2003-06-10 6:57 pm

God's Lost The Plot

Here's a thought:

When I write a story I sympathise with the characters that I create. Because of this, I feel guilty when I cause them to suffer, but I make them run the gauntlet nevertheless. If I didn't, there would be no story!

I am able to do this to the characters, I say to myself, because they do not really exist, and they are not really suffering. But that is not quite true. How do we define existence? In man ways, they do exist. They do not have a physical existence, like mine, but they exist in my head and I am interested in what they have to say and do. If there was a ladder of existence - if Leibniz was right - then the world of my book is a few rungs below my world.

So what if God, like me, is a writer. What if he puts us through our paces because if he did not, there would be no story. What if he is able to do it with a certain sang froid, because he is able to say to himself: they are below me on the ladder of existence, they feel suffering, but they do not feel that torment that they might feel in my world!

Bit of a smug fucker, really, isn't he?

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