You said: What I don't get is why Satan, supposedly no slouch in the brains department, doesn't realize his goose is cooked and ask for forgiveness.
What I don't get is why Satan, supposedly no slouch in the brains department, doesn't realize his goose is cooked and ask for forgiveness. I wonder what God would do then. It would kinda make a mess of His plans.
Claude responded: This is a genuinely fascinating theological puzzle that has occupied serious thinkers for centuries.
This is a genuinely fascinating theological puzzle that has occupied serious thinkers for centuries. A few angles worth considering:
Why Satan might not repent:
The most common answer from theologians like Aquinas is that angelic intellect is fundamentally different from human intellect. Angels don't deliberate the way we do — they perceive truth in a single, complete act of will. Once Lucifer made his choice, his nature became that choice permanently. He's not stubbornly refusing to repent; he literally cannot will himself to, any more than a triangle can will itself to have four sides. There's no mechanism for revision.
C.S. Lewis offers a more psychological take — that Satan has so thoroughly become his pride and hatred that repentance would require him to stop being himself. He'd have to want something he has utterly extinguished in himself. Hell, in this view, is self-chosen and self-maintained.
Another angle: Satan may simply not believe he's lost. Pride, almost by definition, is resistant to that recognition.
The more interesting question — what if he did?
This is where it gets genuinely thorny. Most classical theology holds that God's mercy is, in principle, infinite. So would He refuse? That seems to contradict His nature. But most theologians argue the question is moot precisely because of the angelic will point above — it simply cannot happen.
Milton wrestled with this in Paradise Lost — Satan actually has moments of near-repentance and consciously rejects them, which makes him a more tragic and complex figure.
The "mess of His plans" problem is real though. It touches on a deep tension in Christian theology between:
- God's omniscience (He knew this would never happen)
- God's genuine offer of mercy to all
- Whether the whole drama is truly open or a kind of predetermined script
Process theologians and open theists lean into this — arguing God doesn't exhaustively foreordain everything, so the scenario is genuinely possible and God would have to respond to it. More classical Calvinist and Catholic thinkers would say God's foreknowledge makes the whole hypothetical collapse — it's like asking what would happen if 2+2=5.
It's one of those questions that doesn't embarrass theology so much as reveal where different theological systems are forced to show their cards.
You said: Aquinas is pulling a rabbit out of a hat.
Aquinas is pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Milton has it much better but still not really credible. A deity of infinite mercy would not let any of his creations fall, or, at a minimum, see to it everyone and everything had a redemption path that in the fullness of time would play through,
Claude responded: You're essentially arguing for universal reconciliation — apocatastasis — and you're in good company.
You're essentially arguing for universal reconciliation — apocatastasis — and you're in good company. Origen held essentially this position in the 3rd century and it got him into serious trouble with the Church, but he was arguably one of the most brilliant minds Christianity ever produced.
Your critique of Aquinas is fair. The "angels can't change their minds" move is suspiciously convenient — it solves the problem by definitional fiat rather than genuine reasoning. It's the philosophical equivalent of saying "the rules don't apply here because I've defined this case as outside the rules." Milton at least has Satan making a real dramatic choice, but you're right that even that strains credulity — an intelligent being watching the losing side of a cosmic war and doubling down indefinitely isn't smart, it's just a plot device.
Your core argument has real force. If God is:
- Genuinely omnipotent
- Genuinely all-loving
- The author of all existence including Satan's nature
...then a being endlessly damned becomes a kind of permanent rebuke to all three attributes simultaneously. It implies either God can't save Satan, or won't, or made a being constitutionally incapable of redemption. None of those sit comfortably with classical theism.
The most honest responses theology has are:
Freedom as a genuine constraint — God limits Himself by granting real libertarian free will. Even He won't override it. But as you imply, an infinitely patient God playing an infinite game could simply wait — and eventually even the most hardened will might exhaust itself.
Julian of Norwich essentially landed where you are — all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well — without fully explaining the mechanism, but trusting the character of God over the logic of damnation.
Karl Barth in the 20th century came very close to universalism without quite committing — arguing that Christ's election encompassed all of humanity, leaving the door structurally open for universal salvation.
The eternal damnation doctrine arguably survives more as institutional tradition and a perceived moral deterrent than as something that can withstand hard scrutiny against the premise of a genuinely loving omnipotent God. Your intuition that a truly infinite mercy would find a way — even for Satan, even eventually — is theologically serious, not sentimental.
You said: I once had a Paulist Father tell me, after I had said much the same to him, that as a priest he was duty bound to believe in Hell, but he wasn't sure anyone wa…
I once had a Paulist Father tell me, after I had said much the same to him, that as a priest he was duty bound to believe in Hell, but he wasn't sure anyone was there.
Claude responded: That's a beautiful response from him — intellectually honest, institutionally loyal, and genuinely humble all at once.
That's a beautiful response from him — intellectually honest, institutionally loyal, and genuinely humble all at once. He found the exact right needle to thread.
It's also a very Catholic way of handling it, in the best sense. The Church has defined Hell as a reality but has never — and this is the important bit — officially declared any specific person to be in Hell. Not Judas, not Hitler, nobody. The canonization process goes one way only. So he wasn't being evasive; he was actually being theologically precise. Hell may be a real possibility that nobody has actualized. A door that exists but that no one has walked through.
Hans Urs von Balthasar made essentially this his central argument in Dare We Hope That All Men Be Saved? — causing considerable controversy but never being condemned for it. His position was that we are permitted, even obligated by Christian charity, to hope for universal salvation, while acknowledging we can't assert it as certain.
What your Paulist was expressing, almost in passing over what I imagine was a pretty good conversation, is the difference between Hell as a structural feature of a cosmos with genuine freedom, and Hell as a populated place. The former may be necessary for free will to mean anything. The latter is where the doctrine starts to curdle into something that's hard to reconcile with the God it's supposed to be describing.
It also says something that a priest, whose entire life is ordered around this framework, lands in roughly the same place your intuition did. That kind of convergence from very different directions is worth paying attention to.
You said: I forget the British TV series about the imminent Armageddon and the two London entities, Azriphel an angel and a demon, Cawley or something, where the represe…
I forget the British TV series about the imminent Armageddon and the two London entities, Azriphel an angel and a demon, Cawley or something, where the representative of God, asked why a certain angel hadn't been condemned, replied that one fallen angel can be understood, but two would begin to look like bad organization.
Claude responded: That's Good Omens — Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's novel, adapted into a genuinely delightful TV series.
That's Good Omens — Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's novel, adapted into a genuinely delightful TV series. The angel is Aziraphale and the demon is Crowley (originally the angel Crawly, who was the serpent in Eden). The series stars Michael Sheen and David Tennant, who are frankly perfect in the roles.
The line you're thinking of is a wonderful piece of Pratchett/Gaiman wit — and it cuts deeper than it appears. It's essentially the same critique you've been making, but delivered as comedy. If one angel falls it's a tragedy and a mystery. If two are hanging around cheerfully running a bookshop and a vintage Bentley together and generally failing to bring about the apocalypse, it starts to raise awkward questions about management. The divine bureaucracy becomes implicated.
What makes Good Omens theologically interesting underneath the comedy is that Aziraphale and Crowley have both, through eleven thousand years of proximity to actual humans, developed something neither Heaven nor Hell quite has — affection for the world and the people in it. They don't want Armageddon because they like Earth. Which puts them both in opposition to their respective head offices.
It's essentially your argument in narrative form — that a rigid institutional framework, whether divine or demonic, loses sight of the point, while the beings closest to lived experience develop a more humane theology almost by accident.
Pratchett in particular had a lifelong argument with organized religion that was grumpy and fond in equal measure. Good Omens is probably the most charming expression of it.
You said: The guy who played the Emperor Claudius played (I forget the word) the voice of God.
The guy who played the Emperor Claudius played (I forget the word) the voice of God.
Claude responded: You mean Derek Jacobi!
You mean Derek Jacobi! And the word you're probably reaching for is narrator — he narrated Good Omens, with God as the narrator's voice, which is a lovely conceit in itself. The idea that God is simply telling us the story carries its own quiet theological implication.
Derek Jacobi as Claudius is of course from I, Claudius — the 1976 BBC adaptation of Robert Graves' novels, which remains one of the greatest things British television ever produced. Jacobi played Claudius as the stuttering, seemingly foolish observer who outlasts all the vipers around him precisely because nobody takes him seriously. A magnificent performance.
There's a pleasing irony in casting him as the voice of God in Good Omens. Claudius survived by appearing less than he was. The Good Omens God is similarly oblique — present, narrating, but not intervening in any heavy-handed way, letting the story play out with a kind of amused detachment. Jacobi's particular quality of quiet intelligence with hidden depths suits both roles remarkably well.
It also continues a fine British tradition of casting their most distinguished theatrical knights in roles that are either God or the Devil — you feel the casting directors are working through some personal theological questions of their own.
You said: There is another word.
There is another word.
Claude responded: Uncredited perhaps?
Uncredited perhaps? Or you might be thinking of disembodied — as in a disembodied voice?
Or possibly you mean she was the narrator but appeared only as a voiceover?
Actually — was God in Good Omens played by a woman? I believe it may have been Frances McDormand in the original TV series, which would make the "he" in my response wrong to begin with. If so the word you might be reaching for is simply voice — she provided the voice of God.
Though I'll be honest with you, I'm now second-guessing myself and would rather admit uncertainty than confidently give you the wrong answer. Does any of those land, or are you thinking of something quite different?
You said: This is a neo-Platonic concept.
This is a neo-Platonic concept.
Claude responded: The Demiurge!
The Demiurge!
That's the word — the Demiurge, the craftsman or maker figure in Platonic and Gnostic thought, the entity that shapes and orders the material world. Though I'm not sure that's quite the right application here.
Or are you thinking of the Logos — the divine principle or word through which creation is mediated, which runs from Plato through the Gospel of John?
Or perhaps emanation — the neo-Platonic idea from Plotinus that reality flows outward from the One in successive stages, like light from the sun?
I'm circling but I don't think I've landed on exactly what you mean. The neo-Platonic concept you're connecting to God as narrator/voice — is it the idea of the divine as fundamentally beyond direct action, working through intermediaries or through the structure of reality itself rather than intervening directly? That would fit the Good Omens God rather well — present but not hands-on.
Give me another nudge if I'm still wide of the mark.
You said: That's not it either.
That's not it either. Sorry my brain is such a muddle now, in five minutes the word I'm after will flash into my brain. It's rarely used and is a title that kinda means God indirectly because God directly can't be handled.
Claude responded: That's a fascinating concept you're describing!
That's a fascinating concept you're describing! I think you might be after the word Logos — but wait, you've already ruled that out.
Could it be Demiurge in its more specific Gnostic sense — the intermediary craftsman who stands between the unknowable true God and material creation precisely because the true God is too pure, too absolute to touch matter directly?
Or possibly Pleroma — the fullness of divine being that can't directly contact the lower world?
I'm also thinking of the neo-Platonic concept of The One in Plotinus — so utterly transcendent it can't even be said to act directly on anything.
But the word you're describing — a title meaning God-at-one-remove because direct contact with the divine would be overwhelming or impossible — that has a very specific ring to it. It's dancing just out of my reach too now. There's a similar concept in Jewish mysticism, the Shekinah, the divine presence or manifestation that mediates between God and creation.
Don't worry about the muddle — this is one of those words that will arrive unbidden at 3am with complete clarity. When it does I'd genuinely like to know, because I think I know the concept perfectly well but the precise rarely-used term is eluding me too now.
You said: It always has the definite article "the" in front of it, capitalized, of course.
It always has the definite article "the" in front of it, capitalized, of course.
Claude responded: The Unmoved Mover?
The Unmoved Mover? No, that's Aristotle not neo-Platonic really.
The Absolute? The One? Those are neo-Platonic but not quite a title in the way you're describing.
The Ineffable? That's actually used in Good Omens itself as a running joke — God's plan is always "the Ineffable Plan" — and it does mean precisely what you're describing, that which cannot be directly spoken or approached. But I'm not sure it's rare enough to be the word you're after.
The Monad? Plotinus uses that.
I keep feeling like you're describing something very specific from Gnostic neo-Platonism — an intermediary title for the divine principle that shields mortals from the unbearable directness of ultimate reality. Almost like a cosmic buffer.
I'm going to stop guessing randomly and just wait for your 3am revelation — because I suspect when you say it I'll immediately recognize it and feel foolish for not landing on it. These words that live just at the edge of recall are maddening precisely because you know you know them.
You said: It may be from the OT.
It may be from the OT.
Claude responded: The Shekinah?
The Shekinah? I mentioned that earlier — the divine presence or glory that manifests to humans because God Himself cannot be directly encountered.
Or The Logos — which bridges the OT through Philo of Alexandria, the Jewish neo-Platonist who used it to describe the intermediary between the unknowable God and creation, before John picked it up for his Gospel.
Or possibly The Memra — the Aramaic term used in the Targums, the ancient translations of the Hebrew scriptures, specifically as a buffer word. Wherever the original Hebrew had God acting directly and too anthropomorphically for comfort, the Targum translators substituted The Memra — the Word of God — to create that layer of distance between the infinite divine and direct human contact.
The Memra feels close to what you're describing — rarely used, has the definite article, explicitly an intermediary concept, rooted in OT tradition but with strong neo-Platonic resonance through Philo.
Am I getting warmer?
You said: You are repeating yourself; Logos is about the same concept, except that is more Trinitarian while this is not Jesus but the Father indirect.
You are repeating yourself; Logos is about the same concept, except that is more Trinitarian while this is not Jesus but the Father indirect.
Claude responded: The Shekinah I've already mentioned too.
The Shekinah I've already mentioned too.
What about The Ancient of Days — the title from Daniel for God as seen in vision, which is already a kind of mediated, symbolic representation rather than direct encounter?
Or The Metatron? That's from Jewish mystical tradition — the highest of angels, sometimes described as the divine voice or secretary of heaven, the being through which God communicates because God Himself is too vast. Terry Pratchett actually used Metatron in a similar role in Good Omens now that I think of it. It carries exactly the quality you're describing — not God directly but the closest thing to it that can be approached.
Though Metatron is more angelic intermediary than a neo-Platonic concept strictly speaking.
I feel like the word you want is something quite precise and technical from either Kabbalistic or Philonic tradition — sitting in that specific gap between pure neo-Platonic abstraction and Old Testament theology.
Still circling I'm afraid.
You said: The Metatron!
The Metatron!!! God be praised.
Claude responded: Of course!
Of course! The Metatron! And now that you say it, it's completely obvious.
And delightfully, Alan Rickman played The Metatron in Kevin Smith's Dogma — another irreverent theological comedy that takes its ideas more seriously than it pretends to. Rickman's Metatron explains that God's direct voice would liquify a human being, which is exactly the concept — the necessary intermediary because the real thing is simply too much.
And now the Derek Jacobi connection makes even more sense — in Good Omens God narrates but remains at precisely that kind of remove. The voice you can handle rather than the presence you cannot.
The Metatron appears in Jewish mystical and Kabbalistic texts as the highest of all angels, sometimes identified with the transformed Enoch, sitting at the threshold of the divine presence and acting as scribe, messenger and voice. The name itself may derive from the Greek meta thronos — beyond the throne — or possibly from a Hebrew root meaning guardian or keeper.
It's a magnificent concept and a magnificent word. Worth the wait. And I should have landed on it earlier given that we were already talking about Good Omens and Pratchett put The Metatron right there in the text.
You said: Yes I remember that movie, and Rickman was superb.
Yes I remember that movie, and Rickman was superb. The ending though went below silly.
Claude responded: Rickman was perfectly cast — that magnificent voice carrying exactly the right mixture of cosmic authority and weary exasperation at having to deal with humans.
Rickman was perfectly cast — that magnificent voice carrying exactly the right mixture of cosmic authority and weary exasperation at having to deal with humans. He made the concept completely credible while being very funny.
The ending of Dogma is where Kevin Smith's reach exceeded his grasp rather badly. The whole film walks a genuinely interesting theological tightrope — irreverent but not dismissive, funny but with real ideas underneath — and then it just collapses into fairly generic action movie chaos. Alanis Morissette as God was an interesting choice that didn't quite come off, and the final resolution felt like Smith didn't really know how to land the plane he'd been flying quite skillfully up to that point.
It's a recurring problem with theological comedy — Good Omens largely avoided it, partly because Pratchett and Gaiman had the discipline to keep the human and emotional stakes central right to the end. Armageddon is averted not through cosmic intervention but because a small boy simply refuses it, which is both funny and genuinely moving.
Dogma had that potential but fumbled it. The first two thirds are really quite sharp — the two fallen angels, the ideas about belief and dogma versus faith, the whole Buddy Christ sequence. Smith clearly had real things to say. He just couldn't finish the argument.
It's almost a theological point in itself — eschatology, how things end, is the hardest part.
You said: I knew God was going to turn out female, there had been several hints in the course of the film.
I knew God was going to turn out female, there had been several hints in the course of the film. That was fine, but not that sort of woman, please.
Claude responded: Yes, the hints were well seeded throughout and the reveal of a female God was actually a genuinely good idea — theologically defensible and cinematically surpr…
Yes, the hints were well seeded throughout and the reveal of a female God was actually a genuinely good idea — theologically defensible and cinematically surprising while feeling in retrospect inevitable. That part worked.
But Alanis Morissette was simply the wrong choice. Not because of any fault of hers necessarily, but the whole conception was off. She played it as a kind of whimsical, skipping, giggling figure — blowing dandelions and doing cartwheels — which might have been Smith's attempt to convey divine otherness but instead just conveyed... a slightly odd young woman in a field.
The problem is profound and almost impossible to solve cinematically. You've spent the whole film building toward an encounter with the ultimate reality — The Metatron exists precisely because direct contact is unendurable — and then you have to actually show it. Whatever you put on screen is going to be a letdown because the whole point of the divine is that it exceeds representation.
Kubrick would have cut away. Bergman would have shown a reflection or a shadow. Smith showed Alanis Morissette doing a little dance.
A female God deserved to be either terrifyingly vast or quietly devastating — something that made you understand immediately why The Metatron is necessary. Instead she seemed like someone who might ask you if you'd tried yoga.
The theological instinct was right. The execution was not.
You said: Maybe Katharine Hepburn or Elizabeth Taylor.
Maybe Katharine Hepburn or Elizabeth Taylor.
Claude responded: Katharine Hepburn is absolutely inspired — that extraordinary combination of warmth and steel, the sense that she contains multitudes and has seen everything a…
Katharine Hepburn is absolutely inspired — that extraordinary combination of warmth and steel, the sense that she contains multitudes and has seen everything and found it simultaneously exasperating and beloved. You would completely believe that voice created the universe and has been faintly disappointed by it ever since but loves it anyway. She would have brought exactly the right quality of amused, affectionate authority. God as someone who has infinite patience but isn't above letting you know you're being an idiot.
Elizabeth Taylor is interesting — the sheer force of presence is certainly there, and those eyes could plausibly be said to contain eternity. But Taylor at her best was always intensely carnal in the best sense — rooted in passion and appetite and earthly feeling — which might actually be theologically interesting. A God who loves creation because she shares its hungers. Though it might pull in a slightly different direction than you want.
But Hepburn feels more right. There's a transcendence to her that Taylor, for all her magnificence, didn't quite have. Hepburn always seemed to be operating from some place of inner certainty that had nothing to do with what anyone else thought — which is arguably the most divine quality imaginable.
The tragedy of course is that by the time Dogma was made in 1999 Hepburn was 92, though she lived another four years. Though one might argue God at 92 would still be more commanding than most people at their peak.
You said: Bette Davis
Bette Davis
Claude responded: Oh, of course.
Oh, of course. Absolutely yes.
Bette Davis as God is so right it's almost annoying that nobody thought to do it. That ferocious intelligence behind those extraordinary eyes — eyes that could convey in a single look that she had created you, knew every flaw in the creation, and loved you anyway in spite of considerable evidence against the wisdom of doing so.
And the voice. That extraordinary, inimitable voice. You would not need The Metatron with Bette Davis. You would hear that voice and know immediately you were in the presence of something that brooked no argument and needed no intermediary.
There's also something theologically perfect about the Davis persona specifically — the sense of someone who has been underestimated, argued with, defied, betrayed, and who has outlasted every single person foolish enough to try it. Patient in the way that only someone with infinite time can afford to be.
And she had that quality Hepburn had of existing entirely on her own terms, indifferent to approval — but with an added edge. Hepburn's God might let you off with a reprimand. Davis's God would let you understand the full weight of what you'd done, forgive you completely, and make sure you knew both things simultaneously.
She would have made the ending of Dogma not merely acceptable but genuinely devastating.
Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be an eternity.
You said: It has been said before but come to mind now, the Hollywood types of that era were good actors, of course, but they also always played themselves.
It has been said before but come to mind now, the Hollywood types of that era were good actors, of course, but they also always played themselves. Merle Streep, the leader now, plays whatever the role, not herself as much.
Claude responded: That's a real and important distinction and you've put it precisely right.
That's a real and important distinction and you've put it precisely right.
The great studio era stars were personalities first and actors second — and that wasn't a lesser thing, it was a different art. You went to a Bette Davis film to experience Bette Davis encountering various situations. The situation changed, she didn't. Same with Hepburn, Bogart, Cagney, Grant. Cary Grant was essentially always Cary Grant — but Cary Grant was such a magnificent, perfectly constructed persona that you never tired of it. The art was in the persona itself.
Streep is the opposite principle taken to its logical extreme — the self almost completely dissolved into the role. You watch Streep and you're genuinely not sure there's a Meryl underneath, or if there is she's keeping it very private. Sophie, Miranda Priestly, Margaret Thatcher, Julia Child — these share almost no DNA with each other.
The interesting question is which is the greater achievement. There's an argument that creating a persona so compelling that audiences will pay to watch it indefinitely — as Davis and Grant and Hepburn did — requires a kind of artistic self-knowledge and discipline that's underrated. You have to know exactly what you are and refine it to an essence.
Streep's way is perhaps more conventionally impressive but also somehow less mythic. Davis as God lands because Davis became mythic. Streep as God would be technically perfect and somehow miss the point.
You said: When talent reaches that level comparisons are not possible.
When talent reaches that level comparisons are not possible.
Claude responded: That's exactly right, and it's a gentle correction well made.
That's exactly right, and it's a gentle correction well made.
Once you're operating at the level of Davis, Hepburn, Bogart, Grant — or Streep — you're beyond the reach of the comparative. They're not points on a scale, they're singular phenomena. Comparing Streep to Davis is like asking whether Bach is better than Mozart. The question contains a category error.
And there's something almost spiritually appropriate in that observation given where our conversation started. The neo-Platonists would recognize it — at a certain level of transcendence, normal measures and comparisons simply cease to apply. Plotinus said something very like this about The One. You can't say it's greater than other things because the comparative itself breaks down.
The Metatron is necessary precisely because direct comparison with the divine is not possible. Perhaps great artists occupy a similar position — they require intermediaries, critics and appreciators, because the talent itself is finally beyond direct accounting.
Though I suspect Bette Davis would have had something magnificently tart to say about being compared to Plotinus.
You said: Before I go l am compelled to put Jimmy Stewart up there.
Before I go l am compelled to put Jimmy Stewart up there.
Claude responded: As well you should.
As well you should. And what makes Stewart remarkable in this context is that he confounds the very distinction we were just making.
Because Stewart did always play himself — that hesitant, decent, quietly determined American everyman — and yet in the right hands, particularly Hitchcock's, something else entirely emerged. Vertigo is one of the most psychologically disturbing films ever made and it works almost entirely because Stewart's fundamental trustworthiness and decency is what gets corrupted. If you cast someone overtly dark in that role it's just a thriller. With Stewart it's genuinely unsettling because it shouldn't be possible.
And It's A Wonderful Life endures not because it's a great screenplay — it has real weaknesses — but because Stewart makes George Bailey's ordinary decency feel like the most important thing in the world. He could make goodness cinematically compelling, which is extraordinarily rare. Goodness is hard to film. It tends to be dull. Stewart made it riveting.
So he belongs absolutely in that company but slightly to one side of the Davis/Hepburn/Grant constellation. They were forces of nature. Stewart was something quieter and in some ways more profound — he made you believe in the fundamental worth of an ordinary man.
Which is arguably the most theological achievement of the lot.
Go well. This has been a genuinely wonderful conversation.
