Good Omens: The Ineffability of God
by Toni Carr
*Spoilers for the Amazon Prime series Good Omens as well as the novel by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett*
It would be futile to argue for doctrinal accuracy in this series (no matter your doctrine). That’s not why we’re here. What can be argued for is philosophical as well as sociological accuracy. Nature v. Nurture. Order v. Chaos. The Ineffability of God.
Good Omens (2019) tells the tale of the snake in the Garden of Eden and the Angel of the Western Gate. They are quite accustomed to their duties on Earth, spreading wiles, thwarting wiles, and once the apocalypse is upon them, they don’t want it to come to pass. That’s about it.
This story culminates in one of the best depictions of God’s wisdom, mystery, and general lack of letting us in on His plan. Some may not be a fan of God’s proclivity for the game of “Nunya-Nunyabusiness.” I actually like it. To be fair, I only started to like it after I read this incredible novel. Years and years of religious instruction as well as a personal discovery of God, and it took two English atheists to finally give me a semblance of peace.
About the author, and later screenwriter’s personal views, Neil Gaiman states,
"I think we can say that God exists in the DC Universe. I would not stand up and beat the drum for the existence of God in this universe. I don't know, I think there's probably a 50/50 chance. It doesn't really matter to me." (1)
Fellow author Terry Pratchett, during his battle with Alzheimer’s Disease, revealed,
"It is just possible that once you have got past all the gods that we have created with big beards and many human traits, just beyond all that, on the other side of physics, there just may be the ordered structure from which everything flows." (2)
*This series will consist of individual episode reviews and hopefully a comprehensive write up*
Episode One: In the Beginning
WARNING. This is how the episode, in fact, the entire story, opens. Big red letters, capitalized. One would suspect a montage of disaster. Close. What we get is a montage of the laws of the Universe condensing into a singularity which explodes into everything. The Big Bang, one could say. Our narrator, God, voiced by the incomparable Frances McDormand, lays out the past and present theories of the age of the universe. Almost 14 billion years for space-time, 4 ½ billions years for the Earth. “These dates are incorrect.” WHAT?!? This is Amazon Prime, not Trinity Broadcasting Network or a fringe YouTube channel. Well, ladies and gents, this story entertains the idea of a young earth and that dinosaurs are a practical joke by the Creator. Funny stuff. I’m intrigued already. Eventually, we learn that the Universe was created on October 21, 4004 BC at 9:13 a.m. For accuracy's sake, Irish archbishop James Ussher calculated the creation on October 23, but hey, it’s a television show, not a documentary. I’m a nerd, so I care about these things. The Jewish new year, Rosh Hashanah would fall around this time in that year. So, sure it adds up.
Then come the lines that define the entire series. “God does not play dice with the universe. I play an ineffable game of my own devising. For everyone else, it’s like playing poker in a pitch dark room with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a dealer who won’t tell you the rules and who smiles all the time.” Perfection. Personally, once I saw God Almighty in this context, I was more comfortable in my battles with Him as well as less perplexed when I wandered through this world clueless as to His plans. This doesn’t mean I have given up with discovery or questions, only that I realize I can’t find full answers and must work with what I am given. Metaphysically, I will never be the smartest in the room.
Next, we see the fall from grace, as it were. Adam and Eve, played by dark-skinned actors, accurately represent our likely first ancestors coming out of the Fertile Crescent. The Garden of Eden represented as a lush oasis surrounded by a stone wall. Outside of the Garden are endless desert dunes.
Ineffability is the theme of this entire story. It is defined by Miriam-Webster’s Dictionary as “incapable of being expressed in words; indescribable”. One method of describing something that is ineffable is by using apophasis, i.e. describing what it is not, rather than what it is.
Unknowable, indecipherable, nameless. None of these synonyms actually say what is really is. The very words used to define it do not work. Angels, demons, and humans alike are all trying to understand God’s “Great Plan” and fail spectacularly specifically because they cannot know it completely. This is why God’s description of his “ineffable game” as a poker game makes so much sense. We know just enough about His plan to get started (preparing for war) but have no clue how to end the plan or even know our place in the plan.
The fact that God is in control of the Universe and yet allows humans to possess free will is just the beginning of God’s ineffability. How can he run everything and know everything but allow an entire species barely capable of surviving a trip to Walmart to make their own decisions? Where do those decisions fit into his plan? Can he work around them, use them for his purpose, use chaos theory to allow cause and effect from one decision to the next to force his plan into fruition? Is he ever bamboozled by a decision? Does he ever roll his eyes and have to regroup or is he just smirking? I’ve gone cross-eyed. Luckily for you, dear reader, I have the book memorized and can type without looking at the keyboard so we can keep going.
The theme of ineffability is first represented in the story of the snake, fruit, and first humans. Here is where we meet our protagonists, for lack of a better word. Aziraphale, the Guardian of the Western Gate and Crawley (soon to be Crowley), the serpent in the Garden. Upon meeting, Crowley mutters,
“Bit of an overreaction, if you ask me. First offense and everything. I can’t see what’s so bad about knowing the difference between good and evil anyway.”
Our sweet, baffled Aziraphale retorts, “Well, it must be bad...otherwise, you wouldn’t have tempted them into it.”
“Oh, they just said get up there and make some trouble.”
“Well, obviously. You’re a demon. It’s what you do.”
“Not very subtle of the Almighty, though. Fruit tree in the middle of a garden with a ‘Don’t Touch’ sign. I mean, why not put it on the top of a high mountain? Or on the moon? Makes you wonder what God’s really planning.”
“Best not to speculate. It’s all part of the Great Plan. It’s not for us to understand. It’s ineffable.”
“The Great Plan’s ineffable?”
“Exactly. It’s beyond understanding and incapable of being put into words…”
Incidentally, the angel gives the flaming sword to Adam and Eve for protection. God finds out and does not ask him again. Did He know Aziraphale would do this? We don’t know.
“I do hope I didn’t do the wrong thing.”
“Oh, you’re an angel. I don’t think you can do the wrong thing. /sarcasm”
“Oh, thank you. It’s been bothering me.”
“I’ve been worrying, too. What if I did the right thing with the whole ‘eat the apple’ business. A demon can get into a lot of trouble for doing the right thing. It’d be funny if we both got it wrong, eh? If I did the good thing, and you did the bad one.”
“No! It wouldn’t be funny at all.”
Garden of Eden. Photo by Marie Tevosyan on Unsplash.
Rabbi Manis Friedman posits a theory that the eating of the fruit was not a sin, rather a choice of living in perfection versus possibility. The excitement of potential and lack of boredom! Think about the endless desert outside of the garden. All that potential real estate wasted. No, old bookshops. No fascinating little restaurants where they know you. Trust me; once you’ve finished the series, it will make sense. I’m not endorsing this theory, but I find thought experiments enormously fun. His argument is too lengthy for this writing, but I encourage all to read it. Moving on!
Crowley’s job on Earth is to tempt humans into damnation and report back to the head office of Hell. Because of his familiarity with the species, he has grown with the times and discovered new ways to tempt humanity without laboring for years on one would. He has, quite brilliantly, adapted temptation to work with mass communication and large populations. The other demons work with the old style of following a priest around town and showing him pretty girls in the sun or tempting a city official to accept a small bribe while rejoicing in the potential of damning them within a decade or so. Crowley thinks bigger. He tries, and succeeds, to tempt and enrage millions of humans with proportionally little effort. He even resorts to using mild inconveniences to cause humans to spread negative energy to others exponentially by tying up a mobile phone network for thirty minutes at lunchtime. These people do not wake up wanting to take out their day on their assistants and neighbors and fellow commuters. They just do. Annoyance, rather than malice, becomes Crowley’s ammunition in the large scale damnation of humanity. Isn’t that indicative of our current world? Adulting standing in for sloth. Trolling, doxing, and harassment standing in for wrath. Instead of plagues, invaders, and predators, we have minor annoyances with internet signal strength and cell towers. Towards the end of the story, even Crowley is a victim of his own genius, but we’ll get to that.
Crowley is chosen by the powers that be in Hell to deliver the anti-Christ to his human parents. None of his masters are aware of his aversion to ending the world as it is, but he is chosen just the same. Crowley is a fan of Queen, Bentleys, and houseplants. He has all but forgotten the big picture and is enjoying modern England.
Next, we are witness to a card shuffling trick involving the anti-Christ and two other babies. In a clever retelling of The Omen (1976), the child is supposed to be given to an American diplomat to be raised in power and influence in order to eventually rule the world and bring about Armageddon. Instead, through the work of a dense Satanic nun, he is given to painfully ordinary English countryside parents to be raised as normal as possible. They even go so far as to have the nun confusingly nun-splain tea and biscuits to the confused father, Mr. Young.
Angels and demons. Photo by Krissara Lertnimanorladee on Unsplash.
Elsewhere in England, Aziraphale is informed by agents of Heaven that the child is being born and that he should be vigilant for the coming war and to watch out for his counterpart. They are also unaware that Aziraphale is a fan, like Crowley, of the current state of the world. He is a fan of rare books, sushi, crepes, wine, and foppish fashion.
After the birth, the angel and demon meet to discuss the ending of the world and what that means for, specifically, them. Crowley mentions that Hell has all of the good composers, and heaven just has “The Sound of Music” on repeat for ETERNITY. Aziraphale is convinced his side will win simply because it is written. Even while acknowledging the ineffability of God’s plan, he is simply sure of it.
The crux of the first four episodes is a plan. Crowley and Aziraphale will help raise the (incorrect) anti-Christ child with their equal influence in order to make him not choose sides when he is called to bring about Armageddon on the week of his eleventh birthday. Crowley will teach him to disregard life and kindness, and Aziraphale will teach him to hold all life as sacred and to respect creation. Hopefully, this will keep him neutral. This is the nature and nurture argument of child-rearing. We are treated to David Tennant dressed as an almost gothic Mary Poppins in this scene. It’s worth the price of Amazon Prime membership on its own when he sings a lullaby to the child, Warlock.
“Go to sleep and dream of pain
Doom and darkness, blood and brains
Sleep so sweet, my darling boy
You will rule when Earth’s destroyed”
I enjoyed the lullaby but an even more absurd version comes from the source material:
“This little piggy went to Hades
This little piggy stayed home
This little piggy ate raw and steaming flesh
This little piggy violated virgins
And the little piggy clambered over a heap of dead bodies to get to the top”
I guess we can’t have every single gem from the novel adapted.
Bedtime story. Photo by Nynne Schrøder on Unsplash.
They report the rearing of the child to their respective head offices. Significantly, Aziraphale is commended for his efforts to influence the child for good but is reminded that the angels desire for the child to bring about the end. As they repeat to him, “there must be war so that we can win the war.” No further justification for their lack of investment in the child is given.
They find out they have been following the wrong child after the hellhound is released and does not come to Warlock. Instead, the hound comes to Adam Young, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur and Deirdre Young in Tadfield. The vicious dog is changed to a proper mongrel and named “Dog.” Not exactly his idea of cool, but he grows into it. Adam is yet to discover his powers and destiny for destruction. He is as painfully ordinary as his earthly parents with a group of friends making every day a day of play and interest. You could say he has shaped the world to fit his perfect existence. From this moment, Adam is the center of our story.
This being a review, I would be remiss if I did not mention just how well made this series is. It’s not just cleverly written but a good story all around. David Tennant and Michael Sheen are perfectly marvelous in their portrayals. They jump right off the pages of the novel. I’ll admit that while I didn’t necessarily see those specific actors in those roles as I read the novel at fourteen, but I am pleasantly surprised at the accuracy they bring to the characters.
The production design and lighting of the sets make it both otherworldly and real at the same time. Heaven is portrayed as a Google-esque open floor building with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking creation and an ethereal sparkle in the air. Hell is more terrifying than could be imagined: a flickering fluorescent hellscape of filing cabinets and leaking plumbing. The principalities refer to Heaven and Hell as “Head Office” so this manifesting the locations as pristine and disgusting office buildings is astute and rather hilarious.
We’ve only just begun our journey into Tadfield.
works cited
Whitaker, Steve. "Neil Gaiman interview." January 1989: 24–29.
Davies, Rob. "Terry Pratchett Hints He May Have Found God." Daily Telegraph. London. Watts, Robert 8 June 2008.
Resources
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