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| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Theological Q&A > Is God a Big "Superman" in the Sky? | Forum Quick Jump
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Mephi2K
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 713
| Posted 6/28/2001 7:16 AM (GMT -6) |   | As you know, I'm a comic book fan. So don't laugh at this.  Anyway, I was thinking about the character Superman. He's an interesting individual. He prides himself as being primarily an aid to humanity. He geniunely wants to help humanity become all it can be. However, he only seems to stick around Metropolis for the most part. Why? Well...
In one specific episode, some cats named the "Guardians of the Universe" came and requested that Superman come for a hearing of some kind. It turns out the the GU were accusing Supes of being a tyrant of some kind. Of course, Supes didn't know what the heck they were talking about. Then they laid it on him. Supes had so gotten into the habit of saving individuals and communities from disasters all over the world, that people had literally come to RELY on him. In other words, if a flood hit a town or something, when Supes got on the scene, people would instantly blow a sigh of relief because they KNEW that he would rebuild all their houses and fix at least the major stuff they had to deal with. Slowly, but surely, people began to look to Supes as a "big brother" who was always looking out for them...and they began to lose a sense of personal responsibility for chaotic situations.
Superman took this as a blow. He had always known that it was within his power to ACTIVELY depose all dictators and establish democratic rule. He also knew that he could use his Krytonian technology to solve MOST of the world's disease problems. But he specifically didn't do those things because he didn't want to take over the world like that. However, it never really occured to him how much his "never-ending battle" actually indirectly did the same thing.
After this encounter, Superman basically committed himself to dealing with major things that human beings just couldn't handle...WHILE leaving the things that they could handle to them. Even if these things were very strenous for human endeavor, Supes reasoned that it was better to strain human effort and engender self-efficacy and responsiblity...than to ensure human safety and comfort in all ways and become an implicit tyrant.
Now I told this little story to ask this: Is God's relationship to mankind about the same as Superman's, as I've just described it? Is God exhibiting JUST ENOUGH sovereignty to keep us from wiping ourselves of the map, and doing what we can't do...but leaving everything else to us? Along the same lines, does God pick and choose WHICH CATASTROPHES are worth his time and effort to fix? If so, HOW does he choose? See there would be sometimes where Supes would save a cat from a tree or things like that, but he wouldn't do that for EVERY person he could. (Note: To me, this is analogous to what we see in God's healing ability. In any given healing crusade or something, it seems pretty arbitrary how some people get healed and others, who seem to need it the most, do NOT get healed) Is God arbitrary in this manner?
In looking at Superman and the way he thinks about human freedom and what he does to engender it, I cannot help but see significant links between his actions and that of the open view concept of God.
Thoughts?
Meph 
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