a picture essay
I came across the following image, in the National Geographic Magazine of June 2002 (Empires Across the Andes) showing “The Staff God” – a powerful deity thought by the pre-Inca peoples of the Andes known as the Tiwanaku to control lightning, rain and life-sustaining crops.
I was attracted to it because of its absurdity. It’s like a
caricature of a “primitive god” found in comic books and
old-fashioned boys’ adventure stories. It is indeed like a
child’s drawing, and the efforts of its creator to invoke
awe in the viewer now only produce a smile, in the same way
that a Halloween mask does.
And yet once the people of a powerful, sophisticated
civilization (one much longer-lasting than the Incas) felt
a thrill of fear when they looked on this image: because
this was a picture of the god who determined whether they
lived or died. And the impulse behind its creation is the
same one
that has created deities throughout history: the need to
invent some supernaturally powerful force that controls and
explains human destiny. It is the same impulse that led to
the God of Abraham and Isaac.
And here the genius of the Fourth Commandment – “Thou shalt
not make unto thee any graven image” becomes apparent. If
the ancient Hebrews had tried to come up with visualisation
of the most powerful and terrifying God they could imagine
– might it not, today, look as absurd as the Tiwanaku’s
Staff God? Might not The Lord of Hosts too have been
consigned to the scrap-book of childhood fantasies?
But by insisting no visual representation be made, the
children of Israel ensured that The Lord’s image would form
itself inside the believer’s mind, would conform to
whatever psychological needs the individual had – and would
be able to mutate, invisibly, from generation to
generation.
Thus was the Lord of Hosts able to evolve into Islam’s
Allah and Christianity’s Jehovah. Followers of Mohammed
wisely maintained the ancient ban on picturing their God,
but Christians, spreading their religion in a Roman world
full of supernatural statuary, found themselves trying to
show what He looked like: and the image that best
exemplifies that effort is to be found in Michelangelo’s
great mural in the Sistine Chapel.
Superb though Michelangelo’s work is, it perfectly
demonstrates the dangers of fixing the image of God in
physical form. Jehovah here becomes the original “Old Man
in a Nightie” – a personification that can be – and has
been - considered and rejected by countless millions in the
Western world ever since.
As long as God remains in the imagination, He can take
whatever form the believer needs Him to have. As soon as
He’s captured in a picture, He can be thought about
rationally: and becomes vulnerable.
And of course in a civilization dedicated to and indeed
built on the scientific understanding of the universe,
Jehovah becomes very vulnerable indeed.
An Old Man in the Nightie planned the Big Bang? Arranged
the galaxies? Knows what is going on in billions of solar
systems? Takes a personal interest in the day to day
actions of countless billions of creatures populating
planets across the cosmos? Punishes and rewards those
actions? It’s not remotely credible.
But attribute those actions to a God who cannot even be
visualized, much less explained – and all things are
possible. If you cannot even imagine what God looks like,
how can you rationalize how He operates? How can you
question it? You’re not being asked to believe in some
semi-tangible idol, like the long-dead religions of the
past – but in an idea. And ideas can go on forever.
Just so long as you don’t get too specific about what they
look like.
Gavin Scott
Santa Monica
June 11, 2002
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