God in the Machine
Rev. Jennifer Brooks
June 12, 2005
I admit to watching all three of the Matrix movies. Although it was somewhat annoying to be strung along through three films, I liked the story of the struggle for human self-determination. And how interesting to see the old theme of slavery and freedom re-cast in a futuristic world with sentient machines.
But the end of the last film was so disappointing. After all the suffering and struggle—and sacrifice—it is revealed that some weird old guy is manipulating everything. Three long movies, and we end with the Wizard of Oz saying, “Pay no attention to the man behind that curtain!”1.
But this is an old device. Deus ex machina [DAY-us ex MAK-in-a] is Latin for "god from the machine" and is a translation from the Greek "apo mekhanes theos." It originated with Greek theatre. At the end of the play, when the characters’ situation had become hopeless, a crane would lower a god from above down onto the stage—"god from the machine."
The god would explain everything that had happened to the characters in the play who had been struggling in confusion. Sometimes the god worked a few miracles to restore things to a more satisfactory condition; sometimes the god merely revealed the truth, and left the humans bemoaning their mistakes.
Today the phrase deus ex machina, god from the machine, has been extended to refer to any resolution to a story which does not pay due regard to the story's internal logic and is so unlikely it challenges the willing suspension of disbelief. In a deus ex machina resolution, the god is above or outside the story, and miraculously appears in it to save the day.
This ancient device is at work in the world today, not just in movies like the Matrix or the Wizard of Oz. It’s present as a way of looking at life that pulls God out at the last minute to save the day.
Consider some of the assumptions that are prevalent today: for example, the Rapture, sometimes referred to as the Second Coming of Jesus. According to this story, which is pieced together from fragments of biblical text, things in the world will get progressively worse, with famine, pestilence, war, and immorality; hurricanes and earthquakes; disease and the failure of human society. But then a magical god will descend from above to resolve all conflicts, separate the sheep from the goats, and save all the good people—who are usually carefully defined as “believers”—while the ones who don’t measure up are condemned to miserable torment.
God from the machine.
There is a website, www.raptureready.com, where an index of horrible events tracks how close Earth is to the moment when God descends. I checked this morning; the current score, out of a maximum of 225, is 144. So we’re probably safe for today.
There are many people who are devout readers of the bible who do not embrace this way of thinking. Even some who might describe themselves as literalists would be reluctant to cheer the increase in worldwide disasters as one step closer to the Rapture and therefore a good thing. What interests me about this phenomenon is not its sectarian nature, but the way in which this sort of thinking is replicated across all denomination, across all faiths.
Deus ex machina thinking is the ultimate “cavalry to the rescue” way of solving problems. The idea is that there will be a last-minute solution that we can’t imagine now. As long as a solution to a problem can be expected to appear, like magic, we don’t need to pay careful attention to the depletion of our natural resources, to global warming, to a variety of other concerns. At its most extreme, deus ex machina thinking embraces anything that causes real harm to real people as a signal of the ultimate rescue.
The Greeks knew what they were doing when they created the device that kept the god hidden in a box until it was time for the descent to the stage and the resolution of the drama. They designed a crane, they constructed a god, and made it fit onto the stage. They controlled when it was up and hidden; they controlled when it was down and visible. They made god manageable.
This is the heritage we see at work in our world. The idea of God, shaped and confined by humans, is a god who gallops to the rescue. It’s a god who can be pulled out of a hat when things go wrong. It’s a god that is effectively controlled by all the experts who assert they know who god is and what god wants. They are the ones who say that God is on their side.
Let us consider the possibility that whatever Mystery may exist that is beyond what we know, it is on everyone’s side.
Many people have grown up with but have rejected the idea of an all-powerful, usually male, superior being who intervenes in human life in response to the command of an anointed leader. Many others, who acknowledge that humans may not understand all mysteries, allow the possibility of a power beyond ourselves, but still wrestle with what “divinity” might mean.
Walt Whitman said, “We consider bibles and religions divine—I do not say they are not divine; I say they have all grown out of you, and may grow out of you still.”2.
If we struggle to re-construct our idea of God, Whitman gives us a clue. He doesn’t reject the idea of divine inspiration for the holy books many faiths hold sacred. But he points to the role of human mediation: “They have all grown out of you.”
Whitman’s recognition is that all the holy books, which try to describe what humans do not understand, are linked to us—to our humanity and our way of interpreting the world. His insight allows us to accept that human accounts of God are likely to be limited to what human understanding can produce, even though there may still be truth—there may still be divinity—in their description of the holy.
The Greeks’ god that descended from the machine was put there by human actors. All our holy books, all our sacred writings, derive at least in part from human consciousness. We put God in the books, in the machine, in the box.
It is time to think outside the box.
Maybe it is not possible to think outside the box. Perhaps we are always limited, not only by our humanity but by our context. But it is worth the effort. Hear again what Whitman says: “We consider bibles and religions divine—I do not say they are not divine; I say they have all grown out of you, and may grow out of you still.”
In our everyday living we construct our understanding of the world. But many of us have set aside any attempt to construct our understanding of what might be met by the term “God.” There is no reason to confine our understanding to the neatly boxed bible we were given in childhood. My own came with a zipper around its sides: sometimes I wonder if the zipper was intended to confine God to its pages.
It’s time to unzip our thinking. The word “God” may carry with it all sorts of associations, many of which should be rejected. But there are so many mysteries in life, so many miracles. The way that inspiration sparks and crackles3.; the way love sweeps us into an embrace; the way that hope leads us to find new solutions and new ways of acting; the way persistence and faith triumph over impossible odds. Each of us can write our own list of revelations.
Divinity, the holy, the love and creativity at the center of life: these may have been in the universe since the beginning, since before the beginning, yet all we might say about them grows out of us and may grow out of us still. Whoever we are, whatever our daily tasks, we are capable of expressing the miraculous.
Turn to the ones you love, to the precious faces who may be with you only a short while longer; turn to the sky, with its wind or rain or sunshine; turn to the sea, to the earth, to each flower in the garden; turn to your work, whatever it is; and in all these things that are part of your life, see the beauty, see that they are sacred, see that they are yours.
May it be given to each of us to find a way to express Life and our love for it. May every one of us be aware of the blessings we have. May we all join together to extend these blessings to everyone we meet, and to others we cannot know.
We do not need to wait for “Rapture” to find it: the glory of Life is in us and among us every day.
1. From Wikipedia’s explanation, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_ex_machina, which offers more detail and some interesting links.
2. From Leaves of Grass, excerpt reprinted in the UU Hymnal as Reading No. 659: T he sum of all reverence I add up in you, whoever you are;
Those who govern are there for you, it is not you who are there for them;
All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it;
All music is what awakes from you when you are reminded by the instruments;
The sun and stars that float in the open air, the apple-shaped earth and we upon it;
The endless pride and outstretching of people; unspeakable joys and sorrows;
The wonder everyone sees in everyone else they see, and the wonders that fill each minute of time forever;
It is for you whoever you are—it is no farther from you than your hearing and sight are from you; it is hinted by nearest, commonest, readiest.
We consider bibles and religions divine—I do not say they are not divine; I say they have all grown out of you, and may grow out of you still;
It is not they who give the life—it is you who give the life.
Will you seek afar off? You surely come back at last, in things best known to you, finding the best, or as good as the best—
Happiness, knowledge, not in another place, but this place—not in another hour, but in this hour.
3. From”Divinity,” a meditation by Dorothy Boroush:
It comes to me when I am most creative
When I am thinking things
and doing things
that reach beyond myself
—not knowing,
only hoping, dreaming—
wanting revelations to connect,
support, and nourish.
And when the energy
surges up and lifts me
toward the light
into space
where sparks ignite
and inspiration crackles
from the brain into the heart and back,
then everything around me sings.
The spirit speaks and lives
and I am filled with wonder
at the beauty of this place
we call the world.
My gratitude knows no bounds.
My life is full,
and I am blessed beyond
all sense of self or separateness.
I am the world and
all that is within it,
and I bless the holy grace
by which all lives.
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