Entertaining God

submitted on 09/25/06 as reflection paper for the religious-philosophical movie Dogma
**********************************************************

“There’s a million questions I wish I could ask, most all questioning what I'm sure is your great plan, and that would be really arrogant of me, I know. But there is one I'd like to ask, and I'm sure you get it all the time. But how many opportunities like this will I get?” Bethany inhaled deeply and then exhaled, preparing to hear the ultimate answer from someone infallible. “Why are we here?” The childlike woman stared at her for a while. Then she leaned forward and poked Bethany’s nose. The woman, who happened to be the latest embodiment of God, smiled at her and walked away. “Didn’t I tell you She was funny?” Metatron, a Seraph and the Voice of God, told Bethany matter-of-factly.

That was an excerpt from the ending scene of the film Dogma. I thought the scene was just amusing, and a little confusing, while I was watching it for the first time. However, it struck me just when I realized what it really meant during a class discussion. Although the film does not explicitly state it, it seems to imply that God created all of existence because of His sense of humor.

Dogma does not just exemplify God’s omnipotence and omniscience, but also His unlikely but very probable purpose of human existence. God is omnipotent that He can transform into one of us here on Earth. The problem is that He has to lose His omnipotence and omniscience to be human. Being human means being mortal, vulnerable to physical pain and death. His embodiment’s death can release Him from mortality to His original and true state. However, He may be trapped in His temporary body during a comatose, as exemplified in the movie. In this case, as human, He would be influenced by time. That then would give anyone the chance to prove the infallible God wrong, thereby reversing Him and all dependent existence to nothingness. But after some reflection, I learned that it may never happen. Remember that God is all-knowing. Although He lost His omniscience as a human, He still had it before He became one. Before turning human and thus losing His omniscience and omnipotence, He must have used it to ‘see’ if everything would be fine while he would be embodied. In Dogma for example, before becoming the human ‘John Doe,’ God knew that He, as human, would be beaten up and fall into comatose. But He also knew that He would eventually be saved by Bethany, the Last Scion. Thus, knowing this, He confidently allowed Himself to be human.

Now the bottom line question is: why did He have to create us? Wouldn’t it be the same if God decided to exist without us? God does not need the free man for truly responding love or for entertainment simply because He is perfect. He can never feel unloved or bored. He does not need anything else to sustain Him. So why do we need to exist? Perhaps there’s something wrong with the question. Maybe God did not need to create us – He wanted to create us.

God knows He does not need to create anything. If he was only serious, He should have not created us, thinking that, “I don’t need them anyway. It would be useless.” But He cannot be limited to being serious and boring. Since He is perfect, He must also have a sense of humor. And perhaps, as a result of being funny and playful, He created us – as His toys. As a perfect being, God cannot be entertained because he cannot be bored in the first place. Then He must have decided to be man so that He may experience human boredom and thus be truly amused when He frolics down here on Earth. It’s just like God built a small Legoland and shrunk Himself in it so He can enjoy playing with it more.

“Why are we here?” Perhaps we are here to entertain God, not because he needs amusement but he wants it. And since He is omnipotent, He gets what He wants. Now wouldn’t it affect my faith knowing that I exist as one of God’s playthings? Probably not. If we are God’s playthings, God would be like a child who would love and protect his toys. Thus, we are safe as God’s toys. If it did affect my faith, it added more amazement rather than fear in the funny God.

I must sharpen my sense of humor some more. I’d like to really amuse God in case I meet His embodiment one day. And I’d let Him poke my nose as many times as He would like.