, and it's far too late for me to dive into trinitarian doctrine at the moment. Suffice to say, they're both God, omnipotent, omniscient, distinct, etc. And God is singular in that last sentence.)
Since Lewis was trinitarian by default, this is by definition true. :P However, in the other allegorical series, his Space Trilogy, Maleldil the Young (creator of the worlds, ruler of everything, was incarnated - Jesus) is a distinctly separate entity from his father. I don't recall anything that hints at Aslan and the Emperor being trinitarian - and if they are, where's the Holy Ghost ;)?
hS
The trinitarian allegory with Aslan and the Emperor could be done without three-- since the Holy Ghost is on Earth to minister to humanity while the Father and Son are not, it would be different in Narnia; for most of the series, Aslan is either physically present or on the cusp of arrival.
(Oh ye gods and little fishies, the Space Trilogy. So much love/hate. The best part of that series is either the bit at the end of Perelandra, "Have no fear, lest your shoulders be bearing this world. Look! It is beneath your head, and carries you." Or possibly his point that despising creatures simply for being the shape that they are is absurd. He's got so much very excellent, very interesting theology there! And then he sandwiches it with... the rest of the text.)
As per your original question, I do think it makes more sense to say that each universe is handled by their own deity or demigod-- because there's just bits and pieces where they don't add up. To get unforgivably and unhumorously theological on you, I'd say humans trying to write allegories of God can be likened to people trying to construct a mirror-perfect representation of an image, but all of us from different angles, with different tools, in whatever light in which we've perceived the original. All of them have some merit, all of them are faithful to the author's intent (more or less), but none of them are the original.
In a more practical-for-purposes-at-hand sense, that would simplify things a great deal for Agents from a monotheistic world. How do you go from Eru/Ilùvatar to Aslan/Emperor to the version of YHWH in World One-base series? And any Agent with a fervent view would probably be contending that their deity was in charge of the multiverse, and the rest were demigods/false/etc.
But from an author's perspective, I have to say it makes more sense for them all to be single-'verse deities; of course, that's just what, as pointed out above, a character would say.
...On further consideration, I think Dann is right, and it's far too late in this time zone to keep up with this thread.