“To live in a world without heroes or villains, ever reminding one’s self that responsibility is fiction, that there are no persons, only processes, despite everything in the core of your being crying out to the contrary . . . Such self-imposed brainwashing hardly seems worth the effort.”
“The only good reason to believe something is if it’s true,” Corwin reminded him. “If free will isn’t, then there’s no greater waste of effort than religion.”
“Without free will, there’s no such thing as wasted effort, only the inevitable turning of the gears.”
Atop the castle a mischievous boy was leaping on the suspension bridge, sending great ripples through the cords. The sudden dip and rise caused some to lose their balance and plummet into the ball pit below, but all eventually made it to one of the two slides, red and yellow, that corkscrewed down from the right-hand tower.
“Reason alone cannot disprove the determinist who claims that choice is a lie, nor the relativist who rejects moral absolutes,” continued Ransom. “But such creeds always fail the test of real life. You won't have much luck finding a parent who denies evil or accountability when it comes to their child getting abused.”
“You won't have much luck finding a parent who chooses to ‘love your enemies’ in that situation either,” said Corwin. “You’ve been around for a while. How many true Christians have you met?”
“Of halfhearted Christians I've met plenty, but saints?” Ransom gave a snort. “I can count those deserving of the title on one hand. Not being numbered among them is the deepest regret that lingers in the hearts of many in Heaven.”
“I didn’t think there were regrets in Heaven.”
“There are thieves and murderers in Heaven! But their regrets are not earthly regrets. Knowing their past sins only increases their joy at the Father’s boundless mercy.”
“You’re telling me that there are murderers in Heaven, and yet I—who died saving a man’s life, no less—might not be allowed in?”
Corwin scoffed at the notion.
“That's the biggest difference between you and the saints,” said Ransom. “You think that you deserve Heaven.” He scrunched the empty cup in his hand. “Hell is full of the tragically underappreciated.”
The cup bounced off the rim and into the trash bin. On his feet again, Ransom struck off across the grass. Hot spice burned in Corwin’s throat as he chugged the last of his cider, not wishing to be left behind.
An attendant with spiky orange hair was tearing tickets in front of Lucky’s Castle. Between the line of impatient children and the music blaring through his headphones, he would scarcely have noticed a marching band parading at his back, much less Corwin and Ransom as they stepped nonchalantly through the gate.
“Do we really have to go in there?” asked Corwin.
He skirted aside, giving way to little boys and girls that bounded up the drawbridge and into the menacing jaws of the clown. A curtain of black rubber strips hid the inner castle from view.
“It’s too late to turn back now,” said Ransom.
Just behind them at the gate, it finally occurred to the attendant that two children were rather larger than the rest.
“Hey, you two! You’re not supposed to–”
Ransom drew back the curtain.
“Ransom?”
“I’m right here,” called the angel, his voice a beacon in the ink-black gloom.
Hearing a low hum, Corwin glanced down. Veins of blue light pulsed through the floor, bending and branching at sharp angles, tracing a strip of circuitry. Their feeble glow gave little clue as to the surrounding shadows, though the pattern suggested a corridor. The pulse faded into the distance and primordial darkness returned, its rule lasting but a few brief seconds before the cycle repeated.
There was a snap and a scratch-hiss, the flare of a tiny flame igniting the cigarette on Ransom’s lips. He took a drag and spoke, only his voice sounded heavier than his usual, easygoing self.
“The Paradox of Evil, more commonly called the Problem of Evil, is perhaps the oldest, most natural and most compelling argument that your kind has raised against the Father. Tell me your understanding of it.”
“It’s compelling because it’s something we’ve all felt in life,” said Corwin. “You don’t need a degree in philosophy to grasp it. Just turn on the news! Wars, poverty, disease, famine, slavery, natural disasters . . . How anyone can look at our world and yet believe in a loving god is beyond me.”
“There is much pain in life,” agreed Ransom, “The trials of the mortal world are many, and though you bring most of them upon yourselves, the Father’s silence in the face of grave evil is difficult to understand.”
“Difficult? I’d call it sobering.” Corwin’s bitter words reverberated in the darkness. “To witness true evil is to know that there is no god watching over us. A loving god wouldn't stand idly by while people slaughtered each other, while families were torn apart and children left to starve.”
“Your passion is noted,” Ransom said curtly. “Now speak plainly the logic of your paradox.”
“Logically, the paradox is simple. No one wishes evil upon those they love. Either god loves us but cannot end suffering, in which case he is not omnipotent, or god can end suffering but chooses not to, in which case he is not all-loving.”
“Very good.”
They walked for a short time in silence. Corwin could guess what was coming. His attorney would make the argument that love required free will, and free will entailed the possibility of evil. It sounded like a tidy explanation, but it wasn’t enough. Protecting a child from a pedophile was more important than protecting the pedophile’s free will. Every just society put limits on behavior. Wouldn’t a just god do the same?
A column of ash grew on the end of Ransom’s cigarette. Stopping, he arched his neck and blew a smoke ring.
“There's just one thing I'd like some clarification on. Supposing that an all-loving God with the power to stop evil ought to do so, how much evil should he stop? Where do you draw the line?”
“At the very least, he could prevent mass murders! Take the school shooting that happened just a few months back. Where was god when that psychopath killed almost twenty kids? If I’d had the power, you can be damn sure that I would have done something. I’d say that makes me a better person than your almighty father.”
“So it’s about the scale of the bloodshed? God should intervene once the potential death toll rises above a magic number?”
The threading light paused beneath them, then flowered into a pattern that rapidly expanded in all directions. This space was no corridor. It was huge. Ramping off the floor, the lasers outlined buildings and cars and more until a whole wireframe city had taken shape. When it was complete, a wave of digital paint clothed the naked world in pixels, their resolution increasing, blocky edges smoothing until it was impossible to distinguish illusion from reality.
“So that’s how it is. This isn’t a dream or the afterlife,” Corwin thought aloud. “I’m in the Christian Matrix!”
Standing in the center of the road, he could hear little over the cacophony of what sounded like a hundred police sirens blaring at once. Cruisers choked the lanes. Several were already parked to his left and right with more showing up every second, and soon the whole street was blockaded for half a mile. The sirens cut out as the deputy chief raised his megaphone, pointing it towards the stalwart columns of the First National Bank.
“We’ve got the building surrounded! Release the hostages, lay down your weapons and come out with your hands up!”
He was answered by the furious rattle of machinegun fire, bullets blowing out the windows and punching holes in his cruiser.
“Jesus Christ!” he swore as he hunkered behind the car.
“You called?”
Sandaled feet appeared before the deputy’s eyes. Looking up, he saw Jesus, the Lord garbed in his signature white robe and red sash. His expression was warm and relaxed, and he stood without any regard for the bullet
s buzzing past.
“Lord, it sure is great to see you! A group of gunmen tried to knock over the bank and started shooting the place up. Now they’re holding twenty five people hostage inside, although I’m sure you already knew that.”
“Let me see what I can do,” said Jesus.
He disappeared, and less than a minute later a stream of shaken men and women started pouring out of the bank.
“Hold your fire!” shouted the deputy chief to his officers.
After the last hostage was free and away, Jesus waltzed out, shaking the dust from his feet.
“You’ll find the shooters taking a little nap in the lobby.”
“It’s a good thing you showed up, Jesus.”
“All in a day’s work,” the Lord said. “And by the way, you might want to duck.”
The short-lived peace was shattered by a second round of gunshots, this time from a different direction. Across the street, two masked men had stormed out of the Second National Bank. Armed with submachine guns and carrying duffle bags full of cash, they were ready for a fight, but hadn’t expected to find the entire police force camped outside. With curses and a hail of hot lead, they retreated back behind the bank’s brick walls.
“You pigs better not try anything or the sixteen people in here are as good as dead!”
The deputy had wisely chosen to hit the floor. He pushed himself up, still crouching, and brushed off the pieces of what used to be his driver-side mirror.
“Damn! A double bank heist!”
“Gotta go,” Jesus said. “This one’s all yours.”
“But what about those people across the street?”
“What do I look like? Batman? They’ve got less than twenty hostages over there! Sorry, but that’s not really worth my time.”
“But Lord!”
Already on the move, Jesus waved farewell, but didn’t look back.
“See you when I come again!”
Instead of disappearing, he simply marched east down the road. Corwin and Ransom followed at a distance.
“I’m not calling for divine intervention to kick in when some random quota is met,” Corwin told his attorney. “If even one innocent child is in danger, wouldn’t that be reason enough to act?”
“So it’s the age of the victim that matters?”
Reinforcements continued to arrive, the glut of cop cars extending through the next block, home to Lincoln Elementary School. A police chopper circled overhead while the Kevlar-clad SWAT team took up position along the school’s perimeter.
Evidently the city was having a rather rough day.
Beside one of the nearby cruisers, an officer with a handlebar mustache coordinated movements, talking over the static scrape of his hand radio. Seeing Jesus, he dropped what he was doing and rushed over.
“Jesus, since you’re here, we could really use a hand! We’ve got terrorists holed up in the third and sixth grade classrooms. They’re threatening to start executing kids if we don’t give in to their demands.”
“You can leave the third grade classroom to me,” Jesus replied. “But the sixth graders? Come on! Those kids are practically teenagers! Why would I bother saving them?”
An appalled look flashed across the officer’s face, but he quickly hid it, reminding himself that the Lord works in very, very mysterious ways.
“How about: the right to swing your fist ends where your neighbor’s nose beings,” proposed Corwin as the digital world dissolved, reverting to a realm of blackness threaded with neon blue. “How’s that for a line?”
“One need not swing a fist to cause harm,” said Ransom. “Many are driven to suicide by verbal abuse alone, and even sins committed in private can have a rippling effect. Your line is arbitrary.”
“Any line drawn would be arbitrary! But isn’t an arbitrary line better than none at all? Even if god only saved children no older than five, wouldn’t that be an improvement?”
“Try telling that to the six-year-olds.” The angel stomped out his cigarette. “God is not a spectator. He does intervene, but on his terms, not yours. And the suffering that he’s most concerned with preventing is the eternal kind.”
15
Love Machines
The glowing trail was darkening just ahead of their feet now. Ransom halted and lifted a hand towards the unseen wall. A pattern emerged, spiraling out from his palm. The intricate lines connected to form a circular doorway. Dull light seeped through the cracks as it slid open, its facets twisting and unfolding like the petals of a mechanical flower.
Shading his eyes, Corwin stepped forth from the passage, but not too far. Where the door stood, the walls were recessed, and beyond was a slim metallic ledge, a platform that wrapped around the exterior of some massive structure. It was a long way down, though how long, he couldn’t say. By the looks of it, this world existed in the gap between two endless cloud oceans, one above and one below, a ribbon of lavender sky ringing the horizon.
Colossal pillars of steel speared down, suspended from who-knows-what above the upper clouds. They ended before touching the billows below, electricity coursing skyward through the thousand conduits that ran along their length. Each was linked to the next by a series of long catwalks. Stretching like sword blades, the daunting bridges looked far too thin to support their own weight, let alone any travelers, yet they did.
Robotic pedestrians journeyed between the pillars and satellite stations that hung where the walkways intersected. Despite being wrought of cold steel, the world hinted curiously at nature’s organic design. Electrical cables crept like vines, and antenna arrays rose like skeletal trees from the stations, beads of light waxing on the tips of their fiber-optic branches. The robots, too, were distinctively male and female, with even scampering children and hunched seniors present among their ranks. They hustled about in an orderly fashion, everyone with someplace to be, but no one pushing or shoving to get there.
Setting his sights on the nearest bridge, Ransom ventured out upon the ledge. Corwin plastered his back to the wall and inched after him.
This isn’t so bad. At least I can’t see the ground.
Like clockwork, every ten seconds the wall vibrated, a metal heart thrumming within. Pistons pumped, fans whirred and water rushed with controlled fury, funneled through high-pressure pipes.
“Don’t move!” warned Ransom as an orange light strobed overhead.
Just past Corwin’s shoulder, the slats of a vent angled open, spewing steam and coolant from the guts of the pillar. Hot waste rained down on the hidden world. When the last of the fluid had splashed off the ledge, the slats flattened again, the light going dim.
Corwin quickened his pace and caught up with his attorney at the underside of the bridge, where rungs in the wall offered access. As they mounted it, one of the male automatons passed near. Toting a titanium briefcase, he looked as though he was on his way to work. Ransom stuck out his leg.
The poor robot never saw it coming. He pitched forward, clanging to the ground as circuit boards spilled out of his briefcase.
“Pardon me, sir,” he apologized, regaining his feet. “I hope our collision did not impair your functioning.”
“You should watch where you’re going,” chided Ransom. “You wouldn’t like me when my functions are impaired.”
Without complaint, the worker turned on his heels and went about fetching his loose circuit boards. Another robot bent to help and Ransom gave that one a swift kick in the backside, sending him crashing into the first.
“Oh, good! Everything seems to be working!”
Corwin was sure that his rude attorney had crossed the line this time, yet when the Good Samaritan looked their way, his only words were: “I do wish you hadn’t done that sir, but you have my forgiveness.”
“What polite robots!” declared Corwin.
“They cannot help but be,” said Ransom. “Evil isn’t in their programming.”
“It’s too bad for them that the same can’t be said for angels.”
/> “My sensors!” cried a third automaton as Ransom wrapped him in a headlock and blew smoke in the hapless robot’s face. It stood wobbling, trying to adjust for its clouded vision as they proceeded across the bridge.
“If evil is incompatible with a loving God, then he ought to purge all evil, not just some of it. He ought to block even sinful thoughts from entering the mind. The result would be a race of robots, a world like this one.”
“Some might call that an improvement,” mumbled Corwin, casting guilty glances back at the battered and abused robots.
“What do you think is the point of all this?” Ransom spread his arms. “From God’s perspective, what is the purpose of creation?”
“I try not to speak on behalf of gods, but I think I know what you’re going to say.”
“The point,” Ransom said slowly, “is love.”
He drew up to the bridge’s edge, his gaze lost in the swirling bands of gray and white and seashell, cloud whirlpools corkscrewing into the deep unknown.
“The Father does not desire mere servants or slaves. He desires family—sons and daughters capable of sharing in his love.”
“A fatherly god may sound nice,” replied Corwin, “but if our world is anything to go by, an indifferent or cruel god seems a lot more likely. And the shackles of religion look an awful lot like slavery to me.”
“Ask yourself this,” proposed Ransom. “What use could an omnipotent God—a being who, should he desire anything, need only think it to make it so—possibly have for slaves?”
Corwin was no stranger to the concept. He had said much the same thing while debating Bible-thumping theists in the past. Those debates had a tendency to end with threats of hellfire, threats which were about as frightening to him as the prospect of Santa stuffing his stockings full of coal.
“No use,” he answered. “Any god that feels the need for slaves is clearly less than omnipotent, not to mention foolish. If god wanted slaves, why give man free will in the first place? He must not have thought that one through.”
“Such ideas are worse than illogical. They’re dangerous,” added Ransom. “A loving father cares for his children even when they disobey, but what is the worth of a servant who refuses to serve? Where men deem themselves slaves of God, the disobedient are branded as worse than slaves.”
Dead & Godless Page 13