Faith in a Fictional World
I’ve mentioned before, and will mention again, that I grew up in a religious household, though one that also valued critical thinking and reasoning skills. I don’t think it ever occurred to my parents that one of these would lead to the elimination of the other in my life. They managed to balance their faith and their logic quite well, though I’m sure there were times in their lives when the thought “how could God let this happen” crossed their minds.
For me, faith was a silly thing. Why would anyone believe that a magical man in the sky would fix your problems when you could look around and see so many problems going unfixed? How could you believe in God when the world was so broken and he was supposed to be infinite and all powerful? I remember reading a quote in college and thinking that I had it all figured out once I saw it penned before me:
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?” ― Epicurus
This defined my understanding of faith for a long time. It made the gods of other pantheons, specifically the ones in the D&D pantheons make a lot more sense. These were supposedly all knowing, all powerful beings, but they had their limited scope. One of secrets, the other of light, one of magic, and another of the sea. They had domains that they could affect and others they could not. They were bound by rules, by jurisdiction, and by their own pettiness that wouldn’t allow them to bow or concede anything to mortals or other gods. They made sense, because they were human enough to understand.
It wasn’t until I read Joseph Campbell’s The Power of Myth for the dozenth time or so, that something really clicked for me. He states that God is unloveable because he is perfect. We, as humans, are incapable of loving something perfect. If it is perfect, then we can never really be equal to it, as we are imperfect beings, and what it is to be religious is to become the best imperfect version of that god that you can be. Obviously you’ll never perfectly encapsulate them as a mortal, but you can do your best.
When Luis calls upon his goddess, Nike blesses him with gifts to aid him in his act of being an imperfect version of her. Victory at any cost, even if that cost is a blow to one’s pride or a retreat. Nike, the goddess of victory, never punished Luis for running from a fight that was unwinnable, because the path to victory is to regroup and try again with better knowledge and better preparation. To throw one’s life away senselessly in a battle that cannot be won isn’t worshiping in her name, it is slandering it. Heresy in its purist form.
For Lee, he worships Goibniu by acting in the way a hospitable host would. He treats those in his care with respect, though often with cold distance. To him, one must act with courtesy and ever seek to create and build, rather than kill and destroy. Leave a place better than you found it and people more at ease when they are ready to leave.
So, what is an imperfect form of God in the Christian faith? The answer to that is simple.
Jesus.
Jesus was meant to be God made flesh, made man. There are dozens of instances in the Bible where Jesus is shown to be imperfect, and even portrays moments of anger issues that therapy may have been a good idea for. Don’t believe me? Let’s take a moment to reflect on times when Jesus acted way more human than the Church likes us to remember:
When he cursed a fig tree for being out of season and he wanted a snack. Being hangry is still anger.
When he beat the tax collectors in the temple and flipped the tables. This one he thought out too, because he wove the braided ropes to beat them with while he was standing there.
When he called out the Pharisees and referred to them as a ‘brood of vipers’
I can’t find the exact scripture, but a priest told me about a time Joseph reprimanded Jesus for praying to grow a board he failed to measure correctly, and Jesus basically said “You’re not my real dad” and we never saw Joseph again.
He got tired, like… bone tired. Weary from travel, from his fasting in the desert, and the man felt it.
He grieved heavily at Lazarus’ tomb. Weeping fully and expressing sorrow, despite knowing there was an afterlife.
He felt pain, thirst, and hunger, most evidently on the cross.
People forget his humanity because the Church wants people to forget that Jesus was human, and demands we focus on him as a god. Jesus exists in christianity to be the form of God that we as mortals can love. Why? Because he’s not perfect. He wasn’t ever supposed to be. He was meant to be an imperfect form of God, something that we as mortals could set as a standard. He lashed out in anger, but it was righteous anger, he grieved for a friend, he felt the same emotions and needs that we mere mortals do. (Including love and lust if the theory about Mary Magdalene holds any water, but that’s neither here nor there).
So, learning from these lessons, I built Father Mitchell as a means to explore them. He is as close to Jesus as a mortal man can get. He tries to follow the teachings of the Christ, to act Christ-like in everything he does, and even balks against the dogma of the Church in order to continue acting in a way that he believes Christ would support. He is as close to a true christian as a heathen like me could create, because he was as a heathen like me would like to see christians be like. He also was as close to a paladin or cleric from the fantasy world as a man like him could be because his faith was strong enough to support such devotion without expecting perfection.
In the end, faith is something that will vary from table to table as it varies from person to person. I’m sure what I wrote here today will anger some, though I hope it inspires others to reflect on their own faith, or lack there of, and determine why their beliefs are as they are rather than just accepting what they’ve been told their entire lives to believe. Faith is meant to be your personal relationship with and belief in something, be that a god, a creed, or a person. If you allow others to dictate what that relationship or belief is, then it is not yours, it is theirs, and either you need to break your oath and live your life how you best see fit, or you need to evaluate that relationship and learn how it fits into your life.
Luis seeks victory, though not a hollow one.
Lee seeks comfort, though not through ignorance.
Mitchell seeks grace, though not at the expense of the teachings that taught him what grace really is.
Faith in fiction defines what it needs to be in the real world, and should we falter on that path, we need only look to fiction to find our way back.
