I had never thought about the connection between religious themes and the way in which we
think, read and write about literature before I read this essay. The most used cliche of being a literature
major is that 'we get to think critically'. I agree, we do. And our claims about our majors let us dig deeper
into the cliché of being a literature student. By reading a plethora of enrapturing texts, we are taking a
long walk down the road of wisdom. I am glad that “GOD” by Bennett and Royle has opened a door for
my invasion of literature concerned with theology.
My Thoughts on ‘First Edict’
In the first edict, Bennett and Royle use the example of Nietzsche and Freud to reveal the
argument that God is a projection of the human ego on to the surrounding universe. And it comes as no
surprise to find that this ego or ‘me’ writ extremely large is, almost invariably, male (Bennet and Royle,
189). According to Freud, God is a figure of authority, who is supposed to take care of us.
From my Agnostic perspective towards God and Society, God is something that is outside human
conception. I cannot prove or disprove God’s existence. While I do despise the violence generated by
misinterpretations of almost all religious teachings in the world, I have to acknowledge that people’s
belief in God gives them an extremely humane feeling they yearn for—hope.
This feeling of hope is put to question when we consider a rhetorical term called
“anthropomorphism”, which means that something “that is not human is attributed with the form or
shape of the human.” This definition of anthropomorphism does shed light on Freud’s argument of God
being a projection of human ego.
This rhetoric term correlates with Bennett & Royle’s argument that literature is not only
concerned with religious themes but also that the way in which we think, read and write about
literature are influenced by religious ideas. From personal point of view, think about the plethora of
times authors, screen writers, musicians, and artists have used religious references of Hell, Heaven,
Garden of Eden, 69, Satan, Spirit, Reincarnation, Meditation, Sacrifice, Abstinence, Demons, Good
versus Evil, etc. to convey their myriad messages in different ways.
Even if God is used as an anthropomorphism or not, he simply cannot be ignored in literary texts.
My Thoughts on ‘Second Edict’
Here, Bennet and Royle have provided a historical background of the mid-nineteenth century,
when it had become clear to educated Europeans that Bible could no longer be trusted in terms of
historical accuracy. The discovery of fossils, and Darwin’s On the Origin of Species offered a convincing
argument about the theory of evolution.
Also, Bennett and Royle make clear that to think about ‘God is Dead’ is not to think in terms that
God was once alive. Simply ‘God is dead’ is to think in anthropomorphic terms (Bennet and Royle, 190).
Instead, the Death of God could be similar to the notion regarding to the Death of the Author.
In this Edict, Bennett and Royle have introduced a through provoking literary affinity between
the Death of the Author and the Death of God. From what I have interpreted of this Edict, I infer that
similar to what Barthes has argued against the way readers depend on fantasies about the author in
order to decipher a meaning in the work, Nietzsche has argued against the way people use God to
understand the meaning and purpose of life. This correlation between theological philosophy and
literary theory and criticism is provocative in making me think deeply about our societies, cultures, and
the role of religion in shaping human beings. This connection made me think about the following
questions: Is our society going to become savage if we all come to acknowledge that God is dead? Is the
death of God going effect human relationships? If so, how and why? If we all believe that God is dead,
are religious wars going to be solved?
The great thing about literature is that it has a connection with everything, be it science,
sociology, psychology, philosophy, or performative art. The correlations between literature and another
subject has the ability to make a person contemplate on a plethora of extremely profound topics.
My thoughts on ‘Third Edict’
In this Edict, Bennett and Royle have argued about Ronald Barthes’s quote:
“The space of writing is to be raged over, not pierced; writing ceaselessly posits meaning ceaselessly to evaporate it, carrying out a systematic exemption of meaning. In precisely this way literature (it would be better from now on to say writing), by refusing to assign a 'secret', an ultimate meaning, to the text (and to the world as text), liberates what may be called anti-theological activity, an activity that is truly revolutionary since to refuse to fix meaning is, in the end, to refuse God and his hypostases- reason, science, law." (Bennet and Royle, 190)
Bennett and Royle argue that the anti-theological activities remain correlated with a
decipherability of theological activities. A person cannot prove anti-theology if he cannot disprove
theology.
While reading this edict, I thought about my mother who often reads self-help books in order to
help herself surmount the difficulty of mundane dilemmas. I instantly connected her quest to find hope
and happiness in the self-helps books with the way a religious person follows his or her beliefs in order
to feel satisfied, hopeful, peaceful, and loved. This trivial example even proves that literature and God
are intertwined. By trying to find meaning of life in self-help books, my mother is indulging in theological
activity.
The belief of God/Conception of God/Creation of God—whatever one may call it, is the most
ubiquitous element that bounds human beings together. Even if God exists or doesn’t exist, we have
undeniably reached a point where life on Earth cannot be thought about without reference to any kind
of God. Since Literature clearly spreads itself everywhere, be it in our thoughts, our texts, our verbal
words, we cannot escape this incredible correlation between literature and God. The affinity is there
when we contemplate on something philosophical, think about the meaning or purpose of life, about
our present, past, future. God and Literature seem to be impeccably intertwined.
Therefore, it makes sense when Bennet and Royle say that in literature, “we can acknowledge
the idea that God is anthropomorphism or that he is dead is not the same as getting rid of him” (Bennett
and Royle, 191).
Cullen’s argument that literature departments these days contain people with all manner of
views-Marxists, Lacanians, deconstructionists, feminists- but seldom anyone who attacks religion
(Bennett and Royle 192) got me thinking about the paucity of religious texts read in literature classes.
Since Religion is pervasive and encouraging, and its misinterpretation often dangerous, we simply
cannot avoid adding more literary texts to our curriculum.
Even though Cullen’s argument remains challenging due to religious conflicts, I believe that
studying religious texts in a literature class can introduce both written and verbal sessions of civil
discourse between students and professors.
By reading essays like Rene Girard’s power play of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Alex Thomson’s
essays on religion and literature, we can broaden our views on theology by critically thinking and writing
about God and therefore religion with a literary context.
My thoughts on ‘Fifth Edict’
I have written above how incredibly thought provoking literature can be, but I have to admit
that literature can also be quite dangerous. I agree with Georges Bataille’s quote that Literature is not
innocent, and like the infringement of moral laws, is dangerous (Bennett and Royle, 193).
Movies like The Exorcist, Psycho, Halloween, The Ring, and The Silence of the Lambs have made
me feel utterly unsettled as an audience. After reading “GOD” by Bennett and Royle, I have come to the
conclusion that evil and imagination are in fact in a partnership. I often wonder if there is some evil
inside each person, so the horror movies, psychopathic acts, apathy, jealousy, and trivial gossiping does
prove that there is in fact some sort of inner evil in each person. Literature, writing, movies, and verbal
texts are important tools that bring out the evil of human beings in the form of art and language.
Even though literature has an evil streak, I do agree with Bennett and Royle when they say that
literature has the ability to make someone a better person. However, since the most thought provoking
literature has the ability to make us a different person, shake our thoughts and beliefs, I believe that
literature has an element of the uncanny that can be inferred to be dangerous or evil.
The great thing about this ‘danger’ or ‘evil’ is that our morality and ethics can make us think
about what is good and what is wrong. Even though literature unsettles us, it does make us a
knowledgeable person. For example, a move about a serial killer can unsettle me with its pure evil
streak, but it will also make me understand that the reason why I felt so unsettled was because I find
murdering people to be an unethical crime.
My thoughts on ‘Sixth Edict’
I remember reading a postmodernist essay called Averroes’s Search. In the story, Averroes is the
translator of Aristotle, who is trying to translate the concepts of tragedy and comedy into Arabic.
Averroes problem is that he cannot translate these two concepts into Arabic, because the culture of
theater and drama does not exist in his culture.
I am connecting this story’s dilemma to Jacques Derrida’s argument that if there is something
untranslatable in literature, it is scared. If I agree to Derrida’s argument, I am agreeing to the fact the
Aristotle’s concepts of tragedy and comedy from the Greek work are incredibly sacred, that they are
simply untranslatable. Now that we have understood the singularity of Aristotle’s work, we can
conclude that his work is in fact unique. Now, the text has become ‘sacred’.
The definition of ‘sacred’ is: “Connected with God or dedicated to a religious purpose and so
deserving veneration”. Needless to say, sacred is in affinity with God and Religion. But since we
have proven that Aristotle’s work’s untranslatability makes it sacred, a literary book that is considered
sacred also has a theological connection. The point is reoccurring here again: When we are trying to find
a meaning or some uniqueness, we are indulging in a theological activity.
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