I like this. In essence, a major part of what makes divinities what they are (and demons, as well, in some interpretations) is the fact that while they are transcendent, they are also in many ways a reflection of our deepest selves — selves that are we don’t normally pay attention to in our day-to-day lives, that get swamped over in mundanity, and are undeniable and yet at the same time can disappear in the light of day. In many ways, paradox and contradiction define the divine more than anything else, which is why ideas like the Trinity1 can’t really be dissected and refuted by insisting that the idea is a logical paradox — that’s sort of the point.
A lot of Western conceptions of divinity are, at the most complex, the way Eshu mentions it — reduced to purely belief-eating engines of power2. This is problematic in many ways because, well, apart from the fact that deities are essentially parasitical in this conception, means that they are, really, You Writ Large. A lot of the more obscene and vulgar forms of religiosity in the modern world that we see today essentially casts Divinity as The Biggest Bro You Can Have — a jealous, petty being that really doesn’t do anything beyond being a stand-in for the congregations’ prejudices and hatreds.
I find that the most genuine, the most true depictions of divinity tend to be the kind that move beyond ordinary words and language. In many ways, I model this kind of divinity to an inverse of what Lovecraft encounters with his gods in the Cthulhu Mythos — gods so transcendent, so beyond humanity that just being able to apprehend their existence destroys you. It’s indicative of Lovecraft’s horrible personality and the sickness in his soul that his view of what is True about the Universe was presented in such a horrific fashion. But just as the Cthulhu Mythos reveal that the Universe is a dark, horrific place, where light is eaten by an insatiable darkness, an inverse of that is a Universe where there is nothing but light… but that doesn’t mean it’s a place habitable (for very long) by human minds, or concepts, or anything.
All of this really means that divinities don’t have personalities, or minds, or identities the way beings bound by time and space like you and me do. Again, a paradox — yes, it is a reflection of you, and no, it’s something beyond, something truly frightening and truly destructive if you approach it wrong. It is a silence so incredibly loud, a blinding darkness so incredibly bright, that you are irrevocably changed by it.
- Let’s get something right — while I am a Muslim and I consider Christian ideas of divinity particularly alien, I do appreciate that some aspects of the Christian religious experience provide strong lessons about how people approach the divine. ↩
- Terry Pratchett is one dude for me that really defined the fact that deities depend on their worshipers for power, and that power comes from belief. Which then raises the issue that the only reason deities exist in Pratchett’s Discworld is simply because people are essentially held hostage by their gods. Gods in the Discworld really don’t do much for their congregation; whatever enlightenment and charity their congregation has comes from within. ↩
